“For 9 out of the last 10 centuries, China had the world’s biggest GDP. China is one of the world’s oldest cultures. We underestimate them as a people and a nation at our own peril. The 19th and 20th centuries weren’t a Golden Era for the Chinese, but that doesn’t mean that they have always been less-advanced than the West.”
No, just for most of the last 4 centuries. Sure they’re old, that’s the only reason they were ahead in the first place, they got off to a long head start, and yet still ended up way behind pack, what does that tell you?
“Much of the world was backwards at the end of WWII. China’s development was stunted due to communism. The country is only now starting to recover.”
I’m comparing them to the west. China’s development as stunted by Confucianism long before it was stunted by Communism.
Chinese history is one of boom and crash to a degree that is difficult to appreciate. Thats part of the Chinese problem. There have been such situations in Europe, there having been various “dark ages”, but they have rarely been universal across the continent. China saw many more dark ages, and they usually extended across the entire culture. This may be an accident of geography.
18th century China was easily competitive with contemporary Europe in terms of technology and standards of living, the only backward areas being military organization and naval technology. But when Europe entered the industrial revolution, China, being under foreign (Jurchen/Manchu) rule, entered a time of horrors.
The 19th century in China was one of a terrific population crash through famine and civil war (the Tai-ping rebellion, and others) that killed maybe 1/3 of the population - figure the time of the Black Death in Europe. Things got no better through the first 3/4ths of the 20th century. The culturally and economically retrograde China of 1979 was at a historic low.
You think they are behind us. Certainly in the most advanced technology. But day to day, for those in what can be considered modern China, there are many instances in which they are ahead of the technology Americans see day-to-day.