The Threats and Opportunities of Green China

“The Chinese economy has been industrialized, commercialized, monetized and urbanized far ahead of other countries. The manifold signs include among others are merchants, entrepreneurship, the creation of private economic organizations, the increased complexity of structure of business, growing density of the local market network, new structures to handle large numbers of employees, an international division of labor, absolute and relative productivity in manufactures and productive superiority. Furthermore, technological innovations were needed to fuel the increased output and export. Imitation and in the end by improvement these techniques contributed to the excellence of products.” You might think I read nothing new here; it is a usual description of the Chinese economy I can read almost every day on Internet, Twitter, or in the newspaper. But did you know that this quote from scholar Mark Elvin described the Chinese economy in the twelfth till fifteenth century? And at that time, it was not the Chinese who copied techniques, but it was the Europeans who stimulated their progress by copying and improving Chinese technology. China among other Asian countries such as India was at least equal to European regions or even dominated the world economy for many centuries till about the sixteenth century or even to some historians till 1750.