China’s Repressive Rise

[Geee]

National Review:

In 1793, the envoy Lord Macartney appeared before the Qianlong emperor in Beijing and asked for British trading rights in China. “Our ways have no resemblance to yours, and even were your envoy competent to acquire some rudiments of them, he could not transport them to your barbarous land,” the long-reigning (1736–96) emperor replied in a letter to King George III.

 

“We possess all things,” he went on. “I set no value on strange objects and have no use for your country’s manufactures.”

 

The emperor had a point. China at that time, according to economic historian Angus Maddison, had about one-third of world population and accounted for about one-third of world economic production.

 

Today’s China, of course, has a different attitude toward trade. Since Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms started in 1978, it has had enormous growth based on manufacturing exports.