As a result of China’s stagnation and Europe’s accelerating rise from the eighteenth century onwards, European power was then later by 1914 regarded as “the dominant” at the global stage.
(European dominance of China)
Fact is vital in history study, and therefore here are three facts:
Firstly, there has been long tradition of Eurocentrism in the field of history study. The “European miracle” theory coined by Eric Jones was a classic example of this tradition. (Smith, 1991)
Secondly, by 1914 European powers as a whole was a dominant military and economic power over the world.
The third fact was that until the early nineteenth century, China had long been one of the largest economies in the world, and it even remained as the world’s largest economy for centuries before the eighteenth century. (Bairoch, 1975)
Some people believe that European technological superiority was the reason of European dominance. But I think only looking at the internal changes such as a series of technological inventions in the development of continental Europe is not adequate to explain how European became dominant power in the globe.
China’s failure
For example, China which had well-advanced scientific and technological knowledge in many respects before the nineteenth century did not actually gain much advantage to take an absolute lead in the world.
That therefore indicates that although technological superiority of Europe was important and significant in European overall development, it still could not adequately explain the fact of European dominance.
On the other hand, what China lacked was exactly what Europe had, and that made real difference. China that had the “seed” of capitalism before and the “water” such as scientific and technological knowledge for its growth did not have much “soil” which refers to political and social foundation that worked to sustain the “seed”.
Consequently, China did not transform itself into a capitalist society, but stayed in its traditional self-sustaining feudal system, meanwhile its western European counterparts were aggressively progressing into capitalist societies.
Hence, I can elicit that political and social foundation was the crucial factor in developing European capitalism, and the transformation into capitalist society ahead of other societies as well as strong growth of capitalism along with underpinning of European imperialism were the ultimate reasons that best explain European dominance of the world in 18 century.
Bibliography
Bairoch, Paul. 1975. Disparities in Economic Development since the Industrial Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Smith,Alan K. 1991. Creating A World Economy: Merchant Capital, Colonialism, and World Trade, 1400-1825. Boulder: Westview Press
