the US is because the average level of development in China is less while the Chinese population is over four
times as large as the American population. That comes across in a number of stats. For example, while the United
States is militarily stronger in total all over the world, the Chinese appear to be militarily stronger in the East and
South China Seas area, and there is a lot that is unknown about both countries’ military powers because they are
kept secret. For this reason and for other reasons these measures of power are broadly indicative rather than
precise.
In brief, the post-1800 decline happened when a) the last Chinese royal dynasty (the Qing Dynasty) became
decadent and weak at the same time that b) the British and some other Western capitalist countries became
strong, which led the British capitalist-colonialists and a number of other foreign capitalist-colonialists to
increasingly take control of China economically, at the same time that c) the financial and monetary system
broke down under the burdens of debts that couldn’t be paid and the printing of money that caused the
collapse in the value of money and debt, at the same time that d) there were massive domestic rebellions and
civil wars.14 That severe Big Cycle decline in which all the major strengths were in mutually reinforcing
declines continued from around 1840 until 1949. The end of World War II in 1945 led to the repatriation of
most foreigners in China (except for Hong Kong and Taiwan) and a civil war to determine how the wealth
and power would be divided—i.e., a war between the communists or the capitalists—on the Chinese
mainland. This over 100-year-long period of decline, which the Chinese call the “Century of Humiliation,”
was a classic case of the archetypical Big Cycle decline occurring due to a number of the classic weaknesses
existing, leading to mutually and self-reinforcing declines adding up to the big decline. It was followed by
the classic case of a Big Cycle upswing in which the new leader wins control, consolidates power, and begins
building the basic structures that are passed onto subsequent generations, who build on their predecessors’
accomplishments.
More specifically, in the 1800s, the British East India Company and other merchants wanted tea, silk, and
porcelain from China because it was extremely lucrative to sell back home. However, the British didn’t have
anything that the Chinese wanted to trade for so they had to pay for these goods in silver, which was a global
money at the time. The British paid out of their savings but were running out of this money, which led the British
to smuggle opium into China from India which they sold for silver which was used to pay for the Chinese goods.
The Chinese fought to stop these sales, which led to the First Opium War in which the technologically superior
British Navy defeated the Chinese in 1839-42 and led the British to impose a treaty on the Chinese that gave the
British and other powers control of China’s main ports (most notably Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong) and
eventually led to the loss of large parts of northern China to Russia and Japan and the loss of what we now call
Taiwan to Japan. The Qing government borrowed from foreigners to fight internal rebellions and owed huge
reparations from these wars. Reparations, especially out of the Boxer Rebellion (a Chinese rebellion against
foreigners in 1901) created a huge liability—17,000 tons of silver equivalent—which was structured as around a
40-year debt. The foreign powers were able to use tariff income on the ports they effectively controlled as a
guarantee of the debt. The Qing government, starved of financial resources, faced many uprisings over the couple
decades following the Opium Wars and spent down their saving to finance fighting them. That combination of 1)
not having strong leadership, 2) not having sound finances, 3) having internal rebellions that undermined
productivity and were costly in money and lives, 4) fighting foreigners, which was costly financially and in lives,
and 5) experiencing some big disruptive acts of nature produced the mutually and self-reinforcing decline known
as the “Century of Humiliation.”
It is easy to see how that period had an important role in shaping Chinese leaders’ perspectives—e.g., why Mao
saw capitalism as a system in which companies pursued profits through imperialism (i.e., through the
controlling and exploiting of countries, the way the British and other capitalist powers did to China) in a
way that enriched greedy rich people while exploiting workers. After all this is what happened to China over