China: technical, scientific and social change

What | Who | Why | Modernity | Conclusion | Maps | Texts

Traditional phases: wü xing, or the theory of the five elements. From Shü Jîng

• Metal
• Wood
• Water
• Earth
• Fire

Three great inventions (Sir Francis Bacon postulated have served as emblems of advancement) associated with "modernity:"

• Printing
• Compass
• Gunpowder

Han, Tang, and Sung dynasties reveal:

Chinese are originators and transformers of material culture.

Four lessons emerge from the transfer of technical discovery and expertise from east to west:

1. Discovery [Gé Zhî ] does not mean use and neither is it the same as dispersal.
2. Use is not always decisive despite proficiency. (Astronomy, polaris)
3. Invention is the parent of necessity.

Wang Ch'ung (83 AD) in his work "lun heng" [Discourses weighed in the balance] gives the earliest references to both the lodestone spoon (compass) and a chain pump to raise water up from lower to higher places.

Magnetic compass  (260-270 more widely used)          

Paper (105 ACE [tradition] or 145 BCE [archaeological] are both used as originating dates)

Canals, canal locks & paddle boats (70 AD the Grand Canal begun, 600 miles long.


Cartography            Chang Heng, 116 AD,  (132 seismograph) used a grid for locating points on maps.

Decimal system

Suspension bridges (stone arched)

Porcelain (851 AD reported, but 209 AD in c. 3rd century AD perfected.)

Fumigation

Mechanical clock (astronomical) with escapement mechanism

Block printing and movable type

Rudders, large ships and watertight bulkheads

Bronze and cast iron bells (120 BC oxygenation used in smelting of iron ore)
            Cannons and populous armies

4. Sufficiency may be the purpose of progress but it relates to discontent.

What | Who | Why | Modernity | Conclusion | Maps | Texts

Existing and proposed nuclear power plants for the People's Republic, 2006.

Why then in 1400, when China, India, Persia and the Ottomans stand equally with western European powers does the apparent race to ascendancy not belong to China?

• Biogeographical hypothesis – isolation, superiority, & self-reliance. (J. Diamond)
• Demographic hypothesis – population explosion in China pressed against the means of subsistence (Tang and Song making it necessary for Ming to maintain an enormous infrastructure, from 1368-1644.)
• IQ hypothesis – The bureaucracy was selecting for excellence in obsolete fields.
• “Great titration” of George Sarton – the Arabs bring the pieces to Europe where they combine with a mechanistic philosophy of mathematical reason and logical deduction based on calculus, statistics and a universal language of inquiry.
• Needham’s hypothesis – cultural values differed remarkably from the west.
• Toynbee’s optimal resistance concept – Yuan and Ch’ing dynasties created more upheaval than the traditional hierarchies were able to influence, stultifying advances needed to fend off Asian and western incursions.

Conclusion

Therefore, at the Thirty Years war’s end in , western European rivalry leads to colonialism while Chinese civilization is “colonized” by the Manchu or Ch’ing dynasty.

What | Who | Why | Modernity | Conclusion | Maps | Texts

What ? Rice and silk culture as a technological complex.

Lou Shu. Pictures of Tilling and Weaving 1145 AD

irrigation; “step” bucket chain to raise water into the fields.

Rice & silk were currency used by farmers to pay taxes (burdensome).

Asia in 1600

What | Who | Why | Modernity | Conclusion | Maps | Texts