For the pass 5000 years, Europe was ruled by dictators/ crazy monarchs too and living conditions then were just as bad if not worse! Why singled China in this instance?
Oh wait! Do the europeans have 5000 years of civilized history to begin with!?
They started out as barbarians for quite a big part of their history!
The primary cause of China's backwardness after WW2 is communism.
Communism produces crazy power hungry rulers such as Joseph Stalin, Mao and Kim.....
This model of government bestow too much unchecked power in the hands of a selected few who would do anything to ensure their absolute rule. The economic and social problems faced by PRC is not unique to just PRC itself, they are being shared by other communist countries too. This shows that communism is an extremely flawed model and highly unsustainable; evidently, we have seen many ex-communist countries turn free-market or at least go partial free market.
PS: What is the origin of communism?
German ideology adopted by the eastern hemisphere!
oh yea...watz new!? Yet another verminous ideology from the west to pollute our eastern values! :oIo:
No these are not true.
China and India were both the biggest economies from year 1 - year 1800, that is true. But that is solely because of their size, they have 1/4 of the world's population each.
By the 1500s, Western Europe had a much better standing of living compared to China. Their GDP per capita was much higher.
Dictatorships in Europe? Not really.
By 500 BC, there was already democracy in Greece. By 1200, the British people had already forced their king to sign the magna carta, which meant the king had to obey by the laws of the land and could not kill people at will. The people had rights. Their kings were definitely not like the Chinese emperors.
Fast forward to 2010, China still does not have democracy, something the Greeks had 3000 years ago.
By the 1800s, the Western European powers were already conquering the world. They came to China and the Chinese shivered in fear and gave up land to them because they were too weak to resist. The Europeans had science and technology. They had guns and ships. That is why they won.
Fast forward to 2010, China is still around 100 years behind the US in terms of science and technology. Its per capita gdp is 4000, the US's is 46000. China has been behind Western Europe since 1500, which is 600 years time. And before 1500, China was not in front of Europe, it was on par with Europe.
Western powers have been trying their hardest to convert China into a democracy since the year 1943 when the Communist pigs took over China. From criticism of China's human rights abuses, to giving asylum to thousands of Chinese refugees, to giving arms to Taiwan, to recently giving the nobel prize to liu xiaobao. You must be schizophrenic to think otherwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence
