Lessons of History: The Rise and Fall of Technology in Chinese History

Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions presented the 2023 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Yasheng Huang who spoke on Lessons of History: The Rise and Fall of Technology in Chinese History.
China was once the most technologically advanced civilization in the world. Ancient Chinese achievements in technology are simply staggering. China led Europe in metallurgy, ship construction, navigation techniques, and many other fields, often by several centuries. The Chinese also invented gunpowder, paper, the water clock, the moveable printing press, and other consequential technologies way ahead of the West. For example, the Chinese invented the seismograph 1,700 years before the French.
But China’s technological development stalled, stagnated, and eventually collapsed and its early technological leadership did not set the country on a modernization path. This lecture examines the factors behind the rise and the fall of Chinese historical technology and draws lessons for today’s China.
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Professor Yasheng Huang is the International Program Professor in Chinese Economy and Business and a professor of global economics and management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Huang founded and runs China Lab and India Lab, which aim to help entrepreneurs in these countries improve their management skills. He is an expert source on international business, political economy, and international management. In collaboration with other scholars, Dr. Huang is conducting research on human capital formation in China and India, entrepreneurship, and ethnic and labor-intensive foreign direct investment (FDI). Prior to MIT Sloan, he held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang also served as a consultant to the World Bank.
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The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia.

[@Numischannel]

I have always been convinced that the Warring States Period was the peak of China's cultural and technological developement. They invented everything from coinage to lacquer, and you have minds such as Confucius and Sun Tzu. I am glad to hear that a scholar of the size of Dr. Hsieh thinks the same.

[@jacquelinlin3]

agree with profeesor huang

[@adamhu1540]

瓦房店軸承廠的技術演化故事！

[@atulkhanna3277]

Thank you - great talk

[@user-ur5yp6zu6r]

非常精彩

[@thomasho4825]

這個人就是一種數典忘祖，從沒心中的一個自稱為經濟專家的欺世盜名的人一天到晚就唱衰中國潤跟那個Gordon Chan一樣，這樣他就覺得這樣全美就瘦了美國政府的支持，實在是可悲呀

[@tom.spitters]

This is a difficult topic that highlights the Warring States and Han through Sui period (220 - 580 C.E.) as well as the later importance and centrism of the empire in Beijing. Some time ago, it had been offerred in a Stanford lecture (instructor unnamed) that gentrification and its related imperial traits, including the Keju exam system and imperial centrism as well as land policy greatly contributed to the socioeconomic and industrial - innovative status of the country going forward, and more markedly during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This does not explain, however, the growing importance of early international mercantilism, travel and trade, and the reaction of the imperial court to the prospects of this.

[@user-ur5yp6zu6r]

我想这是因为明清时期江南地区远离政治中心，民间经济发达导致的，这是非常有趣的问题，在一个思想极度封闭的国家居然有一个地方受官方影响不大，也许我们过于夸大了古代政府的影响力了。不过这应该是一个区域性现象，并不能从整体上改变趋势。

[@jonathanbethune9075]

I think prior to 1950 we were all Barbarians at our own gates. It's a different world, the information age is just being recognized as a metamorphosis for consciousness. We're no longer at the whims off our biology , we're intelligent. Makes it a different world.

[@0MVR_0]

surprised that the professor says confucianism is the least beneficial to science rather than legalism

[@qake2021]

😯✌️✌️✌️ history is not real fact but 'distorted' opinion as fact‼️😁😁😁😁😁

[@qake2021]

👏👏👏🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦➕️👍👍👍

[@cub2307]

Totally agree with you. I don't have sufficient information to dispute Dr Huang's findings. Somehow I don't feel comfortable with some of his conclusions.

[@MJTUEN]

lol lol lol

[@adamhu1540]

瓦房店軸承廠的技術演化故事！