EFFECTIVE COMPETITION AND ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT OF IMPERIAL CHINA

This paper asks an old but still unsettled question: what makes China China? Existing theories rely on either class, or market or cultural c auses to explain the economic stagnation of imperial China While accep ting the basic proposition of the class based analysis, this paper add s a new component to the argument - the notion of effective competitio n. It establishes the vital role of effective competition on molding t he development of China by contrasting the rapid transformation during the Ch'un Ch'iu and Warring States Periods (722 to 221 B.C.) with the economic stagnation of the Unification Period (221 B.C. to 1911 A.D.) .