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Macro-Historical Paralellism and the China “Puzzle”
It was up to the Industrial Revolution in the West to really
succeed in destroying the pattern. Recent studies reveal that
Europe did not really surpass the rest of the world until
1800, when the Industrial Revolution was fully under way.
This would suggest that the advantages now enjoyed by the
West could not last for long. At present, when the rest of the
world has finished industrialization or is being industrialized
rapidly, major shifts in the balance of power will occur
sooner or later. Yet the idea of equivalent development has
another implication: there had been cultural compatibility
convergences between the civilizations long before 1800 in
the way of economic growth, social progress and intellectual
development. To a very great extent, this could explain the
spectacular speed of Asia’s ‘modernization’, however glaring
its differences from the West might seem at a first glance.
For now I will not elaborate further on the historical facts
to validate the parallelism thesis. Historians like Kenneth
Pomeranz (author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe
and the Making of the Modern World Economy, 2000) and
world-system theorists like Andre Gunde Frank (author of
ReOreient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, 1998) have
done a superb job. It is therefore necessary to have a look at
their basic arguments.
For Pomeranz, Europe's ‘divergence’ from the Old World
in the 19 th century owes much to the fortunate locations of
coal, which was essential to trigger off the energy-intensive
mode of production. It was locations that made Europe's
failure to use its land intensively (especially when compared
with China) much less of a problem, while allowing growth in
energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference has to
do with trade. It was West Europe’s fortuitous location that
made the Americas a greater source of primary products for
it than it was available for any part of Asia. This additional
advantage allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in
population, specialize in manufactures, and remove labor
from the land, using imports from the New World rather than
maximizing yields at home. Together, convenient coal and
the American colonies allowed Europe to grow along energyintensive,
labor-saving paths. Some reasoning could be
offered here: had China or India been similarly located, the
massive growth brought about by the Industrial Revolution
in the past two hundred years would have occurred first in
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