Publication

Huang Yasheng, Enying Zheng, Wei Hong, Danzi Liao, Meicen Sun. 2023. “Revisiting the Needham Question: The Rise and Fall of Technology in Historical China” forthcoming 2025, Princeton University Press.

• We have compiled several unique datasets, the most significant of which includes over 10,000 inventions and scientific discoveries spanning from the 5th century BCE to the end of the 19th century CE. This dataset is primarily based on the collection from Joseph Needham and his colleagues in Science and Civilization in China.
• We ask the right question: Ancient China was remarkably inventive and led the world in science and technology for a significant period, but its decline began as early as the 6th century, rather than the commonly assumed 17th century. The period between the 6th and 13th centuries saw a gradual decline, followed by a complete stagnation from the 13th to the 19th century.
• We propose a tripartite typology of the Chinese state, a framework conceptualizing Chinese history as a journey that transitioned through three distinct phases of Chinese polity with dramatically contrasting implications for technological development: 1) the polycentric state, when the country was fragmented both politically and ideologically; 2) the enabling state, when the country retained some of the ideological polycentrism from the previous era, while polycentrism of the political kind largely disappeared; and 3) the controlling state, when state capacity was substantial but applied exclusively toward maintaining political absolutism and ideological uniformity.
• We suggest the policy implications: the state should continue to provide financial and infrastructural support for a science- and innovation-based economy, but refrain from intervening in the specific topics or industries.