In the 16th century, the Chinese economy was still the most sophisticated and productive in the world, and the Chinese probably enjoyed a higher standard of living than any other people on earth. The Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty (1644-1912), founded by the invading Manchus, continued this splendor. Contemporary Chinese called the 18th century "unparalleled in history," when all aspects of culture flourished. China was a prosperous state with abundant natural resources, a huge but basically contented population, and a royal house of great prestige at home and abroad.
By the late 18th century, however, the strong Chinese state contained seeds of its own destruction, particularly its expanding population. Having remained at 100 million through much of history, under the peaceful Qing (Ch'ing), the population doubled from 150 million in 1650 to 300 million by 1800, and reached 450 million by the late nineteenth century (cf. population of the U.S. was 200 million in the 1980s). By then, there was no longer any land in China's southern and central provinces available for migration: the introduction of New World (American) crops through trade - especially sweet potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco, which required different growing conditions than rice and wheat - had already claimed previously unusable land. With only 1/10 of the land arable, farmers had an average of only three (3) acres, with many having only one acre. The right of equal inheritance among sons (versus primogeniture as practiced in Japan) only hastened the fragmentation of land holdings. To compound these problems, the state's political control was diminishing. The size of the bureaucracy remained the same while the population grew. By the 19th century, district magistrates at the lowest level of the Chinese bureaucracy were responsible for the welfare, control, and taxation of an average of 250,000 people. This left control and responsibility for government increasingly in the hands of local leaders whose allegiances were to their localities and families, rather than to the state.
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