Qing conquest theory

The Qing conquest theory is a theory proposed by Chinese academics that attempts to explain the Great Divergence, the process by which the Occident overtook China as the major economic and industrial world power. Specifically, it seeks to explain how Europe could experience an industrial revolution, while China did not. Theory supporters claim that, although the prosperous Song and Ming Dynasties moved China toward a modern age, the restrictions placed on commerce and industry and the persecution of non-orthodox thought following the Manchu conquest of China caused the country to stagnate and fall behind the west.

Carl Dahlman and Jean-Eric Aubert of the World Bank argue, based on Angus Maddison's data, that China was the world's largest and most advanced economy for the most of the past two millennia, and among the wealthiest and most advanced economies until the eighteenth century. Sinologist Joseph Needham has claimed that China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita exceeded Europe by a substantial margin from the fifth century BCE onwards, while economic historian Angus Maddison believes this did not happen until the fall of the Roman Empire. During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the country experienced a revolution in agriculture, water transport, finance, urbanization, science and technology, which drastically increased GDP per capita even further. China experienced an economic revolution during the Song Dynasty in which the economy became proto-industrialized and experienced large increases in industrial and agricultural output. At the same time, overseas and domestic trade increased, along with the use of currency. Some scholars have termed this phenomenon China's "medieval urban revolution".

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