18What makes any nation a global
superpower? Military might? Political
authority? Territorial expansion? In
various forms and at different times,
China boasted all of these, and therefore
should be considered among the great
international powers. When we look at
production and manufacturing, though,
we probably have to agree that China is,
and has been for a long time, the greatest global superpower.
Think of tea. The consumption of tea (steeped leaves
from the shrub Camellia sinensis) has a long history in China.
Biomolecular mass spectrometry analyses of plant remains,
presented in a recent article in Nature, demonstrate that tea
was drunk by emperors of the Han dynasty in the first cen-
tury BC, and was also traded along the Silk Roads to western
Tibet by the second to third century AD. Its popularity
steadily rose, spreading throughout Asia and to other regions,
and in time tea produced in China came to be traded in vast
quantities all over the world. This production to supply inter-
national demand certainly suggests a global superpower.
Another China-made product had, if possible, an even
bigger impact on global trade. China, as the name suggests,
is the birthplace of the type of ceramics known in the west as
china. Though low-fired earthenwares and stonewares were
made all over the world, only China had the kind of clays
that could withstand firing temperatures over 1,300°C,
creating a hard, vitreous product called porcelain.
As early as the ninth century, Chinese potters produced
porcelains for domestic and overseas markets. From the 13th
century, white-bodied ceramics with cobalt-blue underglaze
decorations were manufactured in workshops using methods
that resembled assembly-line production. Many millions of
blue-and-white ceramics were manufactured and exported to
Europe alone. This production of goods for global export on
an industrial scale has a history that goes back at least to the
16th century. On that basis, we might say that china – rather
than military might or territorial expansion – is what made
China the greatest global superpower.Anne Gerritsen is professor of history at the University of Warwick.
Her new book The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the
Early Modern World will be published by Cambridge University PressAnne Gerritsen“When we look at produc-
tion and manufacturing,
we see that China is, and
has been for a long time,
the greatest superpower”
BRIDGEMAN/REUTERSChinese president Xi Jinping with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta at the
Belt and Road Forum, Beijing, 2017. China’s far-reaching infrastructure
initiative is seen by some critics as an attempt to dominate the worldAn 18th-century porcelain vase produced in China. The industrial-scale
manufacture and global export of such ceramics from the 16th century
helped fuel the country’s rise to superpower status, says Anne GerritsenИЗП
ОДГОТОВИЛАГРУППHer new book ПHer new book
Her new book Her new book АА"What'sNews"VK.COM/WSNWS18
VK.COM/WSNWS18Early Modern WorldVK.COM/WSNWSEarly Modern World