Çin Mucizesi ve Gerilemesi: Neden Çin Teknolojik Yaratıcılığını Sürdüremedi?

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 2 Sayı: 1, 113 - 125, 21.05.2019

Ömer Ersin Kahraman

Öz

Antik Çin, hızlı bir teknolojik gelişme yaşayarak
insanlığa dünya tarihini değiştiren çok sayıda yeni teknik ve araç sunmuştur.
Çin’in hızlı teknolojik gelişme dönemi Sung hanedanının düşüşü ile ani bir
şekilde durmuştur. Bu durum Çin’in neden gelişmesine devam edemediği ve ilk
sanayi ulusu haline gelemediği sorularını beraberinde getirmiştir. Batıyı
merkeze koyan bir karşılaştırma bakışı ile bu sorun bazı yazarlar tarafından
Çin halkının kültürel özellikleriyle açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır. Ancak Çin
kültürünün farklılıklarını gerilemenin nedeni olarak sunmak Çin’in hızlı
gelişmeyi da aynı kültür içinde başardığı düşünülecek olursa tutarlı
olmayacaktır. Bu makale, Çin’in 14. Yüzyıl sonrası gerilemesini Çin’in
teknolojik gelişimi ve şehirleşmesi arasındaki paralelliği açıklamanın
merkezine koyan bir tarihsel araştırma sunmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Çin, teknoloji, şehirleşme, inovasyon, tarih

The Chinese Miracle and Its Retrogression: Why could China not have pursued her technological ingenuity?

Öz

Ancient China achieved a very rapid technological progress and introduced many new techniques and instruments which fundamentally changed the world history. Despite that progress period, the technological pace of China was abruptly halted just after the fall of the Song dynasty. This situation raised the question why China could not pursue its development and become the first industrial nation. Within a comparative perspective which puts the West in the center, that failure was explained by several authors as a result of the unique cultural properties of the Chinese people. However, introduction of diversities of the Chinese culture as the reason of retrogression would not be coherent with the course of history as the Chinese people achieved those technological advancements with the same culture. The paper introduces an historical investigation for the retrogression of China after fourteenth century through employing parallelism between the Chinese technological progress and urbanization at the core of the elucidation. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

China, technology, urbanization, innovation, history

Kaynakça

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• Deane, P. M. (1979). The First Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press.
• Elvin, M. (1973). The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic Interpretation. Stanford University Press.
• Fairbank, J. K., & Goldman, M. (1998). China: A New History. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Fung, Y.-L. (1922). Why China Has No Science--An Interpretation of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy. International Journal of Ethics.
• Gille, B. (1978). Histoire des techniques: technique et civilisations, technique et sciences. Gallimard.
• Grand Larousse universel. (1986) (Vol. 6). Paris: Librairie Larousse.
• Hartwell, R. M. (1971). Historical Analogism, Public Policy, and Social Science in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century China. The American Historical Review, 76(3), 690–727. https://doi.org/10.2307/1851622
• Landes, D. S. (1999). The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• McClellan, J. E., & Dorn, H. (1999). Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Mokyr, J. (1990). The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford University Press.
• Needham, J. (1975). History and Human Values: A Chinese Perspective for World Science and Technology. Centre for East Asian Studies, McGill University.
• Ronan, C. A., & Needham, J. (1986). Shorter Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3 (Abridged edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Said, E. W. (2014). Orientalism. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
• Sivin, N. (1985). Why the scientific revolution did not take place in China — or did it? Environmentalist, 5(1), 39–50.
• Unschuld, P. U. (1985). Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press.
• Wen, G. J. (2011). Why was china trapped in an agrarian society? An economic geographical approach to the needham puzzle. Frontiers of Economics in China, 6(4), 507–534.