The Reemergence of China and India

For much of the last two millennia, China and India were the two largest and, by the standards of those times, among the most scientifically and technologically advanced societies in the world.⁵ China is believed to have invented paper, gunpowder, and the compass. In turn, India is believed to have brought to the world abstract mathematical concepts, such as the number zero, negative numbers, decimals, and fractions. As recently as 1820, China and India together accounted for almost 50 percent of world's GDP (see Table 9.1). Barely a hundred years later, the tables had turned. By the early part of the twentieth century, China and India added up to only about 16 percent of the world's GDP.

Table 9.1. China and India: A Look Back