In The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, author and history professor Paul Kennedy claims that China’s power peaked around 1600. Meanwhile, Western Europe was rising and surging, thanks to the Renaissance, scientific breakthroughs, and empire-building around the world.

Historical facts, however, do not agree with Paul Kennedy where the decline of China is concerned. 

In 1800, the Middle Kingdom was still the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. Globally, as much as one-third of all goods came from China. (It was 28% in 2018.) Chinese porcelain earned America's envy. Chinese tea filled classy Americans’ pots. That’s why the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, was such a big deal to Americans from all walks of life. Chinese tea, in a sense, was a catalyst for the American Revolution. Indeed, the tea dumped into Boston Harbor’s cold water was shipped from Xiamen, Fujian, which was already a busy trade port in southern China.

The Boston Tea Party was actually a Chinese Tea Party.

Chinese tea and porcelain symbolized as much as substantiated wealth and status in America at the dawn of the 19th Century. Before that, bragging rights went to any American household with more chairs than its immediate neighbors.

America admired China in 1800. Today, China keeps America on its toes. To Americans, China is sometimes unforgivable, but always unforgettable.

--- by Lingyang Jiang

The Boston Tea Party of 1773: