Chinese history shows how a closed economy can waste the greatness of a country

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Opinion David Fickling 4 min Read 06 Apr 2025, 03:30 IST Ming China lost its economic power after making a sharp inner turn. (AFP -Photo) Summary The Middle Kingdom has very mistaken by giving up foreign trade just as China’s seafarers began to make major breakthroughs. It remained closed until the opium wars forced its trade barriers. From a certain angle, US President Donald Trump’s tariff Blitz looks like nothing like a chronic case of China guards. Look at the losers’ List who was announced last week in the season final of this all too real reality show: Each sign points to a desire to make America come back, from the obsession with trade shortages to the promise to bring back manufacturing opportunities from abroad. Think of a continent -sized economy with a persistent trade surplus and a thriving factory sector, and the most obvious candidate is China. However, if Trump lends an economic lesson from China, it is not the one who has driven the economic rise over the past two and a half decades. The episode follows a sharp decline in trade barriers and decades of reforms to reduce the role of the state and provide a stable investment environment, almost the opposite of what the US is doing now. Also read: Trade War: Trump’s shock-and-away rates have only a pale silver lining for India, and Trump’s model can be drawn from an earlier episode: the ban of the Ming Dynasty on Foreign Trade from the 14th century. The isolationist policy has paved the way for centuries of decline and eventual humiliation by foreign powers. An America that is not the curbs on the trade that could be imposed by Trump 1.0 must reflect on how many worse things can become now. The US imposed a 34% tariff increase on most Chinese products, which added to the 20% tariffs that came into effect earlier this year, bringing total levies to at least 54%. Like the 21st century America, the 13th century was one of the world’s great powers. The development of approximately 1,000 AD has promoted live trade, with Chinese ceramics and textiles traded for Indian and Southeast Asian spices and commodities. The existence of paper money supported by the imperial treasury’s silver reserves, and the development of steel manufacturing and coal mining, promoted similar conditions to those seen in Britain against the dawn of the industrial revolution. Isolationism ended the golden era. For the next five centuries, Chinese governments imposed stricter and stricter controls on foreign trade, blocked ports, banned shipbuilding and carried out military expeditions against traders who considered the government as Pirates. Also read: Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs will have the global south a hard blow. Perhaps China wanted trade under stricter control and replace the release trade with tributes. Perhaps it was worried about silver that disappeared into the coffins of foreign traders and undermined the basis of its Fiat money system, which dared the hyperinflation that plagued the era. Maybe it’s just about power, with many officials quietly benefiting from illegal journeys. As with Trump’s rates, the attempt to hold back the economic tide encouraged more extreme measures. Consider the biggest victims: countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Malaysia that have expanded the US over the past few years as back door leads to China in response to Trump 1.0’s attempt to disconnect the two economies. In the same way, the Ming Sea ban was a limited success in concluding the trade, which asked the measures with more extreme. On its most reactionary, the government has depopled the entire parts of the country’s coastal regions. Also read: Andy Mukherjee: Trump’s rates must push India to double the reforms, the effect was devastating. With trade as a threat rather than a blessing, China finds him from the broad world and falls further behind. Despite worldly officials and a vibrant class of brokers in the few ports where trade was allowed that could see the benefits of trading, the system remained largely in place until the mid -19th century, when the Opium wars forced British and other colonial powers. None of that level will happen to the US anytime soon. Nevertheless, Trump’s measures are world -historical in scale, as they increase tariff barriers at their highest levels since the 19th century, according to some estimates. Like China, America is a continental economy that needs the world much less than the world needs: as part of the gross domestic product, exchange only Cuba, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bermuda and Guam less merchandise with other countries. These measures will be painful for Americans, but even more painful for other countries. Also read: Recipient rates: Should India respond to Trump’s move at all? Therein lies the danger. Trade restrictions have chosen Ming China against the shock of its relative decline, as the Age of Sail Europe has put in charge of the world. A similar policy can provide some psychological ease to a 21st -century America that cannot do the similar rise of China and of India afterwards. Like muscles that will gradually weaken atrophy due to a lack of use, but a country that is closed of international trade. If Trump wants America to be great again, a retreat to isolationism is the worst path to follow. © Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg -Opinion columnist who covers climate change and energy. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #trade War #Donald Trump #China Mint Special