In the 15th and 16th centuries, China accounted for 25% to 30% of the global economy, but by the 1950s and '60s it fell below 5%.

The rise, fall, and comeback of the Chinese economy over the past 800 years

by Elena Holodny
Today China´s economy makes up about 17% of the global economy — roughly the same share as the US.


China's economy led its European counterpart by leaps and bounds at the start of the Renaissance.

China was so far ahead, in fact, that economic historian Eric L. Jones once argued that the Chinese empire "came within a hair's breadth of industrializing in the fourteenth century."

At the start of the 15th century, China already had the compass, movable type print, and excellent naval capacity. In fact, Chinese Adm. Zheng He commanded expeditions to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, and East Africa from about 1405 to 1433 — about a century before the Portuguese reached India. He also had ships several times the length of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria, the largest of Columbus' three ships that crossed the Atlantic.

Still, it's hard to understand the magnitude of the shift China's economic fortunes have seen just with historical anecdotes. And so, in a recent note to clients, Macquarie Research's Viktor Shvets included two fascinating charts, which we included below, showing the changes China saw over the past 800 years.

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