Was China the biggest economy of last 2000 years?

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Originally posted by Gun Powder Ma

For the time of its existence, the Roman Empire was the world's largest economy. It certainly was the largest economic power of the West until the Industrial Revolution according to Goldsmith:

In terms of settled territory the early Roman empire with about 3.3 km2 was
the largest political, economic and monetary unit in the Western world until it
was overtaken by the expansion of the United States and of the Russian empire
in the mid-19th century. With about 55 million inhabitants it was more populous
than any western country until, again, the mid-19th century, equalling even the
present population of the large European nation-states-France, Germany, Great
Britain and Italy; and probably was not surpassed by its only two competitors,
the Chinese empire and the less durable empires that arose from time to time in
the In Han peninsula, until about AD 1000. Finally, in terms of real national
produ. t, a comparison which is much more difficult to make, the Roman empire
with a national product of, as will be shown below, slightly over 20 billion
sesterces (HS), equal to about 1,700 t of gold, probably surpassed any Western
economy until the early 19th century. On all three tests, then, the early Roman
empire was the largest Western economic unit for nearly two millennia.

Interestingly, its standard of living around 300 AD was higher than China's in the 1930s:

As the standard of living in Diocletian's time is likely to have been below that of the
early Empire, expenditures per adult should have been above 200 IU which compares with 370 IU
per occupied person in Italy in 1893, 163 IU in Brazil in 1928, 138 IU in China in 1933 and 132 IU
in India in 1867/68.

Source: Raymond Goldsmith (1984): An Estimate of the Size and Structure of the National Product of the Early Roman Empire“, Review of Income and Wealth, vol. 30, no. 3, September, pp. 263-288

Your statement would carry some weight if the source which you cited actually gave an estimation of ancient Chinese living standard, but it hasn't, so such a casual claim is at best left ignored when one attempts any in depth comparison. According to Angus Maddison, the GDP per capita of Rome and China are roughly comparable with both around 450 USD per year, and since China had a bigger population, Han China's GDP was larger, making up around 26% of the world's GDP in 1 AD compared to around 23% for the Roman Empire(See Maddison, Angus; The World Economy: a millenial perspective). Surpassing Chinese standards of living in 1933 is hardly a feat since China's feudal economic system has been on the decline throughout the 19th century and hit a rock bottom by the early 20th century. In fact according to most estimations, Chinese standard of living is actually lower in 1933 compared to previous periods because of over-population and incessant warfare. Before the Communist take over, it has plummeted to barely above subsistence (Maddison gave a figure of 400 USD, which is less than both the per capita of the Roman Empire and Han China). I also suggest you get a professional estimation of Chinese GDP instead of using a Roman one as a comparison, take a look at estimations done by Wu Hui from China, while its debatable that Han China's GDP per capita is greater than Rome's or not(its food production was certainly greater per capita), Tang China's output was certainly much greater because of the north-south integration and the introduction of rice. In fact according to Wu Hui, Tang China's GDP per capita in the 8th century was probably greater than that of mid 12th- mid 14th century China, and larger than late Qing, which was far larger than most of Republican China, so treating the Chinese economy as some stagnant monolith until 1000 is simply misleading. 

Originally posted by Gun Powder Ma

However, since the Roman economy has been for some time now in the process of a favourable reevaluation by modern scholars, the gap to Han China was likely to be even larger than Goldsmith projected.

I take this as your own assumption, one that seems to be ignorant of the current trend in classical economic studies I might add. But that is only to be expected since you appear to be using sources that are outdated by some 3 decades. Classical Historians since the 90s have been denouncing Roman economic production, opposed to the earlier romantic picture painted by the likes of Gibbon. Its a general concensus of Roman economic historians since the 90s to consider the slave based Roman economy inefficient, barely above subsistence, and had no sophisticated agricultural labor reducing technology to man their fields(what they do not have they made up by using the slaves like animal labor.)  Really, estimations of GDP per capita in such an early time is virtually impossible due to the absence of standard economic coefficients and prices, and results are more properly labeled guestimates than estimates. And because this is so far back, benchmark projections are out of the question. However, GDP per capita in pre-capitalist economic systems do not vary much, so however much one wants to boast of achievements of what Marxists define as slave or feudal based economic systems, one won't get far in attempting to impress a Marxist economic historian. Population, not per capita productivity is the primary indicator of total production in pre-capitalist societies and since Han China most likely had a greater population, it most likely produced more.
Furthermore, estimations of Roman population has moved to the lower end recently, meaning that the total GDP of the Roman Empire was probably even lower than was previously thought. http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2009/10/05/estimation-of-the-population-of-rome.htm

Edited by honeybee - 17-Jun-2010 at 16:21