The rise of China is no doubt one of the most spectacular events in world economic history since the British industrial revolution. Contemporary mainstream economics and institutional theories in the western world, however, fail to account for the root cause of China’s rise. The author holds that China’s economic miracle can only be deciphered if we reinterpret the industrial revolutions. China’s stunning transformation from a poverty-stricken agricultural society to an industrial country has exposed the weaknesses of mainstream economics and contemporary theories. It also sheds lights on the poverty trap in Africa, the debt crisis in Latin America, the Great Divergence and the rise of Europe in the 19th century and the British Industrial

revolution.

Yi Wen, Professor of Tsinghua-CCB (China Construction Bank) program at School

of Economics and Management, member of Innovative Talents. He has worked at Cornell

University, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and in 2008 he was promoted to assistant vice

president.