Translation practicing 3 Historians and sinologists converge by considering that the Chinese civilization impresses not only by its longevity, but also and mainly by its economic and political greatness throughout a large part of history while compared to others ancient and contemporany civilizations. Francis Bacon has observed that the world in the 600s recreated itself through powder, press and magnets. However, he has not mentioned that these three things were invented in China hundreds of years before. Despite of its status of the most flourishing economy in the world throughout three centuries, in 1829, it was yet possible to glimpse the first signs of the sudden fall which would diminish the Chinese economy if compared to the European rivals next century. After several decades of relative fall, the industrial production in China in 1930s was lower than in Belgium, while its equipments and devices production was not bigger than in a state in the Midwest of the USA.