Abstract

Modern China refers to the time period from the beginning of the First Opium War in 1840 to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. During this turbulent one hundred years, the Chinese economy experienced sharp reform with the collapse of feudalism and the introduction of western capitalism. Centered on the opening of foreign trade in China, Chinese economists searched for policies around which to build economic reforms. Among them, three women economists played a significant part. They offered novel insights on the most pressing changes that China should make in order to survive the impact of western economics on the traditional Chinese structure. And these three inserted women’s voices in an area formerly dominated by men. However, they have received almost no attention from the history of economic thought.