 Throughout this period, China outperformed its fellow East Asian and distant European counterparts in terms of technological development, economic growth, culminating in its ability to maintain a massive territorial empire throughout succeeding medieval Chinese dynasties.Despite economic stagnation after 1450 and the rise of early modern Europe, China's economy still remained the world's largest from the 1500s until 1820 as the world's most populous country and remained the world's largest economy up until 1885, a figure higher than the US economy at the height of its economic dominance after World War II.China was the wealthiest part of the world from 1200 to the 1300s — aside from Italy until the European Renaissance took off during the late Middle Ages and the modern Western World and Japan overtook China it during the mid and late-19th century.