Were China's problems in the past two centuries due to "missing out" on the industrial age?
score:7
This is also the subject of the Needham question.
My own sense is that China's best and brightest were long motivated to target administrative careers as their first choice. The famous imperial civil service examinations required candidates to compete in the interpreting the classics, not preparing for new innovations (or "engines", for that matter). Bureaucrats had higher standing in traditional Chinese society than (Western-type) entrepreneurs. (This relative positions applied also to many other societies: the fate of some characters in Naguib Mahfouz' Cairo Trilogy e.g. come to mind too.)
The imperial examination system was abolished only in 1905. PRC universities that do best by our contemporary (Western, post-industrial-age) metrics, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University were established only in 1898, 1911, and 1905 respectively, which makes them relatively young among their international peers: Various differences in "performance" are perhaps a direct result of that.
Any explanation for why China (or another ancient society) has "missed out" must perhaps consider where that society placed or places its main incentives. If we measure Chinese society (in late imperial age, say) against metrics derived from Western post-industrial-age developments (lately, publication statistics in an "information-driven" age, etc.), they are bound to appear as having "missed out", at least initially, or so it would seem IMHO. Relative performances do change, but (and this may be more relevant with respect to possible limits of growth, etc.) so do the metrics that we consider.
Upvote:3
China just did not develop higher mathematics. Neither integral not differential calculus and even too little of algebra. Integral calculus is one of the prerequisites to creating efficient engines.
Also mechanic theory is needed for creating reliable and efficient mechanisms, and also impossible without higher mathematics.
Upvote:5
At best, positive answers to the question you posed can only establish a correlation, not a causation. After all, a less developed country can't really properly utilize a lot of engines.
Say as a thought experiment you gave an illiterate 15th century European farmer a diesel engine, but no infrastructure to support it. He wouldn't even know how to use it. Even if he figures that out, where's he going to get the fuel for it? How is he going to get it fixed when it needs maintenance? This is the situation nearly all of China would have been in.
So while there may be (most likely is) a relation between a society's development and their lack of engines, I think a more productive line of inquiry would be why China didn't have that infrastructure to support lots of engines, while European societies did.
More post
- π Why was the Halifax death penalty reserved for thefts of at least 13Β½ pence?
- π Are there any communist countries that were model high functioning societies?
- π What are other obvious samples in history where political/religious leaders try to shape religion to their need
- π Are there any universally accepted or non-Abrahamic based books in history that have mentions of longevity of prophets?
- π What was the Nove / Millar debate, how is it important to the historiography of the Soviet Union?
- π How could it be that 80% of townspeople were farmers during the Edo period in Japan?
- π Why was William III of England referred to as the British-Batavian Nassau?
- π Why did Mexico encourage the settlement of Texas by Americans?
- π How were/are days subdivided in non-Gregorian calendars?
- π What rectangular object would is this Boer War era officer carrying on his left hand side?
- π What is the origin and significance of karahafu (εη ΄ι’¨)?
- π Why did Roosevelt and Churchill use voice-based telecommunication, instead of simpler text-based options which were easier to encrypt?
- π Why is rum naval?
- π Comparison of naval fleet strengths during the Napoleonic wars
- π How much would 300 pounds (money value) weigh in Medieval England?
- π Location of Hagemeister's six-language diaries
- π Why weren't Harappan homes built of stones?
- π First-hand sources for medieval urban life in central Europe
- π Could Romania have remained neutral in WWII?
- π How to track down a Spanish/Latin American soldier that fought in wars internationally (18th/19th century)?
- π Why was Colonel Bill Eddy kneeling in front of FDR and King Saud?
- π Where are the ancient books now?
- π How many customs houses were there in 1850 California?
- π Why did the introduction of European firearms have such an impact on warfare in Africa and the Americas?
- π Was there a coup in the Netherlands in 1672?
- π Was any pope imprisoned during his service to Catholic Church?
- π Was the battle of Stalingrad "unique" in the annals of history?
- π Why did Peter the Great tie particular expenditures to particular revenue sources?
- π How did native Hawaiians achieve such a high literacy rate prior to the 1850s?
- π Were military-grade P-38 and P-51 can openers supposed to last a lifetime?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- π Were China's problems in the past two centuries due to "missing out" on the industrial age?
- π Which texts/works were lost due to the Mongol invasions of Baghdad?
- π Were the problems Fibonacci solved in his work "Flos" posed specifically for him?
- π Who were the first two democratically elected leaders of Russia?
- π How big were the two German pockets at the end of the battle of Stalingrad?
- π Why did the Queen of Hawai'i surrender, when two thirds of the registered voters were in favour of signing the new constitution in 1893?
- π Are there any theories about what health problems would a man of the past suffer in the current age?
- π In the past were there gifts on the days leading up to Christmas instead of them all being on the one day?
- π Was there ever a situation where members of two warring militaries were on leave in the same neutral location?
- π Why were countries which were clearly aligned to one of the two power blocs during cold war a part of the non-aligned movement?
- π What were the names of these two Ancient Greek boxing/pankration legends?
- π how could japan recover very fast their economy eventhough the two bombs were dropped?
- π Were there women who were against giving women the right to vote?
- π What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?
- π What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
- π Why were the Romans unable to conquer Germania?
- π Why were so many more Jewish men than Jewish women killed during the Holocaust?
- π When did the Romans finally acknowledge that they were living in an empire?
- π Why were the Allies so much better cryptanalysts?
- π Did the leaflets from the US to Hiroshima/Nagasaki civilians on bombing cities reduce the civilian casualties of the two nuclear bombs in August 1945?
- π (Why) are there two different versions of the photograph of inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp?
- π Were Medieval Britons aware of the existence of the Roman Empire?
- π How were smallpox vaccines enforced in the US?
- π Why were helmets and other body armour not commonplace in the 1800s?
- π βAvoid sleeping on your backβ & βbreathe in toilet smellsβ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- π In the "Christmas truce" of 1914 were there any football (soccer) matches between British and German troops?
- π In the Battle of the Coral Sea, how could two Japanese scouts grossly mis-identify two American ships?
- π What were the acceptance criteria in universities of medieval Europe?
- π How severe were the casualties in ancient/medieval battles?
- π Why were the West African islands uninhabited?
