[sed3]

China around 1AD had iron production comparable to England at start of industrial revolution. They were also starting to use mechanization (quote from wiki bellow).

> The effectiveness of the Chinese human and horse powered blast furnaces was enhanced during this period by the engineer Du Shi (c. AD 31), who applied the power of waterwheels to piston-bellows in forging cast iron.

[schmidtleonard]

What stopped an industrial revolution from cooking up in China? Too much labor? Too little coal? Too many wars?

[ajmurmann]

I've heard the argument before that China being very large without serious, nearby rivals created less drive for innovation than Europe with its smaller countries and frequent struggles. There was also more ability to move to a different country if people in your country didn't like what you had to say. Many European thinkers took advantage of this.

[lukan]

"than Europe with its smaller countries and frequent struggles"

I think old china had actually lots in common with old europe: lots of small kingdoms and warlords battling over their villages. China wasn't really one united nation either, for most of its time.

[Jensson]

> China wasn't really one united nation either, for most of its time.

China had some small periods were it was splintered, Europe had some small periods were it was unified after Rome. It is very different. China is more like Rome never fell, it might have lost half some time etc, some rebellion splintering it, but always pulling itself together after a century or two.

[throwup238]

China was splintered for a thousand years after the Eastern Han dynasty except for the Tang dynasty and wasn't really unified again until the Qing dyansty [1]. I wouldn't call those "small periods", it's been splintered for the majority of the common era.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_of_China#Timeline_of...

[Jensson]

I am talking about the past 1500 years. Also to me half of China being under one banner isn't "splintered", that is still an empire with a few belligerents, so your link there doesn't provide an accurate picture.

And if you compare like to like, Europe has never ever been unified since there were always many splinters regardless which period you look at. Some parts splitting off isn't the same thing as the empire not existing.

No matter how you slice it China has been far more unified than Europe, if you made a similar map of European dynasties for the same period it would be orders of magnitude larger.

If you look at the biggest empire on earth for different periods a part of the Chinese empire is almost always among the top, Europe was only there during Rome at its peak and after colonization. China is much closer to a single European country, for example it wasn't as splintered as the German states used to be but its much closer than comparing it to Europe.

[ajmurmann]

This is true and doesn't apply after 12th century from when on it was unified and which is the period during which the jump to industrialization probably would have been more likely. On top of that it was run by the well-organized Mandarin bureaucracy.

[Terr_]

I find myself being cautious when it comes to reading characterizations of China's historical dis/unity, knowing the current government has some rather strong opinions about what narrative it would like to see in the history books.

[vundercind]

It made no sense to burn expensive coal to power an engine until you run into the problem of needing to drain coal mines, because you already have so much demand for coal that you have started to need to do that.

[Jensson]

Also lack of calculus and newtons equations, almost all useful engineering equations depend on those so without them you can't make the necessary calculations for engines. Without engine calculations it takes way too much trial and error to get things to work well.

The industrial revolution happened pretty soon after those were discovered, I don't think that is a coincidence.

[lukan]

"The industrial revolution happened pretty soon after those were discovered, I don't think that is a coincidence."

Surely no coincidence, it was simply a time of great innovation. But I would argue, they also would have been invented a 3. time if necessary.

[Jensson]

> they also would have been invented a 3. time if necessary

Not sure what you mean? Romans would have had great use of Newtonian physics, they made a ton of machines, but they didn't manage to invent the math/physics to do those calculations at the time. What do you suggest would replace this for making calculations for machines?

[lukan]

Well, they have been invented 2 times, roughly at the same time largely independent from each other. But it needed a general high level of math. The romans lacked many of the more sophisticated math tools I think.

[hollerith]

One factor is that Northern Europeans made much more intensive use of animal power than the Chinese (or the Greeks of antiquity) ever did. If you are already using oxen or horses to pump water out of your coal mine, it is less of a leap to start using machinery to do it (because you will probably be able to re-use some of your laws, legal precedents and business practices for using the oxen and horses).

The Northern European's close relationship with the cow goes back about 7,000 years. Other cultures relied on cows for a large fraction of their calories, too, but the Northern Europeans were the first farmers to do it. I.e., they weren't nomads.

Once a farming culture gets good at keeping cows for calories, it is a short leap to using male cows (oxen) to help plow fields. And once you are doing that, it is a short leap to using them for transportation.

But more straightforwardly, the Industrial Revolution started when the Scientific Revolution was well underway. The first generation of European steam engines were inefficient, then they used the new science of thermodynamics to design steam engines that were twice as efficient.

[bsder]

Limited sailing.

Sailing and its associated warfare drove technology. China started on that path at roughly the same time as everybody else and then pulled back for various reasons.

Note that a lot of the industrial revolution was using clockmakers. Why do you need super accurate clocks? Navigation and ... that's pretty much it. And why do you need navigation? Naval warfare.

[izend]

The Han Dynasty peaked around 1AD and fell into decline as there were weak Emperors (usually extremely young) and eventually collapsed in terrible internal conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_Han_dynasty

[rhelz]

Did china have a ready supply of clock and watchmakers?

[WalterBright]

Lack of free markets.

[z3t4]

Timing is very important. The market was not ready. Doh.

[sed3]

Too many wars, sort of. History book I read explained that as a wrong division of power. Increased iron production failed to increase military strength.

Class that valued industrial production, looked down on warfare as something beneath them.

And warlords preferred feudal society of peasants to squeeze. Industry would threaten them.