For the longest time...

Well, because it clearly didn't work anymore. It stagnated. One of the reason, for example, is it relies on churning out big ass populations (as a labor intensive economy) which China really doesn't have the luxury to sustain anymore. Nor is it desirable when you need quality over quantity in our current era of automation.

It can be too much work for most of China's history, because centralization happened much earlier in Qin dynasty, where centralized state bureaucracy was established. Stuff such as state monopoly on a lot of crucial commodities would mean that every region naturally depends on each other. If anything, reverting to decentralization might have wrecked China's economy, resulting of people wanting to reestablish centralized infrastructures (instead of going the hard way and recreating regional industry). Not to mention that, the goods might just be worse off, quality-wise. If it's about competition then you certainly could have one in a centralized state. Just that you have to get rid of antiquated bureaucracies, unhealthy state-subsidized industries, etc. That is, taking the pain to reform a lot of things.

Education being widespread earlier increases the chance a genius will get his shot instead of having to live like a half slave like the rest of his family.

Big white cock

Alphabets.

From all my reading this is the most accepted academic opinion.

Less attempts to supress other cultures internally since the other cultures were usually other nations which you competed with. The Chinese fought for ages, died in the millions, and then the winner told the rest they weren't allowed to do anything their own way.

>What allowed the Europeans to jump ahead of China?

Clocks and church bells meant Europeans were far more poised to surpass Chinese civilization mechanically, especially in the military sense. The practice of casting big tubes of bronze to make bells made cannons an easy concept to follow. Clockwork made the mechanics of firearms very easy to improve. Another factor is the obsession with exploration to find new trade routes. Europeans were in India by 1500 and conquered Malacca by 1511.

No he wouldn't.

The scale of Zheng He's expedition was enormous and I don't think any country in the Europe could support such an endevour at all, or even the combined economy of Europe might not be able to support such an expedition.

Zheng He's fleet, consisted of about 28K men, 62 Treasure Ships and ~190 support ships (troop, repairs supply, patrols, water tankers. warships) Just one of these treasure ships alone is larger than any European ships of the time. 62 of them would have bankrupted the entire combined European naval capacity. Then there's the 190 other ships. These are all for the expedition. Not a war, but expedition ships.

One of the largest European expedition ever is done by the Spanish around mid-late 16th century and that was with about 60 ships of much smaller caliber. That was around the peak of Spanish navy.

But alas, I get what you're saying. You could theoretically send smaller vessels and smaller expeditions across if they had some sort of support from a decentralized group of merchants/patrons.

China didnt fall behind as much as the Europeans advanced. And china was unwilling to copy european advances.

>And China was unwilling to copy european advances
Man what, the American President was virtually elected on a platform of trying to stop the Chinese from copying American products.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Strengthening_Movement

Conservatives are always the problem, even in a different country with different political system and history.

The progressives have been shut out due to their conservative's stronghold on the traditional ways.

and it acomplished nothing, and that was its whole point

In china all the progressives were enuches that were draining all the money out of china so the nobles took them out of power

Scientific method, industrialization. Now that China is mastering these techniques and processes we'll see China start to dominate again

>Veeky Forums is modern day /pol/

On a separate but related note, how was the Meiji able to successfully westernize so early while the Qing broke up and failed?

Arrogance and reluctance to change were the main reasons. Even China's name means "the empire of the center," and the center of the world.

Smaller "city-states" are much easier to modernize than a large empire like Qing. Mainly because simpler government, simpler political figures, stronger ethnocentric unity, etc.

Qing was a multi-cultural empire. Ethnocentricism was breaking up the empire along the various points of empire.

The willingness of the ruling class.

Qing desperately tried to change in the late 19th century, but the regime was too weak and was overthrown by the KMT.

They got to watch the Qing get raped.

Not to mention that by the 19th century Japan was seen as lacking in resources Europe needed.

At least a part of the cause was that the Americans were more traders and less colonizers.
Finally, foreign intervention and support helped Meiji's forces defeat the traditionalists in Japan. He then instituted a few cultural revolutions that partly de-sinified Japan (this is historical fact).
For a while in the 1880's, some Japanese elites even wanted to abandon the Japanese language for English.

>center of the world

A pop culture meme that is inaccurate. "Middle Kingdom/Empire" was much more accurate. Chinese knew they were not geographically the center nor alone in civilization.

Reading from the Wiki, the meaning changed very often. The name originated in order to differentiate them from nomadic plain tribes, as a state that sit in the middle of the Yellow River valley. Ming dynasty scholars used the name to justify expansionist policies. The May 4th movement presented the meaning of zhonghua as "a people of single culture". Probably a generic 'united from diversity' kind, if I may speculate. Nowadays, China is beginning to interpret the meaning of zhonghua as some kind of national exceptionalism, in order to reconnect the present regime with their past, after turbulent revolutionary times and searching their identity.

It's like trying to win over the heart of an illusive phantom lady, that you think will tell you what you are, and why you're in love with her, but you only end up talking to yourself.

The Jews

This belief is typical Western arrogance and projecting of Eurocentrism onto other cultures. The "zhong" in "zhongguo" means "internal" as in "internal vs foreign" (zhong vs wai). Zhongguo is better understood as "our country" instead of "center country."

>Clocks and church bells

This.

>Conservatives are always the problem, even in a different country with different political system and history.
This so much. No system will endure forever. It will all come down to dust at some point.

Europe used their superior bell forging technology to create better canons. The mediterranean was always ahead in sailing tech. Europe therefore had the best ships and the best canons when global ocean trade became possible.

>when global ocean trade became possible.

the entire reason global ocean trade became possible is because of those European advancements.

>The mediterranean was always ahead in sailing tech
Nah, I'd say they are equal. The Chinese military naval ship technology seems quite advanced if not more so. Especially in the weapons/utility/scale/diversity(form factor) factor.

There are mid 14th century contemporaries like Ibn Battuta who describe what the Song/Chinese ship building capabilities are like in great details. Needless to say, Chinese naval capabilities completely dwarf anything on Europe/Mediterranean of its time.

Not to mention technologies like controlled flooding, compartmentalized sections, steering rudders, etc

Yep. Their kanji was a great leap forward, that held them back for thousands of years.

ya, no

Maybe china stagnated because it was a literal blob in the middle of extremely weak neighbors (they underestimated the mongols and the manchus tho), meanwhile in europe people needed to fight their neighbors every now and then just to prove who did stuff best like religion, nationalism, industry, trade.

>clocks and bells
Got any source on that, because that is pretty fucking cool.

>implying
Look up Indian Ocean trade.
Euros were like the autistic children upset that all the other children are getting along and playing nicely with one another

The Qing conquest theory suggests that the effects of the Manchu conuqest of the Ming including suppressing scholars that disagreed with neoconfucian thought, reinstating serfdom, cutting off foreign trade, all the deaths resulting from the conquest etc. caused it.

>And china was unwilling to copy european advances.
The Ming dynasty loved European advances, they allowed European missionaries in in exchange for learning how to build better cannons and shit from them.

Except that the meaning of Zhongguo is various. It referred to anything from "we are the country at the center of the world" to "the central states within the empire ruled by the Zhou"

Overseas empire

m.youtube.com/watch?v=wnqS7G3LmMo

>sociological explanations for the great divergence

China invented china and basically sat back and made money off of that rather than advance

This is the prime example of completely retarded junior high answer

To a question "Why did Europe win over China?"
you basically responded "Europeans got better technology and beat China in a war"

I know you probably won't read this, but for fucks sake, can you people think for a second

whats wrong with that answer?

>ctrl+f
>capitalism
>0 results

>ctrl+f
>feudalism
>0 results

Literally too smart to post on this board.

>Europeans were in India by 1500
They wouldn't have any relevant power until centuries later.

Uhm...

OP asked for reason how did China become shit.
You didn't describe the process of how and for what reasons China became shit.
You named the two events that were at the end of the process.

Thats like saying "Why did Glorious revolution happen?" and answering "Cromwell became dictator" or (what will probably be more up your alley) saying that American revolution happened because of Boston tea party

OP wanted to know why exactly Europeans had gotten better technology. Why did the Industrial Revolution first ocurr in Europe?

some things never change

see

>For a while in the 1880's, some Japanese elites even wanted to abandon the Japanese language for English.
>Somewhere there's a timeline where those guys got to implement their idea, and modern Japan is essentially an anglo country culture-wise
I wonder how anime would change in this timeline?

China hadn't been feudal since the Zhou dynasty, 2000 years earlier. It was an meritocratic central bureaucracy.

Ghengis Khan fucked china right up, and his descendants did the same to Persia. This is why Europe was able to rise to greater power

Mongol conquest of western Europe gave guns/cannon to the Europeans, which became a net positive or net zero balance.

Mongol conquest of China was a net loss as it caused untold destruction across the whole area.

This is what I said, yes