A very interesting (and pretty long) account of the forces behind China's delay in achieving modernity.

It is in need of editing, and in need of more editing the further you get, but the analysis is convincing and pretty clear, and has many curious asides, such as the adventures of young Herbert Hoover in Qing China.

I had a pretty clear idea already why Japan had a Meiji restoration and China didn't have an equivalent, but this text draws the lines further back and makes a better documented case than just "the central administration was too strong and too weak at the same time".

I now have a better understanding of the forces behind the Taiping Rebellion and a better idea of why the CCP praises it. And while I still think the Chinese Revolution in 1911 was a huge mistake, I'm less sure that is was avoidable, or that Japan would have wrecked China any less without it.

Almost every section of the article makes me think a whole bunch of what-ifs.

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/07/why-was-the-20th-century-not-a-chinese-century-an-outtake-from-slouching-towards-utopia-an-economic-history-of-the-long.html

https://identi.ca/glynmoody/note/zn2a3KTVQg-F-uRjbq_Xdw