Quote:
Originally Posted by BenLZ
The Chinese had centuries of political and economic isolation. They sealed themselves off from the rest of the world until the 19th century.
Eh, yes and no. They never really sealed themselves off like Japan did, and as late as 1800, the Qing still ruled over one of the wealthiest states in the world. The net flow of silver in the world still tended to go toward China. In 1700, something like 7 of the 10 most populous cities in the world were all in China. Living standards, food production, and life expectancy were on par with or ahead of Western Europe.
The short answer is industrialization. While both China and Europe (particularly Britain) were facing a timber shortage in the mid-1700s, Britain had easier access to coal as an alternative source of energy (Britain is small and its coal deposits are relatively close to urban centers, whereas China is large and its coal was far from the coast, where the cities were). Also, differences in coal (British mines tend to be wet, while Chinese mines tend to be dry and quite dangerous) favored Britain's utilization of coal fuel at an earlier date.
See Kenneth Pomeranz's
The Great Divergence for a more detailed explanation.