Global Consequences of a Chinese Industrial Revolution

The Song dynasty in China developed many of the major social and technical innovations we associate with industrialization - paper currency, gunpowder, movable type printing, etc. However, the Song ultimately got stomped in by various northern barbarians, and any nascent industrial revolution that may have existed ultimately failed to take off.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Song were capable of industrializing, and that they do so while holding off the Mongols, Khitan, etc, what are the long term consequences for the world?

My questions are basically twofold:

What does an absolutely economically and militarily dominating "Chinese Empire" (as it would be unbelievably dominant if it was the center of the industrial revolution) look like? It might be checked by some neighbors adopting similar technologies (e.g. Japan), but for example China could easily stretch its tendrils down to Australia or up to Alaska. Would it? Historically China hasn't had much interest in that kind of conquest because it's such a huge, rich, populous, well-educated country and its neighbors mostly sucked in comparison, though industrialization could change the calculus.

Secondly, what are the consequences for European empires? A Song industrial revolution would leave the Song dynasty in a position of enormous technological superiority assuming it goes anything like our own very early, historically speaking. Prevailing currents and disease give Europeans a leg up on native Americans, but will those sorts of empires still manifest in such a world? Would a scramble for Africa occur? Conquest of India?
 
The Song had many of the ingredients of industrialization, but imo it was missing many aspects of the British industrial revolution. For starters it had no grounding in the scientific method. China was strong on applied engineering, weak on basic science. They didn’t get a copy of Euclid’s Elements until the early 17th century. It was also well behind 18th century England in banking and financial institutions whose investments made industrialization possible. If you look at the South Seas Bubble it was every bit as sophisticated as the financial crisis of 2008.

Finally the third factor, competition. England knew it was not the center of the world. It was extremely insecure and the state was heavily engaged in national competition with Spain and France. This led to state directed initiatives like the founding of colonies, intellectual property laws, royal charters to support research institutions like the Royal Society, free education to raise literacy and numeralcy among the general public. Shakespeare was the son of a glovemaker and given a first rate education free of charge. The government was acting like a modern state with modern goals, which Song China was not.

Thus Song industrialization, where it to happen would manifest itself in very different ways. It would be a society where textiles are spun by massive water powered mills, the streets are lit at night with kerosene lights supplied by petroleum refiners, it’s teeming cities connected with Macadam roads, and it’s northern frontiers and coastal ports defended by ingenious cannon forts. But it would also be an autarkic society ignorant and incurious about the world far from it’s shores. Perhaps by some strange luck its merchants may have created daughter colonies in Southeast Asia and Australia, but that would be the extremes of how far it could go.
 
Last edited:
Thus Song industrialization, where it to happen would manifest itself in very different ways. It would be a society where textiles are spun by massive water powered mills, the streets are lit at night with kerosene lights supplied by petroleum refiners, it’s teeming cities connected with Macadam roads, and it’s northern frontiers and coastal ports defended by ingenious cannon forts. But it would also be an autarkic society ignorant and incurious about the world far from it’s shores. Perhaps by some strange luck its merchants may have created daughter colonies in Southeast Asia and Australia, but that would be the extremes of how far it could go.
I was thinking about potential routes of Song expansion, and I think I generally agree that they wouldn't have much interest in forming a European-style massive colonial empire. It's very possible that with industrialization starting in, say, 1200, by 1300-1400 China contains half the global population, and China's general view that the outside world has little to offer would only become entrenched as it industrializes.

However, historically Chinese expansionism (at least, after consolidation of the imperial core) was mostly north and west - attempted expansion into Korea and Vietnam was tenuous and ultimately failed, whereas China today controls Manchuria, east Turkestan, Tibet, etc, and only really lost Mongolia by total state collapse. There's also a reason to push north and west, namely preventing and undermining the raiders that constantly appeared on their northern and western borders. An industrial China is also likely to have a glut of people that could be sent to colonize and settle these regions, and Sinicization has at times been used as Chinese policy for national defense. What do you think of the possibility of a Chinese empire that pushes north towards Bering Strait, rather than one that tries to move southward into the Philippines and Indonesia?
 
I was thinking about potential routes of Song expansion, and I think I generally agree that they wouldn't have much interest in forming a European-style massive colonial empire. It's very possible that with industrialization starting in, say, 1200, by 1300-1400 China contains half the global population, and China's general view that the outside world has little to offer would only become entrenched as it industrializes.

However, historically Chinese expansionism (at least, after consolidation of the imperial core) was mostly north and west - attempted expansion into Korea and Vietnam was tenuous and ultimately failed, whereas China today controls Manchuria, east Turkestan, Tibet, etc, and only really lost Mongolia by total state collapse. There's also a reason to push north and west, namely preventing and undermining the raiders that constantly appeared on their northern and western borders. An industrial China is also likely to have a glut of people that could be sent to colonize and settle these regions, and Sinicization has at times been used as Chinese policy for national defense. What do you think of the possibility of a Chinese empire that pushes north towards Bering Strait, rather than one that tries to move southward into the Philippines and Indonesia?

The Song had lost northern China to the Jurchens by 1200 and its population had already began it’s collapse from 120 million toward 60 million, the greatest population loss in history. Global population was 400 million in the 14th century so I don’t see how it’s remotely possible
China would grow to half the world’s population.

I’m not sure what you expect a 13th century industrialization to look like but I don’t think it would be anything like 18th century British industrialization. At best Song invents the arquebus and interchangable parts machining to mass produce them. They would then be able to defeat the Jurchen and retake north China. From there a very ambitious state might try to reconstitute the territory of the Tang dynasty as that wasn’t too long ago.

Expanding towards the Bering Strait is borderline impossible. There is no economic incentive to make that worthwhile. Colonies in Southeast Asia are more likely as they were trading with Srivijaya and well aware of its riches. But these would not likely be state backed. With the Jurchen and steppe nomads checked by a powerful gunpowder army, the empire face no external threat or peer competition that require establishing overseas colonies.
 
No Fall of Song means Islam expands sooner than OTL..since Majapahit was basically created by the actions of Yuan.
 
What does an absolutely economically and militarily dominating "Chinese Empire" (as it would be unbelievably dominant if it was the center of the industrial revolution) look like?
It doesn't necessary follow that "China" - that is, the imperial state of the Song Dynasty - would be militarily dominant. Industry and government don't work hand-in-hand. Just look at the history of the British Empire: much of its expansion around the world was caused by private individuals and organizations, often against the wishes of Parliament. It may be that industrialization would make it easier for warlords to rebel against imperial authority, thus weakening China as a whole.
 
Assuming this is even possible (in the spirit of the thread), really what this touches on is, I guess, what would industrialisation look like in a world with:

Far lower world population pressure
Far less globalisation through maritime empires
Far less developed science (Song China and 18th century Europe is no contest as far as I know),
Probably a lower base of income per head
A Chinese government/social model - broadly, low constitutional constraints to government, low representation principle, low tax and low funding for government, a pro-producer, pro-landlord and anti-military, anti-trade bias, yet high recruitment of talent into government, high bureaucratic tradition and a strong national consciousness.

I'll spitball a few ideas (might be off base and very up for debate) in the spirit of that:

I would perhaps tend to assume that an industrialising Song might have a much more "slow burn" of industrialisation with lower growth rates, as the stock of science and technologies that can feed into industrialization is lower, and the total world population (potential minds to produce ideas) is much less at the time of the Song than in the 18th century. All the changes associated with our industrial revolutions might happen at a slower pace (compare how changes were much slower initially in the early industrialisers to the late 20th century catch up economies, and make slower again).

If China industrializes before it establishes global empires, you might not see too much in the way of settler colonies. Rather than increasing population, if they follow a curve like ours as industrialisation tends to lead to demographic stabilisation after first population increase from improving mortality. You see settlement driven by population pressure combined with prospects improved quality of life - settling farmland away from the core when many people are fairly Malthusian farmers. After lots of industrialisation that incentive is less pronounced.

I think even in the absence of pre-existing global empire, you would inevitably see China reach outwards as transport costs decrease from using powered ships and to meet energy import needs. Whether Chinese power increases faster than diffusion of technologies is another question though!

In our world there's no really much lag from industrialisation to diffusion of technologies considered in the grand scheme, and European empires are fairly short lived post-industrialisation in the long sequence, and industrialisation does not look to have tended to enhance their prospects. How quickly have places like Japan or China converted with early industrialisers, even starting from a point some have world empires and others don't?

For a China starting from a base of no pre-industrial world empire, I'm not sure it would be more favourable. The model of Chinese government and Confucian ideology doesn't seem to be too favourable to supporting state backed armed trading companies that were the backbone of European colonialism, the context of mercantile competition between European economies. Outward trade and military not high priority under Confucian ideas. So despite technological advantages, traders venturing out might have to work more with local powers to get what they want and trade, which might enhance industrial diffusion or at least inhibit a huge Chinese world empire.

Diffusion of modern firearms would be a huge change in the balance of power between all Eurasian settled states and the steppe.
 
Agree with the above. In the interest of being contrarian I would say population expansion maybe possible if Chinese explorers introduce the sweet potato from Polynesia. The bottleneck in basic science is solvable through extensive exposure to Islamic scholarship. The Song’s anti-merchant and miltary bias is reversible by dynastic change. But the Neoconfucian Southern Song as we know it has a ceiling and a floor not conductive to global dominance.

Also considering the hand cannon spread to Europe within a century of its invention in China via the Mongols, we can expect early invention of the arquebus would go global rather quickly. The hand cannon remains the record holder in trans-Eurasia rapid technology transfer. The spread of arquebus from its invention in Spain to Japan didn’t take much longer either.
 
Last edited:
Top