If China Industrialized First

kernals12

Banned
The question of why China did not industrialize is one that has vexed historians for a long time, and I'm not going to go over that debate. One thing that fascinates me is how powerful China could've been if they had industrialized first. Since they have 20% of the World's Population, assuming they raise their GDP per capita to 3 times the global average, they would control a whopping 42% of the world's output. With that kind of dominance, how much power would they project? Would they conquer all of Asia and perhaps extract lots of unequal treaties from Europe?
 
A consideration is that if China industrialised earlier, they would almost inevitably hit the demographic transition earlier. So they would probably be less than 20% of the world's population, though still much wealthier per capita.
 
China was generally less expansionist than Europe. Despite claiming to have the divine right to rule the world, the Chinese were fairly isolationist even when they were more advanced than the rest of the world. While this would likely have to decrease TTL, the Chinese would be unlikely to attack Europe the way Europe attacked them OTL.

China ruled much of Asia through puppets and "Regional Proxy Empires", states which have enough autonomy to expand, and have their own Spheres of influence, but are ultimately tributary states of China (common in Southeast Asia, for example, the Burmese Empire). China would likely be a mostly land-based empire, like OTL, since it was surrounded by less advanced states (the difference would only be magnified TTL). Northern Vietnam is a likely candidate for conquest, Mongolia (like OTL), further expansion into central Asia is possible. Southeast Asia is the best candidate for Chinese influence. Some control over India is possible, but this rule is likely to be through protectorates. The incorporation of Korea is possible (and was possible OTL), but wouldn't be worth the trouble of conquering a mountainous and rebellious land that they already effectively controlled. Japan would get steamrolled, may or may not be incorporated.

China generally was not a big naval power, or at least not a long-range naval power, so power projection outside of the Pacific and Indian oceans is unlikely. Maybe the Philippines or the Malay archipelago.
 

kernals12

Banned
A consideration is that if China industrialised earlier, they would almost inevitably hit the demographic transition earlier. So they would probably be less than 20% of the world's population, though still much wealthier per capita.
I'm talking in terms of the 19th century, not today.
 
Some potential issues with projecting power outwards:

1) At least late Imperial China has a pretty low tax tradition, which is caught up in a complex web of causal factors - plausible candiates are lack of political representation weakening consent for tax, Confucian ideological factor stressing low tax on peasants (which did not imply emphasis on laissez-faire for merchants or secondary sector producers), and a lack of inter-state competition. Whatever the case that makes it harder to fund expansive militaries than was the case for much of Western Europe, even on a platform of higher incomes from industrialization (which lead people to tolerate higher tax, because its less likely to push them into poverty).

2) Europe had a "tradition" of global, militarized international trading companies well before industrialisation ever got going, and industrial power and industrialised state military fed into this. Colonisation was prior to and independent from industrialisation (and probably had little to nothing to do with why industrialisation happened at all), but it was certainly strengthened by the technological gap that emerges from industrialisation (particularly in the sense of making lots of fairly unprofitable and expensive overreach in colonization more viable, such as was largely the case in the Scramble For Africa). That may not be the case for China.

3) China is going to have unique issues to it as a large unified state - industrialisation is probably gonna exacerbate regional differences, and the unfree limited systems of internal migration present in China are gonna become an issue in combination with that (or else huge migrations to richer and more urbanised regions into which the transatlantic migrations to the USA pales), and this is on top of the sort of ideas underlying Marxism and popular sovereignty that caused lots of revolution in OTL industrial ages, which are probably going to reoccur in some form. So internal social pressures might present another internal constraint. If you have a conquest dynasty like the Qing that's from outside, they may also have some particular issues to them as well to face.

Lots of this is very dependent on when and where you are diverging.
 
Chinas big problem is as far as I know internal control, expanding much beyond what they have now would make that problem worse.
 
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kernals12

Banned
3) China is going to have unique issues to it as a large unified state - industrialisation is probably gonna exacerbate regional differences, and the unfree limited systems of internal migration present in China are gonna become an issue in combination with that (or else huge migrations to richer and more urbanised regions into which the transatlantic migrations to the USA pales), and this is on top of the sort of ideas underlying Marxism and popular sovereignty that caused lots of revolution in OTL industrial ages,
It seems like railroads and steamships would bring the country closer together and make it easier to manage.
 

Marc

Donor
A bit of context: Back in the 19th century some British entrepreneurs proposed to build a railroad that would replace a far slower river transport system in one of the Chinese provinces. The governor asked how many people it would employ, when told it would be in the hundreds, he shook his head and pointed out the current system had many thousands of workers, what were they to do with them afterwards, and how was he going to able to keep the peace? Silence was the answer; and the railroad wasn't built.
The truth is that industrialization, at least the first wave or two, was harsh on the bulk of the people in so many ways. We forget that. We shouldn't.
 
I envision the following as the most plausible borders of an industrial Chinese superpower:
  • Qing borders WRT Mongolia, Manchuria, and Xinjiang. Tibet is optional depending on how recent the POD is; if the Mongols are Tibetan Buddhists then holding it is a must, otherwise it's pretty useless. This will be achieved in the proto-industrialization stage, as was the case IOTL, and seal the nomadic threat forever.
  • Borders that bulge deeply into Mainland Southeast Asia. Depending on how early the POD is, it's possible that the entirety of the inland, including Upper Burma and northern Thailand, could be incorporated into the Chinese administrative system. People forget how empty almost the entirety of Southeast Asia was until the nineteenth century.
  • Optionally Taiwan.
The Chinese Empire will not seek to expand overseas directly, as was always the case IOTL. Control over Mongolia, Manchuria, and Xinjiang are important for national security in the early phases of industrialization, and Mainland Southeast Asia will be brought under imperial administration ex post facto after Chinese immigrants swamp the indigenous Burmese and Thai. Again, as was the case with the Hmong and Zhuang IOTL.

Then we have the Kongsi States, which are empires run by Chinese corporations (kongsi) in the fashion of the Honorable East India Company, the VOC, or the OTL kongsi republics in Borneo. The following regions are especially ripe for kongsi conquest:
  • Most of Island Southeast Asia outside of Java, South Sulawesi, Aceh, and the few other places with sizable native populations. In an industrial China, it's almost a given that the majority population of OTL Indonesia will be Chinese.
  • The Americas, which are too far away for the imperial authorities to curb the abuses of the Kongsi.
  • Much of (commercially viable) Africa, which is again too far away for the authorities and lacking in centralized states.
  • Siberia, for obvious reasons.
  • Australia and Oceania, again for obvious reasons. However, some places like Hawai'i, Tahiti, and Tonga could survive due to a mix of both powerful monarchs who can readily be recognized by China and a lack of Chinese commercial interest.
Finally, a China-centered world order is likely to result in virtually the entire world recognizing the hegemony of whatever form the Chinese government may take, ultimately in return for protection from kongsi aggression. Europe, the Islamic world, and India would be reduced to tributaries; kongsi armies might be allowed to attack the more stubborn kings and sultans and rajas in order to acquire commercial privileges and force them to recognize Chinese domination.

Globally, the Chinese state itself pushes an image as a just adjudicator between kongsi interests and indigenous demands. There is no concept of national sovereignty, all sovereignty being in China, and the world is a far more unipolar one.

Decolonization, if it ever happens, would take the form of the kongsi corporations being dismantled or forced to give up paramilitary forces.
 
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