[sed3]

China around 1AD had iron production comparable to England at start of industrial revolution. They were also starting to use mechanization (quote from wiki bellow).

> The effectiveness of the Chinese human and horse powered blast furnaces was enhanced during this period by the engineer Du Shi (c. AD 31), who applied the power of waterwheels to piston-bellows in forging cast iron.

[schmidtleonard]

What stopped an industrial revolution from cooking up in China? Too much labor? Too little coal? Too many wars?

[ajmurmann]

I've heard the argument before that China being very large without serious, nearby rivals created less drive for innovation than Europe with its smaller countries and frequent struggles. There was also more ability to move to a different country if people in your country didn't like what you had to say. Many European thinkers took advantage of this.

[vundercind]

It made no sense to burn expensive coal to power an engine until you run into the problem of needing to drain coal mines, because you already have so much demand for coal that you have started to need to do that.

[hollerith]

One factor is that Northern Europeans made much more intensive use of animal power than the Chinese (or the Greeks of antiquity) ever did. If you are already using oxen or horses to pump water out of your coal mine, it is less of a leap to start using machinery to do it (because you will probably be able to re-use some of your laws, legal precedents and business practices for using the oxen and horses).

The Northern European's close relationship with the cow goes back about 7,000 years. Other cultures relied on cows for a large fraction of their calories, too, but the Northern Europeans were the first farmers to do it. I.e., they weren't nomads.

Once a farming culture gets good at keeping cows for calories, it is a short leap to using male cows (oxen) to help plow fields. And once you are doing that, it is a short leap to using them for transportation.

But more straightforwardly, the Industrial Revolution started when the Scientific Revolution was well underway. The first generation of European steam engines were inefficient, then they used the new science of thermodynamics to design steam engines that were twice as efficient.

[bsder]

Limited sailing.

Sailing and its associated warfare drove technology. China started on that path at roughly the same time as everybody else and then pulled back for various reasons.

Note that a lot of the industrial revolution was using clockmakers. Why do you need super accurate clocks? Navigation and ... that's pretty much it. And why do you need navigation? Naval warfare.

[izend]

The Han Dynasty peaked around 1AD and fell into decline as there were weak Emperors (usually extremely young) and eventually collapsed in terrible internal conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_Han_dynasty

[rhelz]

Did china have a ready supply of clock and watchmakers?

[WalterBright]

Lack of free markets.

[z3t4]

Timing is very important. The market was not ready. Doh.

[sed3]

Too many wars, sort of. History book I read explained that as a wrong division of power. Increased iron production failed to increase military strength.

Class that valued industrial production, looked down on warfare as something beneath them.

And warlords preferred feudal society of peasants to squeeze. Industry would threaten them.