China and the USA's 1890s Divergence | Generated by AI
Let me search for more context about the technological and economic differences between China and the USA in the 1890s.Excellent question. This is really the heart of understanding why Li Hongzhang was so impressed—and why his visit to New York was so symbolically important. There’s a massive gap in what happened to China versus the West during the 1800s.
The Economic Divergence
By the late 1700s, China and the West were roughly equal. In 1700, China and India were the world’s biggest single-entity economies due to their massive populations, but from 1820-1950, China’s GDP growth rates remained essentially flat, while that of the USA took off spectacularly. This is the crucial moment where everything changed.
By the 19th century, a Great Divergence became apparent, pushed by the Industrial and Technological Revolutions in the West. The Industrial Revolution transformed Western economies fundamentally, but China missed this wave entirely.
Why China Didn’t Industrialize
The Qing dynasty’s economy development did not keep pace with European countries’ economies during the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, which Li Hongzhang himself described as “the biggest change in more than three thousand years”. This is literally what Li Hongzhang was witnessing when he saw New York’s skyscrapers.
The reasons were complex. The Qing state was slower in reforming its educational system—Meiji Japan’s new educational system was established in 1868, but comparable Qing education reforms didn’t come until 1902. Similarly, Tokyo University was founded in 1877, while Beijing’s Imperial University didn’t exist until 1898. China was simply falling behind in the race to modernize.
The Technology Gap
The gap wasn’t about Chinese people being less capable. Historically, China was one of Asia’s most advanced economies in the 18th century during a boom brought on by long period of stability under the Qing dynasty. China had invented gunpowder, printing, and the compass centuries earlier.
But by the 1890s, the USA had steel factories, railroads, and the technology to build towering skyscrapers like those Li Hongzhang saw in New York. China still had a largely agrarian economy with some military arsenals trying to catch up. The Qing Empire attempted the Self-Strengthening Movement between the 1860s and 1890s, seeking to foster industrial development by importing Western technology and scientific knowledge, but these efforts came too late and faced structural obstacles.
The Political Reality
Part of the problem was that while the Qing government tried to import technology, it didn’t fundamentally restructure society or education. The Qing dynasty government did not pay attention to peasants—they focused on industrialization in cities only, which made a few merchants very rich while the majority of the nation remained in poverty.
So when Li Hongzhang arrived in New York in 1896, he was witnessing a civilization that had already undergone its Industrial Revolution and was building steel-frame skyscrapers, while China remained predominantly agricultural. That must have been shocking—and he understood exactly what it meant for China’s future power and vulnerability. His famous phrase about “the biggest change in more than three thousand years” captured his realization of how fundamentally the world had shifted.