China as a nation dealt with 'change' in the form of white men on awesome ships with awesome guns coming and having their way for 100 years.
Going from their nadir in WWII to what they are now in 70 years seems awfully adaptable to me.
Going from their nadir in WWII to what they are now in 70 years seems awfully adaptable to me.
By 1700, and certainly by 1800, Europe's interest in science, which then led to developments in advances in technology. This technology is what allowed the "white men on awesome ships with awesome guns" to have their way.
Perhaps if China was so top-down they could have also developed themselves more.
Toby Huff examines this disparity in his books Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution. A Global Perspective and The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West. The telescope was embraced in the West, but hardly used (except with a few isolate individuals) in the other major cultures in the 1600s.
The time period you describe includes multiple massive european wars between nation states who were incentivized to improve industrialization, logistics and yes technology.
China's periodic bloody uprisings don't create the same incentive, they basically didn't have foreign policy until it came knocking.