Although industrialization was not erected on a Chinese foundation, the locomotive of European, that is British industrialization was to significant degrees founded on processes that indeed reached back to the many Chinese inventions which had been pioneered between 700 and 2300 years earlier.

For example the ‘first’ iron bridge in England's Coalbrookdale in 1779, glosses over the fact that there were thousands of iron suspension bridges in China a millennium earlier. The first wrought iron suspension bridge actually appeared in China Chingtung in Yunnan/ as early as 65 CE, and iron chain suspension bridges appeared later over the Chin-sha River between 580 and 618 CE.

Another sign of Western industrial ingenuity we are told was the 'first' appearance of a street gaslamp system in 1798. Again, this glosses over the point that the Chinese had been utilising natural gas for lighting purposes for some two millennia before the advent of the British 'innovation'.

The British drill-bit is also held up as a triumph, given that it could reach depths of some 200 feet. But these depths were dwarfed by the drill-bits that were deployed in deep Chinese mines that reached down somewhere between 3000 to 4800 feet. In fact the Chinese were deploying long drill-bits as early as the first century BCE. It was not until as late as the nineteenth century that the West caught up. Indeed, Drake built an oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859 directly using Chinese cable methods, the modern oil industry is founded on Oriental techniques nineteen hundred years in advance of the West.

Also the invention of ships with bulkheads and watertight compartments, attributed to the genius of Sir Samuel Bentham, but as highlighted by Gavin Menzies “1421” (although he makes exaggerated and incorrect claims) detail the much earlier shipbuilding skills of the Chinese.

It would seem fair to say that the British iron/steel and cotton industries were significant not just for their lateness but also for their derivative quality. The success of the British here lay not in their originality, but in their problem-solving tenacity to work and refine the inventions of others. This in spite of the fact the West accused the 'East' as doing the same later.

Indeed, we are typically told that it was the Briton, James Brindley, 'who was to become the greatest of the canal engineers and whose mechanical ingenuity was applied to the problem of building a canal. Yet canal construction with pound-locks was a major feature of the Sung economic miracle and was invented in 984 just under eight hun­dred years earlier. Moreover, the 6,000 km of canal built in Britain between 1750 and 1858 paled into virtual insignificance when com­pared to the 50,000 km constructed during the Sung some seven hun­dred years earlier. And these hosted far more numerous Chinese ships that dwarfed the tiny, eccentric barges, which were propelled very slowly by horse along the narrow British canals.

In the eleventh century private Chinese boats plying the Grand Canal could carry up to just over 110 tons (which exceeded the maximum displacement load of Columbus's flagship, the Nina). And by the late nineteenth century, Chinese canal ships could carry about 140 tons (about three times the load. As late as 1788 British iron production levels were still lower than those achieved in China in 1078. And it would only be around the turn of the nineteenth century that the British would be able to match the low prices of the eleventh-century Chinese product.

Indeed, despite our imagery of iron and steel ships, the fact is that on the eve of the Great Exhibition in 1851, 90 per cent of Britain's ships were made of wood. It was only after 1852 that steel became cheap enough for the British to manufacture it in large quantities. And this was enabled by the creation of the Bessemer converter which, was influenced by Chinese expertise.

However cultural conversion and containment of the East through the imperialism of free trade was manifest in a number of ways. First, there was the imposition of the unequal treaties, granted' to many 'non-Western' countries including Brazil (1810, China (1842-1858), Japan (1858), Siam (1824-1855), Persia (1836, 1857), and the Ottoman empire (1838, 1861).

These treaties stripped the country of tariff autonomy and generally limited tariffs to a maximum of 5 per cent. However during the so-called free trade era of the mid-nineteenth century, European states were subject to 'reciprocity treaties' that were freely negotiated between 'contracting partners'. This contrasted with the 'open door' treaties that were imposed upon the East (mainly those countries in Division Two). Moreover, British indifference to spreading free trade across Europe contrasted starkly with its forceful imposition of free trade in the 'non-European' world. And more generally, Britain's passive military posture vis-a-vis Continental Europe after 1815 contrasted strikingly with Britain's frequent recourse to violence in the East And  second, while the European economies industrialised through tariff protectionism , Britain enjoyed an average tariff of no less than 32 per cent between 1700 and 1850 - the Eastern economies were forced to move straight to free trade or near free trade. This served to contain their economies because it denied them the chance of building up their infant industries.

It is especially important to note here that the imposition of the unequal treaties was not based on a purely economic rationale but was also a more general means by which the British tried to impose cultural conversion.

But arguably the more offensive aspect of the unequal treaties lay with their general affront to Eastern sovereignty and cultural autonomy. Let us take China as an example. The Opium wars and subsequent imposed treaties proved to be a wedge to open China up to Britain's cultural assault on There were three basic aspects to the negative cultural and political impact of British imperialism in China. First, through the unequal treaties the Chinese that time were fundamentally assaulted by the enforcement at gunpoint of 'extraterritoriality' the notion that all foreign residents, not just foreign diplomats, might live in China but would be subject only to their own Western laws. To this end a number of 'concessions' were established (i.e. areas of land designated for foreigners who were subject to British law). This was justified through Western international law because China was assessed as uncivilised and was, therefore, deemed to be non-sovereign. This was also enforced against the Ottoman empire, Thailand and many other countries, on the basis that they too failed to pass the 'civilisation test'.

The unequal treaties forced the Chinese into accepting foreign administration of key bureaucratic agencies such as the postal services, maritime customs and taxing agencies (e.g. the gabelle or salt tax). The British take over of the imperial Maritime Customs, in 1863 Robert Hart became head of the IMC. Clearly, the inability of the Chinese government to set its own foreign trade policy constituted a major affront to its autonomy.

As for the abolition of the “kowtow” having nothing to do with economics, its effect was to shatter the social/normative structure upon which Chinese society had been founded. As prior to the nineteenth century China had developed its own ‘standard of civilisation', which was based on the ‘kowtow’. It therefore constituted a humiliation as China’s international and domestic system of legitimacy, was effectively shattered. But cultural humiliation was effected also in other ways, for example the British erected signs outside the recreation ground in Shanghai (now Huangpu Park) stating: “No dogs or Chinese allowed”. One can only imagine how the British would have reacted had the Chinese taken over St James's Park (just down the road from Buckingham Palace) only to erect signs stating: “No dogs or Britons allowed”.

A second imperial containment strategy that was entwined with that of cultural conversion involved the imposition of free trade as a means to de-industrialise various colonial economies. The third double standard, for while the policy of free trade was sold as helping or civilising the colonies, its effect was to promote the British economy at the expense of the Eastern economies. One notable example here was the undermining, or the deindustrialisation, of the Indian economy. Thus having been reliant on Indian cotton manufactures in the seventeenth century, the British government responded by placing heavy tariffs on Indian imports in the early eighteenth century. Later on, in the nineteenth century, the British ensured that the Indian market went unprotected (i.e. by imposing Indian free trade). Having held the Indian cotton manufacturing system down with one boot (through very high British tariffs), the other boot kicked British manufactures into India unimpeded. Kicking away the ladder by which one has climbed up, in order to deprive others, was the secret of the cosmopolitical doctrine of Adam Smith and the British government. Successive British governments however did little to promote or maintain European free trade it was only outside Europe where the British imposed free trade.

So while in the seventeenth century the British economy was a net importer of Indian textiles, by 1815 Britain exported approximately 250 million yards of cotton worth about £40 million, while by 1874 it exported 3.5 billion yards worth about 1190 million.

By 1873, 40-45 per cent of all British cotton textile exports went to India. Thus having once exported cotton manufactures to Britain, by the mid-nineteenth century India had been transformed into a raw cotton supplier for the Lancashire industry, which in turn exported the finished product back to India. In short, the social cost of the advancement of the British textiles industry was the de-industrialisation of the Indian industry.

As one nineteenth-century British voice explained:

Had not such prohibitory duties and decrees existed, the mills of Paisley and of Manchester would have been stopped ... They were created by the sacrifice of the Indian manufacturer ... The foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms.  Much the same story applied to the iron industry (during the nineteenth century), in which the Indian economy had been one of the world’s foremost producers. As Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, having noted the superiority of Indian industrial development before Britain’s imperial take over, wryly notes: with an exactness rare in history, India’s industrial debacle [deindustrialisation] coincided with the establishment of British rule or hegemony ... The potential competition of its [India’s] economy could be stifled. No single episode was more decisive in shifting the balance of the world’s resources than this shift in the sources of their [British] control.  And as Friedrich List pointed out, this ‘free’ trading relationship between Britain and India ultimately constituted one of ‘unequal exchange’ in that it condemned the latter to rely on an agricultural/raw materials stage of production, thereby undermining its industrial developmental prospects. The ultimate expression of Britain’s implicit racist attitude lay with the commodification of Black labour through slavery. Negro slavery and Africans more generally enabled British industrialisation in at least seven major ways. The first contribution lay in the profits that accrued from the slave trade. Stanley Engerman and Roger Anstey discounted this by claiming that slave trade profits were extremely small A second African contribution lay in the reinvested profits generated by British plantation owners’ exploitation of Black labour in the Americas. After 1750 many Black slave plantations were owned by absentee British landlords. This meant that the substantial profits derived from colonial trade exports found a direct outlet into British A third African contribution lay in the fact that in 1801, for example, net British export revenues supported about half of the non agricultural workforce of England and Wales.  That about 60 per cent of this trade was with the American slave-based region and Africa at for example, a special contribution of Negro slavery to British Industrialisation lay with the Atlantic colonial supply of raw materials.

The slave trade and slave-produced output contributed massively to the stimulation of British finance. Both Barclays Bank and Lloyds Bank grew up on some of the profits (as did other smaller banks). The slave trade and slave-produced output contributed massively to the stimulation of British finance. Both Barclays Bank and Lloyds Bank grew up on some of the profits (as did other smaller banks). Finally, a seventh African contribution lay in the fact that the triangular trading system provided not just large profits but also a huge demand for British exports in the absence of which British Industrialisation would have been significantly constrained. While these markets were important for a whole range of industries, they were it was, then, a system involving large transfers of manpower, quite on a par statistically with Atlantic slavery, and reproducing many of its features. Mortality on long voyages to the West Indies was appalling, and plantation conditions were frightful. The British, however, persisted in persuading themselves ... that it was an acceptable system - it was defended as necessary, and not ‘uncivilised’ like slavery. As a result, it was Indian labour which created much of the overseas wealth of the empire by exploiting the raw materials of the tropics.

Similarly, many of the economies of the East were commodified and reorganised in order to produce primary products and raw materials to service the needs of British industrialisation. And again this was imagined to be a civilising process. Noteworthy here is that the British were desperate to overcome the long-held trade deficit with the Chinese which had ensured the consistent draining of bullion from Britain. One way in which this was achieved was through creating new sources of tea supply. To this end, parts of India were ‘reorganised’ to grow tea.  While in 1850 the British had relied for all their tea supplies from China, within only fifty years they were importing 85 per cent of it from India. But the most important weapon which enabled the British to reverse their trade deficit was the exporting of opium into China. Having relied on Turkish opium since the late eighteenth century, the British then reorganised parts of India as a source of opium supply. This was especially useful, given that the Chinese consumer preferred Indian to Turkish opium.

By 1828 Indian opium comprised 55 per cent of all British exports into China (even though the Chinese state had officially banned its consumption). And when Commissioner Lin understandably tried to curtail the drug trade in 1839, the British used this as a pretext for the Opium wars. In these perfidious ways the British came to reverse their historic trade deficit with China. For the fact is that only by drug-pushing in China (backed up by British military power) and drinking Indian tea in England could the draining of bullion into China be reversed.

But as far as the colonies were concerned the net effect of all this was not so much the successful conversion of their economies ‘up to the level’ of British civilisation, but rather their containment.

The colonies remained predominantly agricultural. They were to support, but not to compete with, Europe’s industrial system by supplying foodstuffs and raw materials and providing markets for manufactured goods.
And it condemned the colonial producers to an agricultural or primary product/raw materials stage of production that precluded a shift to industrialisation.

So despite the degenerative economic impact that imperialism imposed upon the empire, the cultural impact was often far more disturbing. I touched on the dehumanising treatment of the Black African.. I also briefly discussed the negative cultural impact of British imperialism in relation to China above.

A poignant example lies with the Australian case, where the Aborigines faced a full cultural and existential assault after White settlement commenced in 1788.

Compelling evidence suggests that in Tasmania the “final solution” was exercised. Not surprisingly, the Aborigines came to view James Cook’s landing in Australia in 1788 not as a glorious settlement or pioneering discovery that should be celebrated every year on Australia Day, but as an invasion pure and simple. Nevertheless, many more lives were lost through the impact of imported European diseases. Strikingly, after one hundred years of White settlement, the Aboriginal death rate stood somewhere between 80 and 90 per cent, a figure which compares with the indigenous American death rate after one hundred years of Spanish settlement. And some Australian writers have applied the term ‘holocaust’ to characterise the Aboriginal experience.

Even so,the emergent racist ideology of the British saw this as entirely natural and appropriate. For in the words of Edward Curr, superintendent of the Van Diemen’s Land Company, “it is in the order of nature that, as civilization advances, savage nations must be exterminated”.

The question is also, how free trading were European states during their industrialisation phase?  European trade policy was striking only for the predominance of protectionism over free trade. This policy ran from the seventeenth century right into the second half of the twentieth century. Significantly, the British state levied average tariffs of no less than 32 per cent between 1700 and 1846. Moreover, average industrial tariffs for Europe stood at 19 per cent in 1820, 10 per cent in 1875 and 19 per cent in 1913. No less importantly, the mid-nineteenth-century ‘free trade era’ was in fact the exception that proves the protectionist rule.

Here we see that the 1860-1877/9 era was marked by moderate protectionism, not free trade. Moreover, if we take the 1846-1877/9 period as representing the European era of free trade (as do many historians), then the average tariff would be nearer 20 per cent.

By way of comparison, such a figure would equate with that of the American Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which is usually described in the literature as one of the most protectionist acts of legislation ever passed. It is also interesting to note that between 1600 and 1900, ‘freer trade’ was achieved in Europe for only 6 per cent of the time. No less interesting is that throughout this period Europe never

Eurocentrism typically extrapolates backwards the modern conception of political democracy all the way to Ancient Greece.  It then fabricates a permanent picture of Western democracy by tracing this conception forwards to Magna Carta in England (1215), then to England’s Glorious Revolution (1688/9), and then on to the American Constitution (1787/9) and the French Revolution (1789). In this way, Europe and the West is (re)presented as democratic, yet no Western state was democratic before the twentieth century.

Most Western states only brought in male political citizenship rights as late as the early twentieth century and, in many cases, universal suffrage was brought in only as late as the mid-twentieth century.  Note that the countries are displayed in descending order, with Norway being the first to achieve universal suffrage, the USA as well as Portugal and Switzerland the last. The data are striking only for the low levels of enfranchisement that were achieved even as late as the turn of the twentieth century.

Thus in 1900 only 14 per cent of the whole Austrian population (over the age of twenty) were enfranchised, while in Germany in 1912, the figure stood at 39 per cent. Surprisingly, compared to Germany, the situation was even worse for most of the European liberal states. In 1900 or later, the percentage of the adult population that was enfranchised stood at Belgium in 1900, 4 per cent; Italy in 1909, 15 per cent; Sweden in 1908, 16 per cent; Britain in 1910, 29 per cent; Denmark in 1913, 30 per cent; Norway in 1906, 35 per cent; Switzerland, as late as 1967, only 38 per cent; and France as late as 1940 only 40 per cent. 19 The only liberal state that outpaced Germany was The Netherlands, which by 1901 had 52 per cent of the population enfranchised. Moreover, only seven of the fourteen countries mentioned here brought in male suffrage in the nineteenth century and none brought in universal suffrage.

More generally, in all the Western countries that brought in male suffrage in the nineteenth century, a whole raft of distortions or blockages ensured that democracy remained a fiction. These included open balloting - which led to vote-buying - as well as widespread electoral fraud (note that the secret ballot only came in during the twentieth century).

Although Britain introduced the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act in 1883 this had little real impact in stemming such electoral corruption (which remained a problem well into the twentieth century, and this counts also for the United States.

Although the Fifteenth Amendment gave Blacks the vote in 1870, it was subsequently revoked in the Southern states in 1890. Moreover, a whole raft of obstacles remained in place across the country that effectively militated against the Amendment in practice. These included various formal obstacles such as problems of literacy and arbitrary ‘character’ requirements as well as informal obstacles, most notably the threat of violence against the Black minority who actually turned up to vote. These obstacles would only be overturned as late as 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed. It is also important to note that the huge cost of elections only generated further distortions that mitigated democracy in practice.

With such ‘expensive’ elections, it was no big surprise that elected officials were corrupt. In the late nineteenth century, legislative corruption in the USA, especially in state assemblies, got so bad that the future US president Theodore Roosevelt lamented that the New York assemblymen, who engaged in open selling of votes to lobbying groups.

Notable too is that the US was one of the very last of the Western countries to embrace political democracy. Thus it is clear that even as late as 1900 genuine political democracy in the West remained a fiction.

And although one of the central claims is that Eastern states were far more rational and growth-enabling than the Eurocentric theory of oriental despotism suggests. Western states have been far less rational and democratic during the period of the breakthrough than has been supposed by Eurocentrism. This necessarily falsifies the claim that the East and West have been separated by a civilisational Great Divide. And in turn, this conclusion necessarily robs Eurocentrism of its principal explanation of the rise of the West. The fundamental issue now at stake, therefore, concerns locating a more appropriate question with which to begin our analysis of the rise of the West, and which in turn requires the development of a more appropriate answer.

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