China Industrialize?

0. Divide starts during the industrial revolution. That is what makes countries poor, and countries rich. Explaining the industrial revolution, and how steam power was adopted gets complicated
0a. precursor to steam power/industrialization requires metallurgy, easy access to fuel (surface level coal), a urban society, an elite focused on empiricism, a demand for labor

1. Development of glass in Europe. Porcelain was used in China.
2. Literacy (Chinese characters would never allowed a printing press -- > China achieves 50% literacy by 1900 for Christ's sake)
3. Francis Bacon and Empiricism was revolutionary. Basically threw all ancient theology in the trash, put logic on the back burner, and said, observations are supreme
4. China's large population proved a barrier to mechanization ~~ and slavery.
5. China's Ming Dynasty was lazy