ade. In Asia only Japan chose the first course, while neither China nor India was given any option but to trade.
Even without the political-economic constraints exerted by the Western powers and Japan, however, China and India might not have industrialized within the period under study. In India low and unstable agricultural productivity and the difficulty of "begin[ning] industrialization by exporting manufactures," rather than developing a home market first, would very likely have militated against it. China had the same problem but, even when there was some opportunity for the development of Chinese enterprise, was also faced with the "absence of an investment climate." In the late nineteenth century, for example, state-sponsored industrial enterprises failed repeatedly in China because of low confidence in Chinese, as opposed to foreign, businesses, the imperial court's refusal to support them, and the lack of officials who "comprehended the enormous complexities of staffing, supplying, and operating these enterprises." The West, of course
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