In earlier times, China had much bigger and stronger walls. That may have lowered the rate of return on investing in guns.

From *The Gunpowder Age* by Tyler Cowen. History is a densely multi-causal outcome of complex non-linear systems. It is interesting in its own right and interesting as a multidimensional exercise in mystery and investigation. There is no absolutist answer to any historical question, only balances of evidence and probabilities that are always subject to new evidence, new interpretation, or both.

Cowen is listing items he learned from China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade. One of the enduring mysteries about China is the frequency with which it is the first instance of a scientific discovery or technological development but which is then abandoned in China only to be exploited by others later. One common example is that of guns and gunpowder. Some of the items Cowen cites from Andrade's book are:

1. The “competing states” argument for the rise of Europe is in some ways overvalued, as it neglects some critical time periods of competition across states in Chinese history.

2. Walls and guns co-evolved, in both China and Europe. And in earlier times, China had much bigger and stronger walls. That may have lowered the rate of return on investing in guns.

3. By 1510 or 1520, European guns already were better than Chinese guns. But through the following centuries, the Chinese were more aware of the need to catch up than is often realized.

4. Guns and gunpowder co-evolved, and when it comes to gunpowder some historians argue Europe had a second-mover advantage. Yet the exact source of European superiority in this regard is murky.

5. Korea developed one of the most effective musket-based armies of the seventeenth century.

6. The British development of “cylinder powder” in the late eighteenth century was a major advance over Chinese techniques at the time, and represented a final and decisive relative advance for the West.