Read "The Problem of China" by Bertrand Russell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
China is as yet only slightly industrialized, but the industrial possibilities of the country are very great, and it may be taken as nearly certain that there will be a rapid development throughout the next few decades. China's future depends as much upon the manner of this development as upon any other single factor; and China's difficulties are very largely connected with the present industrial situation. I will therefore first briefly describe this situation, and then consider the possibilities of the near future.
We may take railways and mines as the foundation of a nation's industrial life. Let us therefore consider first the railways and then the mines, before going on to other matters.