Why has Japanese industrialisation been so much faster than that of China? The relative economic development of Japan and China from similar nineteenth-century conditions are examined in broad philosophical, social, political and historical perspective. The book challenges a common assumption that Chinese Confucianism does not encourage modernisation, while Japanese Confucianism propelled industrialisation forward. It examines further reasons why Max Weber’s judgement, ‘the Chinese would be probably more capable than the Japanese, of assimilating capitalism’, has not been borne out.