Sorry, but your submission has been removed because we don't allow hypothetical questions. If possible, please feel free to rephrase the question so that it does not call for such speculation, and resubmit Otherwise, this sort of thing is better suited for /r/HistoryWhatIf.

It wasn't just the fact that England had coal that propelled them into the fore, it was they they had coal and they were competing with a bunch of others nations around them for territory and power. England had to compete with France and the Netherlands and Spain and Portugal for supremacy in Europe and in the developing New World. Combine that competition with their plentiful fuel resource and you get a recipe that propels industrialization forward very quickly. China didn't have a lot of competition for supremacy around them at the time and didn't have a supreme fuel source like coal in abundance, so they fell behind.