China's strive for industrialisation did not actually take as "long" as people tend to think. Long before the 1900s arrived Chinese intellectuals and reformists had already pushed for industrialisation in order to match the might of the West and in particular, Japan after the Meiji restoration. The Self Strengthening Movement in the mid nineteenth century was a clear indicator of this desire. Therefore the short answer to the question is that government instability, social disharmony (such as the Taiping and Boxer rebellions), and an attachment to traditional Confucian values meant that progressive reform was not effectively implemented by the government.

Kenneth Pomeranz's book The Great Divergence is an excellent account of why China fell behind in industrialisation. Throughout the past century historians have heatedly debated the reasons behind the “triumph” of the West, and how Europe pulled ahead of “the rest” in terms of modernization and the unprecedented growth of innovation in many sectors of society. The topic of the Great Divergence has sparked numerous explanations that strive to account for Europe’s “superiority” over the rest of the world, particularly over China after the eighteenth century. David Landes argues that China’s cultural triumphalism was responsible for its lagging behind in the race towards superiority. Encapsulating the Eurocentric school of thought of European exceptionalism, Landes asserts that Europeans were superior to China both culturally and technologically. Portuguese naval superiority, as a result of “decades of rational exploration” and the “extension of navigational in an ocean (the south Atlantic) that was hostile to traditional techniques of navigation” paved the way for European exploration and technological enhancement. China, on the other hand, had abandoned naval exploration due to differing political and cultural values, which precluded the Chinese from gaining any advantage. Pointing out ostensible differences and exaggerating their importance in the “Great Divergence” is a habit that many scholars indulge in. The most common arguments include the lack of free-markets and the totalitarian nature absolute monarchy in China. Landes asserts that Europe had free enterprise, an environment conducive to innovation and a non-meddling state that did not discourage innovation.

The reasons as to why China fell behind are complex and often paradoxical. What is certain however is that the conditions for industrialisation were not met in China (there was no need, for example, the development of certain agricultural machinery due to the effectiveness of age-old Chinese agricultural cultivation). Simply put, the circumstances for industrialisation, coupled with the drastic political and social instability that plagued China during the nineteenth and twentieth century precluded any meaningful industrialisation. The Great Leap Forward and the failed communist project pushed this goal even further, which is why China only effectively industrialised recently, attempting to catch up with the rest of the West.