European capitalism, particularly from the 16th century onward, was not a simple market economy. It was mercantile capitalism, a system where the state and private capital became fused in a project of national economic expansion. The goal was to accumulate wealth by any means necessary for the benefit of the metropolitan power. This system was inherently expansionist, violent, and required external colonies to serve as sources of raw materials and captive markets.

China's commercial developments, while advanced, largely served an internal, agrarian-based empire. The state's Confucian ideology prioritized stability and internal harmony over aggressive external expansion and accumulation. There was no comparable fusion of state and commercial power for the explicit purpose of global domination.