Except when Mongols took over in China or the "century of humiliation".

Japan is also example for itself. They voluntarily isolated themselves for centuries and fell back in everything. They were shocked when Americans forced them to trade in steam ships. But instead of finding excuses and blaming Americans for waking them up, they started Meiji restoration.

> Except when Mongols took over in China or the "century of humiliation".

It's simply not the same thing.

Sure, China was forced to humiliating concession by the European.

But it's not the same. The borders of countries in Africa were drawn by Europeans.

For hundreds of years large parts of the continent was dominated by European colonialism.

If trade rights and relatively minor land concessions were considered humiliating by the Chinese... Just imagine

What about Korea or Singapore? They were colonised for much longer or in Singapore's case were built up from nothing.

Reality is that no African majority country has ever been able to reach even middle income status. I suspect culture is the issue personally but until that fundamental fact changes all the people setting the bar at "Africa should develop" are making an assumption with no basis in reality.

China has always had a bureaucracy. A system for schooling. Even in the times of European colonialism, even during invasions of Manchurians and Mongols etc etc. During much of history it was the world's richest and most technically advanced society. That changed basically late 18th century. By that time African countries had already been colonialized for 200 years.

The comparison is absurd.

Most African countries weren't colonised by Europeans until after the 1880s. Africa's time spent in empires was very small compared to their histories.

It sounds like you even agree on this, Africa has never been a place with any degree of modern state capacity. It isn't surprising that it is still failing to achieve this.

Singapore was a jungle with a few docks some 60 years and now it's one of the most developed country in history.

Everyone in this thread is dancing around an extremely obvious but also extremely taboo point.

Singapore has been a major trading port and wealthy (by regional standards) for over a century.

The PAP government loves to play the “we built this from nothing” story, and while they did do an amazing job of developing the country, they started on 2nd base.