Diverging Development Paths between China and the West during the Early Modern Period: the Example of the Suction-Lift Pump

The need to lift water by means of appropriate equipment is a global phenomenon and has preoccupied all cultures since earliest times. While most basic methods (for example, the bailing with some kind of container by means of a sweep well or a windlass) were shared all over the world, local conditions and crafting skills produced regional developments of more sophisticated devices. This essay examines the impact of the strategically motivated Jesuit transfer of knowledge about the suction-lift pump from the West to China in the early seventeenth century. There, in the face of constant drought disasters, more efficient implements to get hold of well water would seem to have been desperately needed. The nevertheless sluggish adoption of this innovative, though not yet fully mature, hydraulic technology by the responsible Chinese scholar-officials highlights some of the reasons for the emergence of the Great Divergence between China and the West.