What if the Opium Wars had gone differently?

Britain forces China to open its ports at gunpoint, beginning a century of foreign concessions.

If it had gone differently: China is never prised open by force; it meets the industrial world on its own terms, or stays closed to it.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the Opium Wars. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1868The Meiji Restoration. Without it, Japan stays closed and agrarian; the idea that a non-Western state can industrialise fast has no example.
2. 1884The Scramble for Africa. Without it, Africa is not carved up at a table in Europe; its 20th century, and much of the world's, takes a very different shape.