Or maybe do? Maybe they were right that, from a societal rather than individual point of view, their industrial revolution was a disadvantage, at least at that stage.
I would imagine the motivation would simply be that Chinese aristocracy had zero leniency with the notion of a wealthy, non-aristocratic class. From the perspective of the power structure, I can only imagine that's what 'wrong people' would mean. There was a similar tension in Europe I think.
Worse in China, I think. I'm very much not an expert, but I think that Confucianism called for a more rigidly hierarchical society than Catholicism did. (And maybe for that reason, the Chinese imperial court was very committed to Chinese society rigidly following Confucianism.)
