Around this time, China was experiencing economic difficulties within the agricultural industry, which was their dominant industry, because a lot of the world was switching to machines to harvest crops. In contrast, China was still using manual labor which was a lot less efficient and more time-consuming. The elites in China were also more focused on education (ie: developing Confucianism and Taoism) instead of strengthening the economy, leading to a weaker one in comparison to European economies. Many of the peasants in China had relied on agriculture as their main source of income so they started to come to the United States for work.