Yes, I read that line, the third suggestion after leadership woes and a lack of local resources, and one that points at European protectionism generally. Elsew

Yes, I read that line, the third suggestion after leadership woes and a lack of local resources, and one that points at European protectionism generally. Elsewhere in the article in mentions that Egypt herself didn't have an entirely unified stance about embracing industrialisation and it doesn't take much to note a vast gulf between the national psyches of Japan and Egypt, Japan also having been treated somewhat shoddily by Western powers.