My biggest takeaway from Ross's book is that Westerners and the West today have many of the pathologies Imperial Chinese did, such as completely useless parasitic privileged casts (bannermen, protected classes), lack of discipline, and rampant sinecurism.
On a difference between the Chinese and Japanese/Westerners—Chinese students have no discipline and regularly demand laxer standards etc. Again, Western students have become more like 1911 Chinese.