The first railways in China were built during the Qing dynasty in the late 19th century, after extensive railway networks were already in place in Europe, North America, India and Japan. The late arrival of railways in China was due both to the lack of industrialization and skeptical attitude of the Qing government. Although diverse and prominent personages such as Lin Zexu and Taiping rebel Hong Rengan called for the building of railways in China in the mid-19th century, the conservative Qing court considered steam engines to be "clever but useless" contraptions, and resisted the railways, which would "deprive us of defensive barriers, harm our fields and interfere with our "feng shui". In the 1860s, Chinese laborers helped build the Central Pacific Railroad in the United States.