Status Updates From Guns, Germs, and Steel: The...

China's geographic and political unity for millennia have helped and hindered it, when it was under progressive leadership it was a great advantage to wield all its power for momentum, and a great hindrance when under backward leadership which would hold it all back. While Europe's fractured nature has meant there's always some state that would adopt some new tech which would spread as no one wants to be left behind.