Well, they didn't discover a whole new continent to exploit for gold and riches and get rid of its inhabitants, or plundered 2/3rds of the world (instead, they were themselves invaded by colonial powers).

So, while they lost their head start, at least they have that...

I’m a believer in China dominance in the coming decades.

However, painting the West’s ability to heap “unequal treaties” on China cannot reasonably be described as a function of finding and conquering the new word. Firstly: the major conquest of the new world came through Spain, which had little to no involvement in the humiliation of the Middle Kingdom. Second, colonies in North America did not give the British gunboats capable of demolishing the Chinese fleets.

The reasonable conclusion is that the Enlightenment and the scientific advances eminating from that allowed the West to go from isolated, low population minor powers into worldwide empires.

Anybody who didn't get to ride the knowledge scalability wave that came from Gutenberg's printing press is now way behind.

That's basically every body apart from the west.

The movable type printing press in Asia predates Europe's by centuries. Although it's admittedly more practical to use with a 26 character alphabet.

Not in the same social context.

Education was a very elite thing in most societies, even in the west too. But some thing very strange happened around Gutenberg's times and west was able to take advantage of that unique situation.

For example, there is no parallel of Renaissance or Industrial revolution in any non-western country. China comes close, but even then, not exactly.