The dominance of the West came from the industrial revolution. The countries that industrialized first could generate such a massively higher economic output per capita that they could easily dominate all pre-industrial nations. This level of advantage hadn't been seen since the last fundamental change in human society from hunter-gatherer to agrarian. China may well be the dominant state of the 21st century, but their advantage will be incremental unless there is some similar breakthrough waiting to happen that will occur in China first.