How did Europe manage to overtake East Asia so absurdly in terms of technology, influence...

How did Europe manage to overtake East Asia so absurdly in terms of technology, influence, and power starting around the 14th/15th century? What caused things like the renaissance and industrial revolution to occur in Europe instead of Asia?

industrial revolution

The Ming emperor went full retard

Because europeans compete against each other all the time and started to think of science to gain wealth.
Greeks practised philosophy because of kek, italians studied stuff because ??? Its fun and for the sake of it etc.
Then people started to realize we could better our lives through science and tools and started to create stuff that made life easier and produce stuff cheaper, faster and better.
It started in year 1600ish and truly hit a milestone with steam engine and from there on it went über fast. Brits and french also had alot of money from S. America which made stuff easier.

I'm talking out of my ass here, but it FEELS like europeans realized the world was like a strategy game while everyone else was dicking around, like a chess vs checkers scenario.

China and India were the market leaders for centuries, but they were basically spending all their retained earnings trying to maintain their positions.

Europe basically started a new game and in playing catch-up to incumbent players, saw ways to surpass them and keep on innovating, leading to science. A really fortunate series of events.

Rifles---> military might---> colonies---> unlimited raw resources---> industrial revolution

At least, this is what I get from playing total war against dumb ais.

In the early modern period, European military advantages over Asians were mainly to do with naval and siege warfare; in open water European ships loaded with cannon and capable of sailing against the wind were pretty much unstoppable, while European Renaissance fortresses from the 16th century on were built in a way that allowed small garrisons to hold off entire armies. Western Europeans developed such ships when they combined the naval technologies of the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, while the comparatively peaceful Indian Ocean and its predictable monsoon winds didn't encourage such developments, and the Chinese largely turned their backs on the sea in the 15th century. European Renaissance forts emerged to deal with the rise of heavy cannons, while the Chinese had no need for this because their massive city walls were already impervious to all cannon fire.

These advantages allowed Europeans to colonize coastal regions of Asia and Africa, but beyond that they were no more effective than Asian armies. They could hold their positions in coastal forts but attempts to conquer inland were unlikely to succeed (there were exceptions though, usually involving ). Though they were skilled in areas like gun-founding, so were the likes of the Chinese, Ottomans, Japanese, etc, and in other ways Europeans were behind, lacking for example the discipline of Chinese armies or the rocketry of India. Furthermore, Europeans would lose their advantage if Asians adopted their technologies, for example when the Omanis drove the Portuguese out of East Africa with European-style ships. For the most part Europeans in Asia were just another group of factions among many, not some kind of omnipresent power.

It was mostly in the second half of the 18th and the 19th centuries that Europeans really did begin to dominate the world. I'm less familiar with this period so I don't know exactly why, but I'm guessing it was down to the Industrial Revolution.

higher foreheads

Competition

this
>tfw when phrenologists were right

Part of me wants to say it probably had something to do with the fact that both China and India were conquered by outsiders at the time that the Europeans really began to outpace them. The Qing and the Mughal Empires were invaders ruling over massive population that weren't always fond of them.

Europe becoming "balkanized" after the end of the Roman Empire put pressure on Europeans to advance their science and technology so they could out-compete each other. In India, China, and Japan things were generally more stable, so people tended to accept traditions instead of fighting them for personal gain.

Another major factor was how Europeans reacted to the wealth of the East when they learned about it. Commodities like silk, spices, and tea were highly sought after and not available anywhere in Europe. This pushed Europeans towards exploration, innovation, and eventually conquest. Meanwhile places like China and Japan were becoming increasingly isolationist.

The rate of advancement and competition took a huge leap forward during the industrial revolution, putting European civilization in a position to dominate the entire globe, both militarily and economically. This all culminated in the World Wars, where the competing aspects (first nationalities, then ideologies) of the west fought for supremacy. The totality of these wars (both in physical and cultural terms) is what ultimately began the downfall of the west.

Resource exploitation from overseas
Knowledge gathering from overseas

Basically investing into exploration early on wins over pure military power.

The europeans explored and gained knowledge from the other civilizations. They gained knowledge about the natural world. They had a better field of information. Information is power. So they used that to build up small powerful things that locals cant defend against.

Although China/India had 10000x more manpower/military power, they can't field them all at once. So a smaller team of 10-20 ship is enough to take on local's small 100 ships.

This is one of the key component in technological superiority. Numbers may seem like good on paper, but reality, might not hold up well.

>starting around the 14th/15th century
Way too early. In that period the Turks were still demolishing the Europeans. I wouldn't say European powers had a lead in wealth and technology relative to the far east until the 18th century, and the difference in wealth and power didn't become absurd until the 19th century.

>What caused things like the renaissance and industrial revolution to occur in Europe instead of Asia?
The Renaissance was a cultural movement characterized by the popular resurgence of classical learning, which is to say learning about ancient Greece and Rome. It doesn't make sense for it to emerge anywhere else. The industrial revolution emerged in 19th century England because of the high cost of labor there, the stability and liberalism of the government, the presence natural resources like iron, coal, and rivers, and the enclosure acts which provided a new urban workforce for the factories.

Mongols, no literally. Song China had their own little industrual and economic revolution where their GDP would be higher than all of Europe combined during the 18th century and early 19th century.
Hell, Qing China had the most advanced economy in the world in 1820. Most of European cash went to buy Chinese goods, one of the reasons for the Opium Wars. However, the difference is thanks to the huge population boost during Ming era, where it was simply more expensive to use machines than manual labour.

This combined with the fact that Ming and Qing had no rivals until the Opium War, and the reason Qing lost was because they had no standing navy to stand against the British. The rest of European victories are just divinde and conqure when during the Second Opium War Qing was in a Civil War and the Boxer Rebellion which was just a rebellion but hey lets make Qing pay for it even thought their modernized armied like the Beijang Army could turn the tide against us.

As stated earlier in this thread, European nations had more inisotate to invovate and explore. Because of rivaries, and example would be trying to find an alternative trade route to india that does not go through the Ottoman Roaches, which would end in the dicovery of the new world.

But Qing was actually suprisengly efficent in modernizing their armies, it was just they had lost their Mandate long ago, which made controlling their territories a nightmare, which is why wars with Imperial Powers just end after some quick victories and small pieces of land being occupied.

Basically because Europe was the only place which both had a high population and sucked hard enough to get people to want to leave.

>Mongols, no literally.
>tfw the Middle East still hasn't really recovered from the Mongol invasions
>with Islam becoming *more* fundamentalist and reactionary as time goes on, they probably never will

how was the qing economy the most advance in the world in the early 19th century? Do you know much financial history of england? England and the Netherlands underwent ludicrous economic advancements in the 18th centuries from issuing stocks from private enterprises to establishing national banks, using fractional reserve systems, etc.

Literally the discovery of America faggot.

Russia recovered from the Mongols by becoming them.

one of the Chinese empires gave up on exploration and competition because the emperor felt they were the g.o.a.t so they never found the new world or accomplish anything and they became a joke

Disorganization vs fossilization.

In terms of scientific advancement, China was blocked because they had those ****** imperial examinations, which relied on mastery of the classics, and, as a whole, their government stifled individual enterprise, when, in Europe, science advanced because there were many leisurely nobles, bourgeois and merchants with plenty of time and money to waste. Most of it was wasted ( alchemy,astrology, ludicrous armour suits,feasts, failed expeditions), but the small part that was successful (Modern chemistry, astronomy, metallurgy, art, conquest of the new world) proved to be a breakthrough.
Basically, Europe succeeded because of it's anarchic nature, which enabled every seemingly stupid endeavour to be undertaken.
Also, the development of the joint-stock company changed everything.

Witnessed

Europe was able to manage its Guns, Germs, and Steel much better

Say it with me class, say it loud and proud:
CONTINGENT
HISTORICAL
CIRCUMSTANCES

White people are simply superior.