Chinese culture was in decline for a long time. They lost their inventiveness when they became stifled by an oppressive corrupt bureaucracy that pretty much stole any profit from entrepreneurs. Sloth and graft became more rewarding (in the short term) than hard work and industriousness. In the meantime, the pace of innovation picked up tremendously in Europe, with the advent of the Renaissance, colonialism, and the Enlightenment. All of them were precursors to the industrial revolution, where innovation and production exploded. The Opium Wars of the mid 1850s clearly revealed the new strength of Europe and exposed the bankruptcy of Chinese culture.
By the way, what happened to China is exactly what we are doing to ourselves today. At some point, will the Chinese go to “war” with us to promote the sale of cocaine and heroin to the American public?
Chinese history is much more complex than your picture.
They had two thousand years of bureaucracy and corruption prior to 1500, and yet remained (intermittently) vibrant and inventive, probably more so than the rest of the world combined.
Somewhere between 1500 and 1600 they appear to have lost that, and only regained it in recent decades.
But you can’t blame it on corruption or bureaucracy as such, because they had those during their most inventive periods.
It’s not really that China slipped backward after 1600, they didn’t. It’s that Europe and then the West barreled ahead, leaving all competitors in the dust. That is what is unusual, not a period of Chinese stasis.
Nope. UK forced opium on the Chinese because they wouldn't buy anything else from Europe, leading to a huge imbalance of trade for tea and silk expports.
We seem to have no problem buying lots of stuff from the Chinese.