Very interesting chart. Would be interesting to see the same information plotted out as actual GDP, versus percentage of total.
IOW, did India and China actually go backwards to the extent shown, or did they just stagnate while western powers surged ahead?
Have seen other evidence that for at least 2000 years China was consistently the most technologically innovative society in the world. Till middle Ming dynasty, somewhere around 1500, which was several centuries before the West had any real impact on China. Then innovation stopped, not just in relation to the surging West, but on an absolute basis.
Never have seen a logical reason why.
Technology can have a liberating influence on people, making it harder for kings and emperors to rule over them.
Keep in mind the technological innovations that changed Europe around 1500: gunpowder, steel-tipped arrows that could pierce armor, printing presses that could disseminate ideas among the common people, sailing ships that could travel over deep and stormy oceans more easily (and could allow people to trade with distant lands, outside the reach of the king's tax collectors).