My guess: What screwed China was the
Roman alphabet because China didn't
use it. Then when the written word
became important for the masses
in the West and for progress in the West, China
started falling behind.
The effect is still easy to see in
Chinese culture, say, cooking: It's
still strongly the case that Chinese
cooking is essentially just not written
down and, instead, is learned by
apprenticeship. E.g., I have stacks
of books on cooking -- US, French,
Italian, German, and Chinese -- and
far and away the worst written are
the books on Chinese cooking. So,
the books on American cooking I
got from my family from, say, the
1930s, are very nicely done with
times, temperatures, weights, and
volumes, but the books on Chinese
cooking have essentially no
measurements at all. Then for
explanations of the steps and details,
again the Chinese books are far behind.
Again, simply, Chinese cooking is
so far nearly never actually written
down in anything like what is common
for thorough descriptions in
countries that use the Roman
alphabet.
Why the Roman alphabet? Because
it's so darned easy to work with,
and the Chinese little drawings
severely throttle what that masses
might do with reading and writing.
Certainly a good theory that I've also considered myself. It's a fundamental cost that every person goes through. You can contribute to the social sphere until 20+ years of literature education.
The effect is still easy to see in Chinese culture, say, cooking: It's still strongly the case that Chinese cooking is essentially just not written down and, instead, is learned by apprenticeship. E.g., I have stacks of books on cooking -- US, French, Italian, German, and Chinese -- and far and away the worst written are the books on Chinese cooking. So, the books on American cooking I got from my family from, say, the 1930s, are very nicely done with times, temperatures, weights, and volumes, but the books on Chinese cooking have essentially no measurements at all. Then for explanations of the steps and details, again the Chinese books are far behind. Again, simply, Chinese cooking is so far nearly never actually written down in anything like what is common for thorough descriptions in countries that use the Roman alphabet.
Why the Roman alphabet? Because it's so darned easy to work with, and the Chinese little drawings severely throttle what that masses might do with reading and writing.