[eru]

> Granted it was the olden times, so there were more things to be discovered, but it seemed like China back in the day was on a roll (off the top of my head, movable type, paper, matcha, bonsai, porcelain, celadon, silk, gunpowder)

You seem to be throwing together all of pre-PRC China into one big blender?

There have been lots of different dynasties and long stretches when China was not unified. Many of these dynasties were more different from each other, than some dynasties might be from the PRC 'dynasty'.

Tossing all the achievements of thousands of years into one bin, and comparing them to what has been produced in the last few decades also seems a bit off.

Most (or all?) of the examples of inventions you describe predate the Qing dynasty.

The last emperors before the republic and later the communists were off the Qing dynasty.

China was perhaps at its biggest sophistication compared to the rest of the world during the precocious Song dynasty. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty#Economy

Song China was arguably the first 'modern' country in the world. Where 'modern' is used in the historian's sense of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_history#Modern_history

[whoevercares]

Well even in PRC it’s widely recognized that we saw a boom of high quality cultural work in early 90s - peak of Chinese rock band, movies from the fifth generation Chinese directors, mainland/HK/Taiwan music. This time coincide with the time CCP’s control is loosen

[5eb03cb8]

I am glad I grew up when I did and got to see that. Since 2010 it's war movies and tepid hip-hop and fifteen remakes of the same historical dramas.