[spaceman_2020]

Yeah, because the Americans had a 150 year headstart

China had literally 60M people die in a famine when JFK was president and Elvis was the biggest thing. The country was basically farmland and basic industries 40 years ago

Why would you even compare their capabilities today vs a country that has been a sovereign nation for 250 years?

You look at trajectories, not the present

[GorbachevyChase]

China is thousands of years old. Angles and Saxons were running around with tribes in their furs when the Chinese had sophisticated social structures. The different trajectories probably have much more complex explanations than tenure in their current political structure.

[jatora]

I think of it like this:

The industrial revolution was intense and powerful, and kicked off in Britain, Europe, and the US. Throughout that revolution, there were countless mistakes, countless branches that had to be clipped as we found ways to increase power and efficiency.

50-100 years after that, every other country has a perfect blueprint to follow. That is far cheaper. Far more efficient. Far easier. And they get to leverage experts and contractors from the innovating regions as well.

This is the story for China, and Asia in general.