1957 is an interesting year. In the United States that's the year that Control Data Corporation was formed in the US. Seymour Cray, the namesake of cray supercomputers, would join it a year later and would go on towards the rapid process of turning what were glorified room-sized calculators into the computers that we now take for granted and that would rapidly take over all forms of technological development. In China that was the year that Mao Zedong would begin to try to implement socialism in China. Over the years that followed tens of millions of Chinese would literally starve to death.
Over the next decade to 1969 Mao would start his 'Cultural Revolution' which would see millions of Chinese 'purged', one way or the other, extensive class warfare, and the destruction of undesirable elements referencing their cultural and religious past. By contrast in the US in 1969 we would put the first man on the moon. In 1976 Mao would die and end up, after a brief power struggle, being replaced by Deng Xiaoping in 1982. He opened China to foreign investment and rapidly transitioned China to a system more driven by free market economics that persists to this day.
In the two decades from 1960 to 1980 China's economy grew about 165%. In the twenty years from 1980 to 2000, it grew 555%. In the twenty years from 1998 to 2018 it grew 465%.
In the two decades from 1960 to 1980 the US economy grew about 111%. In the twenty years from 1980 to 2000, it grew 95%. In the twenty years from 1998 to 2018 it grew 45%.
The only reason 1960 to 1980 in China looks not as awful as it was is because of rapid population growth, mass starvations notwithstanding.
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Historically China was a world leader in technology. Wiki has a list of Chinese inventions which you can compare and contrast to their western counterparts in time, method, and source [1]. In modern times they made some bad decisions and at some of the worst possible times. Of course this should make you ask (as it did me) what about the mid ages? The period of time after Chinese tech supremacy but before the modern era? This [2] article offers an interesting argument that seems quite compelling.
One of the big differences is that China was a unified and stable empire. By contrast Europe was a chaotic land of never ending conquest and war. And periods of stability always had an underlying tension of imminent war. This competition and lack of unification within Europe meant that inventors, scholars, and others were free to do as they felt. If one country doesn't like what you're doing and declares you a heathen or other naughty word, so what? Move 100 miles and you're now in another country that's happy to go against the desires of the other country if not only because it's that other country!
China wanted stability and security. Europe wanted progress. It's interesting the compare and contrast this to modern times. No single answer fits clearly, but it's certain that times have changed.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions
[2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/28/why-t...