If India or China were indeed ahead of technologically speaking,?

Question:

If India or China were indeed ahead of technologically speaking,?

how come then, the West(Europe) was eventually able to catch to India or China and actually surpass them eventually.Now I'm not out trying to dismiss the importance or achievements of those civilizations,but still why did they stagant in achievement,while Europe was able to catch up and eventually to become the premier civilzation in the world.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: One of the main reasons the western world has surpassed the rest of the world in innovation is the printing press and a public school system. India, China, and even the Middle East all had huge technical advancements over the west but these advancements were slow in coming and never truly capitalized on. Furthermore they were the results of a very very small minority of people. Where as in the Western nations the invention of the printing press allowed for the mass production of writing manuals to be distributed to the masses. This lead to the idea and made possible to educate the masses. This resulted in a Western population that was vastly more educated than their global contemporaries. So in the West we see rather than a handful of Elites making advancements we see whole generations of individuals making advancements in arts and sciences which creates a rapid pace of discovery and integration of technology. The most drastic example of this is that less than 100 years after the first human flight is recorded human were landing on the moon and exploring space. This represents a tremendous leap in technology.