 Kenneth Pomeranz has made the argument that the substantial resources taken from the New World to Europe made the crucial difference between European and Chinese development.In his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Jared Diamond postulates that the lack of geographic barriers within much of Chinaessentially a wide plain with two large navigable rivers and a relatively smooth coastlineled to a single government without competition.At the whim of a ruler who disliked new inventions, technology could be stifled for half a century or more.