You could also view it as China blowing a 2,000 year head start and now working to catch up.
So, while they lost their head start, at least they have that...
However, painting the West’s ability to heap “unequal treaties” on China cannot reasonably be described as a function of finding and conquering the new word. Firstly: the major conquest of the new world came through Spain, which had little to no involvement in the humiliation of the Middle Kingdom. Second, colonies in North America did not give the British gunboats capable of demolishing the Chinese fleets.
The reasonable conclusion is that the Enlightenment and the scientific advances eminating from that allowed the West to go from isolated, low population minor powers into worldwide empires.
That's basically every body apart from the west.
Education was a very elite thing in most societies, even in the west too. But some thing very strange happened around Gutenberg's times and west was able to take advantage of that unique situation.
For example, there is no parallel of Renaissance or Industrial revolution in any non-western country. China comes close, but even then, not exactly.