Does anybody know other theories about this?
[1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2017/03/book3.htm
That, and the collapse of Dutch East India outposts to British East India company opened up access to new trade. Resources from the new world also jumpstarted the process. It was the perfect combo of corporate incentives and unrestricted access to global resources that propelled people to wealthier lives and thus, higher level of productivity (you can spend years researching on steam engines if you don't have to spend your life farming). This is exactly the state of America since after WW2, if you were to compare.
In comparison, China was not handed any colonies, lacked the corporation structure and was caught up in dynastic infighting. There was no new world to extract resources from and almost certainly wasn't united the way it is today.
No systemic incentive structure and inability to access global resources left people in poverty or produced little in the way of innovation.