How did China's geography affect its development?

China is isolated from the rest of the world by the Gobi desert to the west. The Himalaya mountains isolate China to the south and East. Oceans to the East product China. Only the vast steeps of Mongolia to the north were open for invasion of China.

The geographic isolation made China Xenophobic. China thought of itself as the middle kingdom half way between the divine and the rest of the world. As China regarded itself as far superior to the rest of the world it remained isolationists in its culture and policy.

Technological developments in China far outstripped the rest of the world for centuries. Many of the discoveries of China made their way out of China via the silk road, silk, gunpowder, citrus, rice, paper making, printing press, The reverse was slower in occurring, the technological developments of Europe were not assimilated into Chinese development.

This made China vulnerable to economic colonization by Europe in recent history.