Even so, if we look at this axis alone, one suspects that in the early 15th c. it would have been an open question as to which model would engender the greater technological advance. But that is a question no more. Maritime trade in the Baltic and North Sea may not have been an initial priority for this undertaking, but it came to be nonetheless, as the 796 treaty with Offa alone confirms. I am frankly not sufficiently informed to make a meaningful comment on technological progress in general. In the maritime arena, my impression is that it was not particularly significant, perhaps because this seems not to have been a particularly high priority, at least initially.
Cannons make up for a lot.
You are surely correct, Paul, that there are many reasons. Furthermore, China had used cannon as early as the 13th c., and the gates and city walls of China had emplacements for cannon. But when the Europeans arrived there were no cannons in those emplacements and no one who possessed the skills as to how to fire a cannon. The Chinese had literally LOST a skill that they themselves had invented. What matters is that they were all rooted in and dervied from the socio-political organization of imperial Chinese society.