China's utilisation of printing may not have been fully realised. Moveable type, especially, seems to have had only limited use. China's lettering system makes mechanical reproduction much more complicated than an alphabetic system with orders of magnitude fewer characters. And even in the West, thresholds such as creating linotype machines (which literally cast a "line of type") was a tremendous breakthrough in the process of rapidly converting text to printing plate.[1]

I'm still getting up to speed on history, but a big factor was an, IIRC, 14th or 15th century decision to turn inward. For various reasons, China was governed as an integral unit, unlike Europe which was divided amongst many autonomous governmental units -- don't like the (political) weather? Move 20 (or 200) miles. Happened frequently, and was relatively easily done due to ample coastlines and river systems (water was the air and highway network of the day). So right about the same time China was shutting down its invention engine, Europe was firing up.

Francis Bacon lists the compass, printing press, and gunpowder as the three inventions of modernity. All three came from China.

And, if you want to apply my ontology, the compass is information and sensing (magnetic north). Along with time measurement, it made for vastly improved navigation -- not so much a value add as a loss-minimisation -- England launched a bounty for an accurate shipboard clock after a fleet sailed onto the rocks -- the US repeated that feat in the twentieth century off the coast of Santa Barbara in steamships moving by dead reckoning through fog.... Printing is information storage and distribution. And gunpowder is something of a mix of fuel and power transmission. Range weapons offer the advantage to hunters, or warriors, of putting yourself out of range (or reach) of your quarry (or enemy's weapons). Risk mitigation.

China's approach to a number of areas is ... distinctly non-western. Philosophy, science, engineering, and moral philosophy or social sciences, are all distinctly different from the West. Again, I'm not as versed in this as I'd like to be, but the distinctions I've seen so far are pretty fascinating. And I'll definitely give you that the western traditions and philosophy of science appear indigenous. Francis Bacon, his earlier near-namesake Roger, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Linnaeus, Lyell, Faraday, and others, turned Western science and traditions differently.

I'm trying to sort out how to structure and describe the ontology. I've been collecting examples, looking for alternatives (or precursors -- none so far, I may have finally had an original idea), holes, etc.

Your biological-medical area is one I'd classify generally under "process knowledge". See Needham's classification (the Wikipedia article spells it out) for his view, I've got another encyclopedia I'm planning to raid for a western view -- that's on my worklist for synthesis and assimilation.

Genetic engineering is under information:

Information: Sensing (natural and artificial senses), language, speech, writing, maths, logic, formal logic, algorithmic processing, programming, genetic engineering, AI.

The techniques of, say, building and operating printing presses, telegraphs, telephones, radio, TV, computers, genetic analysis, etc., are under process knowledge. That's the physical element of information as opposed to the logical and informational component.

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Notes:

1. And the linotype process actually involved three generations of copying just to get to the printing plate, a fourth before the final published article was complete: matrix, cast into a type line "slug" which was set into the page form, to create a matte, which then created the actual print plate which impressed the final paper.

There's an excellent documentary on Linotype typesetting here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6wHiddZOfa8

And if you're interested in the history of information, I suggest The History of Information, which is mind-bogglingly good (it's run by a long-time antiquarian bookseller). Warning: time-sink.

http://historyofinformation.com