"It is an accident of history that Europeans took advantage of their window of opportunity in the last half of the second millennium to take over the world."
White men of western European extraction changed the course of history not by accident, but because of competition between the myriad of principalities.
"The cause was a combination of factors such as the development of maritime technology in Europe, the competition between European countries that drove them to look outwards and find new ways to increase prosperity, and the fact China remained firmly locked in its agrarian, introspective past."
The Chinese were navigating the seas for decades before the birth of Columbus. It was the Chinese monolithic tendency toward every aspect of life and politics that resulted in (allowing) the Western Civilization dominating world wide commerce..
The author is wrong in calling it an accident of history — by that measure any sign-post in history could be construed an accident: i.e. it’s an accident the Persians never conquered Greece and we’d all be speaking Farsi now (key note: for this scenario, the Persian empire would have demolished the Muslims and there would be no Islam)