I think, first of all, from the economic point of view: ancient China was a farming civilization, and scientific and technological inventions came into being with the needs of agriculture. Therefore, in the early and middle period of farming civilization, our demand for production tools and scientific and technological achievements soared. However, farming depends more on experience. Therefore, when scientific and technological achievements basically meet the demand, we will stop and rely on the experience handed down from generation to generation to work. Moreover, our economy is closed, and the food we grow is generally self-sufficient, so we don't have to make special efforts to expand the scale of production, and we can't have special expectations for new technologies.
Secondly, in ancient China, people were divided into scholars, farmers, workers and businessmen, and people with high status were not scientists but officials. As the saying goes, "everything is inferior, only reading is high." However, to make inventions, we must have a high cultural quality, and people with high cultural quality often become officials, not "professional and technical personnel." Scientific and technological inventions are ignored, and naturally few people pay special attention to them. For example, Zhang Heng, an ancient scientist, we all know that he invented the seismograph, which is great. But his name can be passed down mainly because of his invention, but because he worked as a doctor, an official and even a minister in his later years in the Eastern Han Dynasty. So his name can only enter the book of the later Han Dynasty, and things like seismographs can only be counted as his hobbies and entered the historical records. Another example is Bi Sheng in the Northern Song Dynasty, who created movable type printing, one of the "four great inventions" in ancient times, but this invention was discovered in Shen Kuo's "Meng Qian Bi Tan", which means that movable type printing was not so great at that time. The ancients would never have thought that thousands of years later, future generations would be in full swing with South Korea for these "little moves".
Furthermore, in ancient China (even in modern times), Confucianism was deeply influenced by Confucianism, which advocated self-cultivation, advocated peace, and despised agriculture, industry and commerce. Although Confucius also planted nanmu, he always thought that gentlemen should not do these things, not only should they not grow food, but even food could not be made-"gentlemen should stay away from cooking." As for Taoism, it advocates an indisputable theory, and inventing so many things is not just for the purpose of fighting with the people of heaven and earth. Taoism opposes this. "If you don't fight, the world can't fight with it." So in our traditional thinking, there is a sense of alienation from science and technology.
China was far ahead of the world in science and technology in ancient times, mainly because our farming civilization was far ahead. At that time, the so-called western powers were basically "barren land", so we had a feeling of "going into the ground". However, with the rise of the modern west, it is impossible for us to completely transform and change the political, economic and ideological traditions that have existed for thousands of years in a short time. Therefore, in the face of building a strong ship and winning a strong gun, we feel that the prosperity of that year has indeed passed away ~