I'm not sure if that is necessarily correct. For example, the Dutch forces on Formosa/Taiwan were smashed by the considerably higher firepower of the Ming Dynasty admiral Koxinga's troops. Perhaps even more importantly, Koxinga invaded Taiwan because he needed a base to resist the Qing Dynasty forces that had for all intents and purposes driven Ming loyalists from China. Superior Chinese naval forces repelled Dutch relief attempts and forced the Dutch on the island to surrender. Even as late as the 1700s, the British in India were surprised by the deployment of rockets, a military technology that they did not have. They captured some of these rockets and developed them into the Congreve rockets of the 1800s. So to argue that European militaries were "so much more advanced" is a bit fictitious.