@combo52
I really couldn't disagree with your more about Japan, South Korea, China and other Asian countries.
Japan is incredibly innovative and has produced some of the most amazing pieces of consumer product, automotive and electronics engineering around and a lot of basic products we take for granted.
For example, Toyota was producing reliable hybrid cars for a decade while other companies were still talking about them.
Japanese innovations:
The CD - co-developed by Sony and Philips (Netherlands) (the two companies had produced parallel inventions and decided to collaborate.)
Reliable, portable compact audio : Walkman and later Sony Discman (1984)
The pocket calculator.
The Digital SLR camera
The electric rice cooker (Mitsubishi in the 1940s)
The Toshibia Helical scan video head which made VCRs possible.
Vast amounts of robotics technologies.
Flash memory (i.e. where we store almost everything these days on portable devices).
The first flat panel CRT displays
The first high speed trains in 1967.
The world's first quartz electronic wristwatch - Seiko.
There are loads of amazing innovations coming out of South Korea at the moment too, particularly in the area of micro electronics and electronic consumer products.
Chinese inventions:
Paper
Printing (650AD, long before Gutenberg's press)
Movable type
Gunpowder
Symbolic paper money.
Belt drives (54 BC!)
The toothbrush 1490s
Bulkhead partitions in ships in the 12th century (European ships didn't have this until the 19th)
Chain drive (2nd century BC)
Gas cylinders to store natural gas for cooking / heating - 200BC!
Powered fans (water-wheel powered) 1st century AD
Modern era:
Chinese companies are starting to become a lot more innovative. For example, Huawei has become a major player in telecommunications R&D in is actually now at the forefront of some of the technologies like VDSL2 and, UMTS and LTE and it's not all about cheapness either. They're genuinely producing some extremely innovative products and have given Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Networks and Fujitsu a serious shock.
I don't like how the Chinese regime operates, but I think you're going to ultimately see a slow change towards some kind of quasi-democractic setup. That or there'll be a second revolution at some stage in the next 20-30 years.
Its companies and graduates though are very innovative and it has a vast history of innovation. They were a fairly high tech, scientific society before the Romans were around.