Yes, I do talk about the importance of Europe being divided in some of the linked articles. It is fairly central in my discussion of gunpowder warfare. Nation states fighting each other as opposed to nomads invading cause a clear preference for gunpowder weapons.

As to the Chinese script. I would not jump to conclusions on that. How script develop is often a bit random. I would say Europe just got lucky rather than having made any kind of conscious decision.

Europe was for most of its history significantly LESS literate than China not more. Literacy was far more prevalent in China than in Europe thanks to access to paper. It was not until paper arrived in Europe that Europe started to catch up to Chinese literacy rates. If you read my story on the printing press you will see that China had a very clear lead for something like a thousand years.

So for all intents and purposes Europe was the place that kept the peasants down and was elitist. There was pros and cons to both systems. China had a far more merit based system of government. Provinces were governed by professionals and the Chinese system had a well developed and professional bureaucracy.

By today's standard Europe was a bit like Afghanistan. I place dominated by warlords and constantly at war. People with power in Europe were essentially of the warrior class not professional bureaucrats with book skills.

I redeeming factor in European culture was more freedom for cities. In Feudal Europe cities often had significant autonomy and developed a sophisticated class of traders and craftsmen. The precursor to the modern middle class. This class of people did not really exist in China. Craftsmen in China often worked for the state rather than operated as independent businessmen as in Europe.

Europe also had a strong guild system which amplified the power of the craftsmen beyond what you found in China. The guilds are also precursors to modern Universities. Teachers and students basically formed a guild.

But I think it is important to know that most of this was not exactly deliberate conscious decisions by people in power. Europe with its many rivers, baltic sea and Mediterranean and expansive coastline had very good conditions for trade which China lacked. China however had an extremely well developed agricultural system. Their agriculture was far more advanced in every possible way giving much higher yields. They had things like seed drills hundreds of years before Europeans.