United Kingdom was the first to steal a Chinese invention called gunpowder, use it to maximum effect and they were also at the opposite sides of the world.

Do not forget the first law passed by a new nation in which every citizen has the right to burn trees and produce potassium a critical mineral in gunpowder. That nation was either Greece or America, i forget which one.

In the Western civilizations, when we are stealing copyrighted material and patents we are not messing around. I remember when the Byzantine empire tried to steal secrets of silk production also from Chinese, that was so much fun. Great times we lived in the past, even greater now!