These are all reasonable points. However if you look at the billions of people in south east Asia, many of them have all these traits and yet they are not as su

These are all reasonable points. However if you look at the billions of people in south east Asia, many of them have all these traits and yet they are not as successful as the Chinese businessmen - on an aggregate. The reason I feel Chinese businessmen succeed is lack of environment protections, cheap labor (lack of worker protections) and relatively cheap energy. These are essential ingredients for success and countries like India are not as successful despite possessing the skills you mention. Most western countries all developed before the socio-enviro-economic issue I mentioned became prevalent.