The AI Rush

By 1433, the Chinese admiral Zheng He had already sailed from China to India, Indonesia, and even Africa on caravels twice as large as those Christopher Columbus used 59 years later for his fateful journey. China could have been the country to discover America. Instead, its government surprisingly decided to put an end to its naval activities and burn its entire fleet of ships, indirectly allowing Spain to conquer America and bring prosperity to Europe. It took more than 5 centuries for China to recover from this political decision. What could make such an advanced country deliberately turn away from its future?