I made the deliberate and explicit choice near the beginning of this project to focus on the scientific method since that’s precisely where the clear differences lie.
A few terms worth disentangling: empiricism is the notion that you should look at the world to learn about it, and that’s a very old idea even when not widely adopted. I wouldn’t equate science with empiricism for this question. Science can either refer to a body of knowledge or the method used by which that knowledge is generated. Though they’re tightly connected, I’ve interpreted this question is primarily about “why wasn’t the scientific method invented in China?”
I made the deliberate and explicit choice near the beginning of this project to focus on the scientific method since that’s precisely where the clear differences lie.