It's a reasonably well-known argument in the popular discourses that Europe suffered in technological advancement compared to Asia, as European geography favors myriads of multiple competing states (witness the amazing number of individual squabbling states that made up the so-called "Holy Roman Empire".) This stagnates research, as it diverts resources towards short-term goals and competition, rather than the economic and technological development that could take place in a unified nation. Personally I'm a bit skeptical of the above argument - we only have one example of history, after all, so there's an issue of presentist bias.
Would it be possible to have a world in which Europe became more technologically advanced than East Asia? Perhaps even a world where Europe's geographic disunity was seen as an advantage rather than disadvantage?
OoC: PoD can be anything you like, but I'm imagining something like a successful Song industrialization.