I am pretty sure Germs, Guns and Steel, never implied anything remotely like that.<p>If you look at size as a main driver here, that does not match up with reality. South Korea, Japan, Singapore etc, neither of these countries are bigger than your typical mid sized to large european nation.<p>I think people are reading a bit too much into this. In the stage of development many asians nations are today, western nations also had a similar reverence for engineers.<p>What strikes me most when people from developing countries talk about unique cultural traits of their country, is that it merely represent a development stage. I can point to similar traits among earlier generations in my own country.