No, it isn't a "special pleading."
Yes it was.
The Chinese had black powder well before Europe. It was known elsewhere across Asia and the Middle East too.
True.
Yet, it was the Europeans that developed it into the highly effective product that went to war.
No. The first gun is Chinese. It fired a spear. They developed rockets into an effective weapon too.
Europe developed firearms and cannon using it.
The first cannon was Chinese as well. It was made of bronze and shot rubble as well as a cannonball.
Cannon in Europe didn't appear until almost 100 years later.
It brought castle technology to an end.
Yes, that was replaced by the Vauban-style fortress, etc., but it forced innovation.
The first star fortifications appeared in Italy.
China had small trebuchet before Europe, but the Europeans took that technology to its limit and then replaced it with the bombard and cannon.
The trebuchet was invented in France, and THEY were the ones that took it to it's limit. There are few hobby trebuchets in existence. One fellow in Texas uses one to hurl old cars (Buick is favored); the other likes to hurl oil soaked fireballs at night. He is in the UK.
The same goes with seagoing vessels.
The Chinese, Polynesians, English, Norse, French, etc. all had seagoing vessels. The Polynesian people spread to islands all across the Pacific ocean long before England or Holland ever set sail in one of their tall ships. I do give credit for the beautiful design of these tall ships though.
The Chinese and Asia produce these too but failed to improve them much beyond the junk-style ship with simple yards and sails.
Did you know that's all you really need to go to sea?
The Europeans again went beyond this in technology taking not just the cannon to sea,
This is by the French, which first put a cannon on board a ship. The Italians and even the ancient Egyptians used fire bombs against each other long before this though.
but improving the sailing ship such that it was possible to go to sea and make long voyages reliably, something that was rarely done before.
You are in a pivot fallacy. The discussion is no longer about black powder, or about anything 'black' people did or didn't do.
For example, the Vikings and Chinese both did ocean voyages, but didn't put to sea and stay there for long periods. They made short hops between land masses and islands.
Do you know how long it took for the Polynesian people to sail to, say, Hawaii? A pretty long time! That ain't no short hop!
So, whether the base technology was original or evolved from another culture, the Europeans successfully used these to, for all intents, conqueror the planet.
The never did conquer the planet. The tall ships, though, could sail pretty much at will reliably. They had the compasses to do it, for one thing, and a rigging that could handle the variability of the winds most efficiently for the day.
Their failing was not evolving a system of social and political stability that would allow them to keep it.
They never had it.
Sure, the Sun never sets on the British empire (until very recently, it still didn't); but that isn't the whole world.
