Time and History in China and the West

Could there have been a connection between differences (if any) in the conceptions of time and history characteristic of China and the West, and the fact that modern science and technology arose only in the latter civilisation? The argument set up by many philosophical writers consists of two parts, first the supposed demonstration that Christian culture was much more historically minded that any other, and secondly the view that this was ideologically favourable to the growth of the modern natural sciences at the Renaissance and the scientific revolution.