The Chinese demand for silver is basically what drove Europeans to "discover" the Americas. The Ming dynasty started minting silver coins in the 14th century and by the 15th century their own local supply was insufficient. They traded with Japan for some of their silver, but the real deposits were in the Persian empire. The Muslim and Chinese world developed extensive trade, but the backwards Europeans only got to eat the Muslim's scraps. Simple Eurpeans wanted access to Chinese high quality goods, so they went looking for trade routes that went around the Muslims, instead they found massive mineral deposits in the Americas.

Even for centuries after Spain and the Europeans established colonies extracting resources, they were still just trying to get more access to Eastern markets. It wasn't until probably the Opium wars that in the 19th century that China wasn't leading the world. Even that was literally a war to open up Chinese markets. China arguably drove much of the world's history for longer than Europeans have.

Source: The Origins of the Modern World by Robert Marks.