Yes, Chinese knew how Renaissance recovered Greece knowledge from Arabic books very well.
The concept that ancient Greece is the birthplaces of western civilization has a purpose. I am not questioning ancient Greece influence, I am questioning the concept that western civilization monopolize ancient Greece, so that easterners are easier to be demonized as uncivilized. And concept has power, it can shape the way people think and who we are.
As you can see, by reinforcing WESTERN concept, they can group together so that they can multiply their power, and mitigate their inner divergence.
In the opposite, there is no EASTERN concept. There are Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Iranians, Arabian, Russians. Those NATIONALISM reinforce our divergence so that we can NOT group together and multiply our power.
The propaganda praise FREE SPEECH so high, anyone against FREE SPEECH is political incorrectness, political suicidal and evil. FREE SPEECH brought wisdom here and there, but much more bad mouth all over the place. So that different ethnics attack each other within countries and among countries. Similar attacks occurred among different regions, religions, skin colors and languages.
Basically it's HUMAN NATURE.
The divergence and history among us is kind of burden and became weapon utilized by colonialist and neocolonialist. And people never really learn the lesson from history.
Basically it's DIVIDE AND RULE.
Ancient Chinese pursue Ummah, Chinese call it
Great Unity(天下大同). The Belt and Road Initiate is base on Great Unity concept. It will take at last 2-3 decades to achieve something significant. Chinese may spend 100+ years on this project if we do see positive progress.