Well you are absolutely right. We in the west have always been more expeditionary than any other region/countries out there. Thing is we(as great powers) always think globally, not regionally/locally like most Asian countries do. This is what gives/gave us advantage in dealing with other countries/powers. as we visited/settled in many countries and learned from them(in case they had something we didn't).
However, i will summarize this for two main reasons: Competition and culture
There were at least 6 European states that were capable of mounting trans-oceanic expeditions for some or all of this period in history i.e Portugal, Spain, Netherlands,France, Italy(to a lesser extent) and of course our great Britain. They were all aggressive states often at war and in need of resources. for exampe Columbus shopped his 'sail west to China' plan all over Europe before he got backing from Ferdinand and Isabella (single best VC pay-off EVER). So where the Emperor could shut down expeditions, there was no-one in Europe who could have done that, and plenty of states willing to fund expeditions in search of land and trade.
Further, these societies were all much more warlike than China/Japan/Asian powers. There was a culture of going out and conquering each other and were always plenty of adventurers willing to go off in search of glory and loot (Cortes, Pizarro, Clive) without much interest in what the government wanted. (OUR British 'Empire' in particular had a tendency to grow against the wishes of anyone in London.) Chinese/Asian wars were about control of China/Asia itself, and tended to be much rarer - Europeans had been at war more or less continuously for a thousand years. Indeed a large part of Spanish expansion in the Americas is about the redirection of energies from the recently completed Reconquista.
@Carlosa .
Finally, China/Asian powers (generalising hugely) tended to see the world as China/Asia, plus a few minor subsidiary peoples (Vietnam, Korea, Japan,etc) around the edges that weren't worth bothering with. So maybe this explains why were sailed round/colonized the globe, while Asian countries/powers mainly limited themselves regionally.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PLAN.
