China is historically recognized as the country that invented and started printing first, achieving monumental milestones in printing technology long before the rest of the world. Chinese innovators developed woodblock printing during the Tang Dynasty, creating printed texts as early as the 7th century AD. Furthermore, the brilliant artisan Bi Sheng invented movable type crafted from ceramic porcelain around 1040 AD, laying the foundational framework for mass text reproduction centuries before Johannes Gutenberg independently engineered his mechanical metal movable-type printing press in Europe.