04-29-2004, 04:32 AM
I was wondering when someone was going to mention this! The treasture fleet expeditions are a powerful representation of the "lost opportunity" for Chinese world domination along the European model.
The explanation I have heard for this usually focuses on the cultural factors which limited exploration and colonization by China. For one thing, the traditional Chinese philosophies (Taoism, Buddhism, and Confusianism) all center around attaining an "enlightened" state, or at least a state of contentedness.
The treasure fleet expeditions opened up vast new areas of exploration to China, but China didn't need to go out into the world. The Chinese were "content" with their world, and viewed an extensive involvement with very alien cultures to be a threat to this "contentedness." Thus, we see the beginnings of the isolationist policies which would run all the way up to the Opium Wars with the British.
It is also interesting to note another factor, which isn't usually cited in such discussions: the ethnocentrism of the Chinese Empire. While it is somewhat ironic for Europeansâwho defined the practiceâto make that claim about other cultures, the shoe does fit. The prevailing view was of China as the "Middle Kingdom," i.e. the center of the world. Distance from the center decreased the importance of the place. This view is seen in the trade interactions between China and Europe as the Europeans expanded.
During the age of exploration, and the beginning of the colonialization era, the Chinese Empire largely limited its trade with Europeans. The Chinese produced tea, silk, and ceramics through trade secrets, and refused to accept any European goods except gold or silver (specie). (This of course offended the European merchantilist notions of the day and led to the production of opium and its distribution to China; and the resulting Opium Wars.) But up to the opening of China through the Opium Wars, the European states tried to convince the Chinese that they had goods worth trading; and they frequently gave gifts of clocks to the Chinese emperor. These were the pinnacles of European industry--complex machinery on a grand scale, with artistic housing. A museum in Bejing still houses several hundred of these magnificent clocks, I believe. But the Chinese weren't impressed with them--strict mechanical relationships are the domain of artisans, not the higher aspirations of the educated.
Oh well. Think I've begun to ramble. Of course history is taught differently in different places and by different people, too. Hope it helps.
The explanation I have heard for this usually focuses on the cultural factors which limited exploration and colonization by China. For one thing, the traditional Chinese philosophies (Taoism, Buddhism, and Confusianism) all center around attaining an "enlightened" state, or at least a state of contentedness.
The treasure fleet expeditions opened up vast new areas of exploration to China, but China didn't need to go out into the world. The Chinese were "content" with their world, and viewed an extensive involvement with very alien cultures to be a threat to this "contentedness." Thus, we see the beginnings of the isolationist policies which would run all the way up to the Opium Wars with the British.
It is also interesting to note another factor, which isn't usually cited in such discussions: the ethnocentrism of the Chinese Empire. While it is somewhat ironic for Europeansâwho defined the practiceâto make that claim about other cultures, the shoe does fit. The prevailing view was of China as the "Middle Kingdom," i.e. the center of the world. Distance from the center decreased the importance of the place. This view is seen in the trade interactions between China and Europe as the Europeans expanded.
During the age of exploration, and the beginning of the colonialization era, the Chinese Empire largely limited its trade with Europeans. The Chinese produced tea, silk, and ceramics through trade secrets, and refused to accept any European goods except gold or silver (specie). (This of course offended the European merchantilist notions of the day and led to the production of opium and its distribution to China; and the resulting Opium Wars.) But up to the opening of China through the Opium Wars, the European states tried to convince the Chinese that they had goods worth trading; and they frequently gave gifts of clocks to the Chinese emperor. These were the pinnacles of European industry--complex machinery on a grand scale, with artistic housing. A museum in Bejing still houses several hundred of these magnificent clocks, I believe. But the Chinese weren't impressed with them--strict mechanical relationships are the domain of artisans, not the higher aspirations of the educated.
Oh well. Think I've begun to ramble. Of course history is taught differently in different places and by different people, too. Hope it helps.
Out here,
--Ajax
--Ajax