Why was China so disinterested in exploring the world?

Kinda true at the time desu 家.

They believed the same myth that Europeans began to believe in the late C19th?

China "colonized and exploited" large parts of Asia.

this. fuck westerners

So are you just going around the board and shitposting or what?

/thread

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
They had fucking bamboo farms on those ships in order not to suffer from a lack of vitamins. After one adventerous emperor led to them being build in order to fetch him curious stuff like giraffes they were left to rot on the beaches because his sucessors thought china would be too perfect to warrant any further exploration.

Because exploring involves conqest, and the chinese couldn't and can't conquer anything.

Once you knwo the nature of the self exploring becomes meaningless

Wjhat a fucking retard you are.

China is a hellhole.

This pretty much.

prove it

One would explore the world to either establish trade routes or colonies. The goal of both is the same: to acquire goods that you don't have at home.

China felt like they produced basically everything that they needed or what was on the world market. Which was pretty much true until the discovery of the Americas when new goods were introduced to the world market, before that they had almost every old-world good and even held a monopoly on a few ones.

Keep in mind that Europeans didn't explore the African coast and later discover America because they thought "lol lets check out what's there". These discoveries were all triggered by the Ottomans taking over the Eastern Mediterranean and blocking trade with Asia, which was the only source of silk and spices and other stuff Europe used so they had to find alternative trade routes.

China never had this pressure, not relying on any goods exclusively produced in Europe.

treasure fleets are a meme made up by revisionist Chinese historians

Why go the world when the world goes to you?

this
not only muslims and Eurpoeans, even Indians and southeast asian spice traders go to China to sell their stuff

This partly isn't true though, for example the Tang believed the Roman Empire (which they called Da Qin) to be a utopia in the far west near where the sun sets. It wasn't a universal belief that far away = barbarians.

Because they had almost everything they needed at home, and the few things they didn't have naturally they got easily through the silk road.

Best post.
China was just too cozy for people to feel uncomfortable enough to want explore and seek out new lands.

That's a pretty good point desu.

They had all the trade they needed right where they were, whereas the Europeans were forced to explore for new trade routes after the fall of Byzantium cut them off from Asia.

>the Middle Kingdom,
I wish this meme would end . The idea that 中國 meant "we are the center of the world" was a myth perpetrated by Europeans.

The early Ming Dynasty *was* quite interested in oceanic exploration. This was characterized by the famous voyages made by Zheng He and his treasure ships. And make no mistake: they were no rink-a-dink rowboats like what Europe was setting out with at that time. At 300-400 feet long~, one could have smashed into the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria all at the same time, and the crew might not have noticed. It certainly wasn't a question of technology - it was the Chinese, after all, who invented the magnetic compass the likes of Magellan and de Gama used on their voyages.

The thing is - China wasn't interested in colonies like Europe was. The explanation for why has more than a few moving parts, but let me try to break it down.

Colonialism, at least in the European sense, is a result of the economic system that characterized most of its kingdoms in the middle ages: Mercantilism. Now for those of you who already know, feel free to skip ahead, but for anyone who may have forgotten: mercantilism is, at its barest bones, the desire to keep all economic production and activity within the purview of a single government. In its "perfect unicorn" form, a kingdom would produce absolutely all of its raw materials within its own borders, and therefore *buy* nothing from another kingdom, but only *sell* finished goods to them. You can think of it as a zero-sum game, where everyone wants *all* the gold, and no one wants to have to spend any of theirs. The problem in Europe was that all those kingdoms were competing for much of the same resources, and had very little space to "naturally expand" ... hence a "New World" provided a major outlet, both for social pressures and for production of raw goods.

(cont'd)
Meanwhile, the economic situation for Ming China was beset by both a different set of economic pressures, as well as a completely different sociopolitical outlook - which are so interwoven I'm not going to be able to help but talk about both, almost at once. Prior to the establishment of the Ming in 1368 by Zhu Yuangzhong (AKA The Hongwu Emperor), China had been ruled by the Yuan Dynasty (AKA the Khans of Mongolia gone native). The Yuan conquest of China linked it to the yassa of the Khannate, and its panAsiatic trade network - essentially connecting it to a supercharged Silk Road from the time of the Han. That economic influx, however, came with foreign rule. The ethnic Han Chinese were locked out of high office by the Yuan emperors who trusted only ethnic Mongols or foreigners above the Chinese to rule over the land and its people.

So on the one hand, coming into the Ming where Hongwu throws off the last vestiges of foreign domination and re-establishes Chinese rule again, you've got the crumbling of the yassa edicts guaranteeing safe trade routes across Asia, and a newly re-empowered ethnic supermajority who has quite a lot of justifiable hostility toward foreigners.

Economically, China did not need to expand geographically, and when it did it almost uniformly pushed in a Westward direction,r ather than eastward. This makes perfect sense, of course, since to the east you've just got endless oceans with minuscule islands stretching on into infinity, whereas to the West! Ah, the West! Trade routes, foreign good, foreign markets... not to mention thousands of miles of deserts lined with bloodthirsty tribes, but hey, stay positive: profits! The Western expanses of central and north-central Asia have been the frontier for China since its inception as an Empire under the Qin. Heck even to this day the northwest autonomous region is known as Xinjiang(新疆), meaning "New Frontier."

>Implying "we are the most civilized parts of the world" is any better

Back to Zheng He and his thousands upon thousands of merchant sailors, though... as I mentioned his 20+ years of voyages were in large part seeking to re-establish the old trade routes with foreign powers that had been last cut off with the collapse of the Mongolian Empire. Overland travel via the Silk Road was an invitation to disaster, even with official protection... banditry along that route was quite literally legendary (and still is, it should be mentioned). Thus a reliable sea route Westward had been on the imperial agenda since the Eastern Han at least, but not so high up that it had every really been a "priority" ... just really something that might be nice if it ever, y'know, happened.

Zheng He's voyages can be characterized as nothing less than a monumental success (Seriously, you can't come back with a giraffe as a present for the Emperor and not have done a good job). However, following the Yongle Emperor's death in 1424 the imperial attitude toward associating with or interacting with foreigners at all began to swing the opposite direction.

China for long stretches of its past has been marked insular - and at times out-and-out isolationist. Again, it's not hard to see why: geographically it's incredibly isolated with a central "breadbasket" surrounded by virtually uninhabitale high plateau, mountains, and/or desert. Sociaoculturally, too, its foreign policy was even at the most expansionistic of times solely concerned with its immediate neighbors, rather than far-off affairs or administering distant colonies. It was the literal center of the world, after all, sovereign of all four seas. Any people or place too terribly distant from the centerpoint of the universe and Heaven ... well, they can't possibly be that important, then, can they? It wanted cultural and political hegemony over its neighbors who would acknowledge it as the paragon of civilization and pay it vassalage... It didn't need colonies economically, nor socially.

So, as the seemingly inevitable tide shifted against interaction with foreigners thanks to the Mongol hangover, China was in a very good position - as it ever was - to "turtle up" close off its borders, and isolate itself behind closed doors. The policies were based around the idea that China had to be first, last and only for the Chinese, and that "look what happened the last time we let those foreign devils in here! They wrecked the place!" Thus, the isolationist policies that both forbid foreigners entry to Great Ming, and *also* disallowed imperial subjects from leaving without special imperial dispensation would continue all the way up until the Steppe barbarians showed up on their horses again in the 1640s, but this time from Manchuria, and declared a new dynasty.

They already dealt with half of the world, it's the land equivalent of fuck off we're full

They just couldn't fully open their eyes.

Thank you this was very interesting.

Didn't they fuck a few african tribes?

coulda woulda shoulda

didn't

1. They did
2. China is massive, it's like asking why Russians didn't go to south America

The Chinese word for China is still Middle Kingdom and Middle people.

Literally middle earth

I never understand how Asia had such magnificent and huge building works, ships, etc, and yet never actually amounted to anything in the way the west did. Also always sucked at war, when the west is so good at war.

But the Chinese did visit NA and SA long before Europeans did. Chinese DNA and plants can be found.

Do you really believe onboard bamboo farming to be the crucial innovation that allows long distance voyages?

Is it really far fetched that the Portuguese might have had better technology?

I mentioned the obvious answer to this question on reddit and another thread on Veeky Forums and people seem massively upset by it. Don't tell me you think it is somehow racist or you are a massive China apologist. That would be depressingly pathetic.

"Disinterested" is not a synonym of "uninterested" you illiterate fuck.

>China is massive, it's like asking why Russians didn't go to south America
that makes zero sense, how on gods green earth are they compatible?

Europe is massive too, what does it have to do with exploration?

...

not only are you a moron but you're a pretentious one too

>Middle Kingdom, the center of the universe.
More like "Central States" in which the original term was purely geopolitical not an indicator of cultural superiority.

The earliest usage of 中國 meant the territories that were directly administered by Western Zhou monarchs.

i agree, but size has nothing to do with it

it's competition, China was united under an emperor, Europe and the Middle east were competing kingdoms and empires constantly at war and trying to one up each other and grab as much resources as they can to get an advantage over rivals and enemies

It definitely wasn't "hey lets go and explore le world because we're so le smart and enlightened"

>yet never actually amounted to anything in the way the west did
define what you mean by this, because they amounted to a whole hell of a lot just not if you look at the world as a game of civilization where the nation with the most science points wins

>europe is massive too
ok now imagine one hegemonic state controls all of Europe, like the Roman empire but bigger and still existing in the renaissance period, now imagine that this hegemon has just thrown off the mongols and instead of investing huge sums of money in expeditions that don't seem to have much practical purpose it could be investing in building a fuckhuge wall to keep the mongols from attacking again. Now also imagine that the government is largely run by bureaucrats who are extremely eager to start such a massive project because it'll mean jobs for bureaucrats for decades to come.

not him and im not impltying their civilization is not great, but european civilization does dominate the globe, especially east asia

suits, skyscrapers, computers, cars, etc. all sprouted out of european civilization and entered the east through westernization

if you're wearing a suit, you're wearing european clothing

sort of like wearing those white robes i don't know what they're called is wearing arab clothing(pic related)

we live in a very westernized world

The entire reason Europeans found the new world was to find another trade route with India, the Chinese didn't need to.

They had all the resources they needed in continent sized China, meanwhile Europeans had that small shitty peninsula called Europe so they had to expand eventually.

>Europe is massive too
Europe is teeny compared to China.

>we live in a very westernized world
certainly, china was forced to modernize with the rest of the world despite how much they resisted it, and it was significantly more painful because they resisted it.

But lets not ignore the fact that the world's most spoken native language is Mandarin, one in six people in the world speak it. English only has (roughly) 850 million speakers worldwide when you combine native speakers and those who know it as a second language.

>But lets not ignore the fact that the world's most spoken native language is Mandarin
almost exclusively spoken by native speakers in china and ethnic chinese comunities, not exactly a lingua franca

A way to deal with scurvy is very important for long-distance sea travel

There were no jews for much of china's history, which meant there was no usury causing a push pull effect on the discovery of new markets and goods and trade routes.

Because it was wild shitty hole before European colonisation.

yes, that was my point

what does China need from the rest of the world when its basically a world unto itself

Now check a proper dictionary, not google.

Zhan He explored many places, he even got to Africa and brought back tribute. There were also Chinese litteraly colonizing Borneo and even formed republics. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic

Also lack of desire as they thought of themselves as the center of the universe, the Middle Kingdom. Thus why would they explore? Everything else is shit.

>Perhaps
lmao, the only "evidence" have of those things existing is for a much, much smaller ship. Bamboo isn't nearly stable enough on open waters and that thing would have split in an instant if it was taken out. The voyages were limited to the coasts for a reason

that image is a farce.

the US literally did exactly that.

Super interesting wiki article sempai.
Do you have more obscure chinese colonies to show us? Im genuinely interested.

Boi, Chinese expansion and even now has been nothing but colonization (and Hanization). Pic related are settlements established by the Zhou. history.stackexchange.com/questions/20992/why-arent-there-any-chinese-colonies

For more of stuff like what I showed before there's only one other similar example. After the fall of the Ming, a Ming loyalist general conquered Taiwan and set up his own Chinese state there to one day take back the main land (familiar idea right). Chinese history is criminally underated in the west by the way, currently reading a book about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom founder Hong Xiquan, fascination stuff.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tungning
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ming#Koxinga

The circled settlements are the ones the Zhou set up I mean.

What about the fucking chinese skeletons found in a Roman cemetary in the UK?????

They weren't.

Tell me

>colonization (and Hanization)
The spread of Zhou high culture wasn't always linked towards actual migrations or military conquest.

The other issue is the Rong and the Di barbarians were probably Sino-Tibetans themselves.

Wu was a barbarian kingdom in the Yangzi basin despite having the same ancestors as the Zhou kings(probably fabricated).

>Pic related are settlements established by the Zhou.
Those settlements are Zhou feudal vassals who are usually blood relatives of the Zhou ruling family or remnants of Shang nobility.

Jing Chu was a famous polity(with a heavy non Sinitic linguistic substrate) that predates the Zhou conquest and wasn't under Shang hegemony.

All of that shit happened in the last 200 years.
Westerners got lucky and exploded during a time when China was in decline.

Technology advances exponentially based on what already exists, if white people were truly so amazing they would've figured this shit out thousands of years ago.

The only people that truly suck ass are abos, since they never did anything of note, ever.

Interesting, did not know Wu was a barbarian kingdom, my knowledge of Chinese history is very limited before the Qing. But still, the Chinese dynasties did colonize territory, that is un-disputable. Even places like Vietnam which are not Chinese were still heavily Sininized and adopted Chinese customs, and the remnants are still seen to this day. The Chinese even wiped out people's before they colonized like the Dzungar peoples in the east, those the Chinese saw as barbarians were usually converted en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization.

Only the most delusional chink would think the forbidden city is remarkable

finally, a non-retarded post

>AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You're not allowed to interact with people anymore.

>did not know Wu was a barbarian kingdom
Anything outside the red outline probably wasn't Sinitic(or at least the Sinitic used by the Zhou and Shang courts).

Sinitic most likely formed in the prehistory as Shang era Sinitic already had contact with Austroasiatic/Hmong Mien/Tai Kadai.

>Even places like Vietnam which are not Chinese were still heavily Sininized and adopted Chinese customs,
There should be a distinction made between pre Imperial and Imperial China.

The Western Zhou "Sinification" was done to solidify their power structure by inducting local lineages as well as lineages related to the Zhou royal family and Shang remnants.

This identity "Hua"(cultured) and "Xia"(direct descendants of the Xia dynasty) applied to aristocrats and were geographically limited in scope.

By the late Warring States neither Qin or Chu were consider Hua in any respects. The former adopting Legalism and the later for their semi barbaric origins and their expansions into barbarian territory.

Ironically,Liu Bang was a Chu native that established a quasi Zhou feudal order in the east and a centralized regime in the west.

>All of that shit happened in the last 200 years.
>Westerners got lucky and exploded during a time when China was in decline.
and your point being?

>perhaps
kill yourself

Large territory= lots of resources. Europeans powers had to go seaway in order to find more resources while China not only had a larger territory than any European power before the colonizing era, containing a multitude of all kinds of resources, but could also just try to conquer their neighbors if they wanted more.

[Citation needed]

Also, it's clearly retarded westerners with a bad case of sinoboo who push this shit

Europe still made everyone around the globe their bitch though. Cry more chink .

populatons expand to fit resources so that isn't an important factor

Do you think a European federation will ever work?
Are we Europeans more alike than different? Can a United Europe balance out the world once again? What would work, and what wouldn't. What countries could easily integrate?

Not a clickbait, so don't troll and meme.
Discuss.

shit

Europeans explored the world because they were all fighting over a small patch of dirt, China didn't need to because they united most of the shit they need under one state and if they need more they can expand West.

why do you ask here

Veeky Forums looks less retarded than /pol/ and I want a normal conversation debate. Missclicked and posted it here instead of making new thread.

not him but I assume his point is china was the frontier of human civilization for like 5,000 years before that

China was able to reunite whereas the Roman Empire stayed dead, because they had a common written language and identity as "not barbarians" tying them together. There has been some success I think in forging a common European identity at least among the youth, but the integration is pushing too fast while too many of the old farts are still alive (see the UK)

had you not studied middle school world history on colonialism ?
>Gold God Glory

>gold
trade routes, also literally gold/silver ore deposit not found in europa
>god
muh HOLY Father
>Glory
European has this GLORY obsession while the chink's ultimate goal is to make prosperous nation harmonious society.

Are you fucking retarded

>Huge building works
China has this wall

Also China had bureaucracies that managed to impose a uniform set of laws on all its citizens since the Han dynasty, while most Roman freedmen were barely nominal and Roman provinces were a little above tributary states

Because they literally didn't need to. As long as shit didn't hit the fan in China it was perfectly good enough for even peasants to be eating luxuries on a semi-regular basis.
The only reason Europe went to sea was looking for new trade routes to India and China and >spices
There was literally no need for this in China

The original meaning of Middle Kingdom literally referred to the actual middle kingdoms of China, that is to say, Zhao and its surroundings during the Warring States era.