How come the Chinese (or the Japanese for that matter) never expanded far into the Pacific or reached Australia / the Americas?
Sure the Pacific is a lot bigger than the Atlantic but they were so far ahead of Europe at certain times that it seems like they should have been able to find it centuries earlier.
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They feared the boong warrior
Because the renaissance, and Ancient Greek influence. European science made huge leaps in the 1400s, after the dark ages, and passed up everyone else in the world very quickly. A lot of this science included better naval navigation, and you can guess what happened next.
Japan didn't have anything to gain from exploring further to the east because there was nothing there, or at least they had nothing to gain from the little that there was. At best they could've traded spices from places like Java but the whole of Japanese culture was still steeped in feudalism, so there were no major efforts to do things like that.
As for China, they did have the technology (see Zheng He) but IIRC for a long time they had a big taboo on naval trade due to piracy, I don't know the exact specifics.
en.wikipedia.org
This guy did a bunch of expeditions in Ming dynasty but part of the imperial court was against it due to massive costs involved
but who the fuck knows what really happened hundreds of years ago
Because there's nobody of consequence there and all the important people and products came from the west. Which was eager to come to them anyway.
Contrast this to the impetus of European explorers to reach east by going west.
Japan was tremendously insular.
trade winds
China did not have the technology to build artificial island to claim a waterway
Japs didn't have aircraft carriers and a North American superpower to contend with
Exploration is actually really fucking expensive. Like so expensive that you need a king (or queen) to pour money into it if you want to do anything substantial. So there needs to be a very powerful incentive behind it.
For Europe, that moment came in the 15th century when the Roman empire fell to the Ottomans. The Ottomans cut Europe off from the eastern spice trade, which made Europeans really want to find a route to India. This gave them a motivation to develop new navigation methods and engineer new ships capable of long voyages, enabling them to sail all the way around Africa to reach India.
China never had an incentive to develop their seafaring skills because India was right next to them. They had little motivation to go out and explore the world, because from their point of view, they already had everything they wanted within arm's reach.
Europeans explored the world because of mercantilism and search for resources or routes to resources that they couldn't get in Europe, like spices. China had no need to go overseas searching for resources because the government were able to control all the resources they needed in their own land empire, and their navy was more geared towards controlling their own rivers and guarding the coast from Japanese pirates.
When they were under Mongol rule they were more interested in staying connected to the muslim world and developed naval capabilities. As the Ming dynasty kicked in and all the old administrators who had grown up under the Mongol dynasty died Confucian bureaucracy and their distaste of outsiders returned.
The Tang dynasty was open to outsiders but that ended horribly thanks to a turkic upstart in their court.
Court politics, the Confucian bureaucracy favored agriculture and imperial consolidation over overseas expansion and trade.
1) Pacific is fuckhuge bro. Like, really fuckhuge.
2) China didn't give a fuck. They hit the point where they decided no one else in the world could compete or offer them anything new, and in their hubris they shut themselves away to preserve muh culture.
3) Japan has ALWAYS sucked at boats until after the Meji Restoration, and even then they weren't fantastic until WW2, and we all know how THAT went.
A begger will eat anything that is edible.
A rich person will eat only what he deems tasty and with class, never the untasteful.
China is the rich person. Europe is the begger.
>I think you dropped this opium pouch, my good chinaman
One month later
>Yes,yes, ALL the tea.
Opium came after age of exploration.
Wrong time period fuckwit
Crossing the Atlantic is much easier than crossing the Pacific. And on the way they'd find just Polynesian islands, which would hardly do much to spur further exploration, having little wealth or resources of interest.
But what about South East Asia or Australia? Well SE Asia had the same spices Europeans were chasing, but the Chinese could easily access these through close trade. It wasn't just the spice routes being cut off by the fall of Constantinople that prompted men to try and sail around the world to China; it was the fact that because it moved through so many hands to get to Europe, the price was ludicrously inflated by the time it reached the end. So it made sense, if you had the ability, to just sail there yourself and cut out the dozens of middle men.
But of course the first trans-Atlantic trip didn't find China, but the Americas, which seemed at first to be a bit of a dud, since they didn't seem to have much to interest Europeans, who were after spices. But then they found out about the Aztec and Inca empires, and the fabulous wealth they held, and then things changed. China arriving on Australia's shores wouldn't find grand cities filled with gold and treasure; they'd find stone age people who couldn't offer much beyond sea cucumbers. Hardly much to cheer on future expeditions.
Basically, you need a reason to explore. China did send out grand fleets under Zheng He, but they were intended to gain tribute from distant lands. But after he returned, the fleets were denounced as ruinously expensive (which they absolutely were) and the ships rotted away in docks. The only reason the same thing didn't happen to European explorers was that they found spices and treasure which not only encouraged others to try, but fueled further expeditions.
The Chinese reached the Bahamas or some shit like in the early 1400s. There is a stone pier the built there and everything.
>How come the Chinese (or the Japanese for that matter) never expanded far into the Pacific or reached Australia / the Americas?
euros tried to explore because they wanted asian spices
asians didnt want to because they already had the spices
their ships weren't called junk for 'nothin
Absolute brainlet with no knowledge on the subject here, did China ever try to conquer India or parts of it?Or vice versa?What about other parts of Asia?And if not, why?
Is this proof of Australians are inferior subhumans, below even alcoholic Amerindians?
The Vice Versa happened.
>First and Second Gurkha Wars
1780s, Gurkhas emerge and tried to go Empire by invading Tibet. Tibet asks China for Help. Qingz rout Gurkhas and invaded Nepal, forcing them to submit to a treaty that promised not to invade Tibet again. Tibet annexed by China.
>1841-42 Sikh War
Sikhs tried to go Empire and invade Tibet. Routed by Qingz. Qingz counterinvade but were routed in Ladakh. Brits start shit and go to war with the Sikhs (Anglo Sikh War) and the Chinese (Opium War). Sikhs and Chinks call it quits in a mutual treaty.