Quote:
Originally Posted by FireGilbert
Regarding the Chinese stopping their ocean voyages this was definitely a huge blunder but I’m going to argue it was inevitable for European nations to colonise the world instead of the Chinese.
Europe is a fragmented continent made of multiple nations in direct competition with each other. At the start of the age of exploration they were all hungry for resources and looking for any competitive advantage possible. Once one nation found something the other European nations were quick to copy. Trade with the East Indies and eventual colonisation spread through Europe as a necessity of a Nation’s survival.
China on the other hand is a large unitary nation self sufficient in resources and controlled by one ruler. They just didn’t have the need to explore. Also, there is no competition to test ideas and keep the best ones, instead decisions are left up to the whims of one person. Even if the 1430 ban doesn’t go into place another leader later on may have made the same decision.
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Well, this is what eventually happened, and I agree that it does show the risks of a centralized system, but I think you're still oversimplifying things.
When everything hangs on the whims of one person, what if that one person has the mindset of someone like Alexander the Great? Conquest for it's own sake, spreading the "superior" Chinese way of life all through the world?
When you consider how long it took for the Europeans to gather the manpower and the ships to truly start colonizing the world, you might argue the Chinese could have had a headstart of at least a hundred years. The largest Chinese fleet moved possibly as much as 100,000 men. For that era, it's just a staggeringly large number.
For comparison, the largest battle of that era in Europe was likely the Battle of Grunwald (aka First Battle of Tannenberg, 1410, between Poland-Lithuania and German-Prussian Teutonic knights). The number of combatants in that battle is estimated to be between 30,000 to 60,000. That's both sides combined.
Theoretically speaking the Chinese could have shown up in Europe with armies as big as anything the Europeans could field, backed by a navy vastly superior in numbers (and possibly in technology) and carrying enough gold and trade goods to buy their way into the hearts of the local merchants and mercenaries.
Let's also remember just how much ahead the Chinese economy was at that point. Lets consider that
400 years later the economy of the British
empire almost collapsed once they started regular trade with China... because they had so little to offer to the Chinese, and the Chinese had so much. They had to save that day through the Opium wars, which they won in large part because of their vastly superior navies. If we assume the Chinese had kept steadily developing their naval tech, it's really unlikely the British could have won a naval war on the shores of China.
Let's also remember that the opium mentioned in those wars came from Asia. Even if the Chinese didn't have interest in colonizing the backwater lands of Europe, if we assume that the Chinese had kept building up their seatrade around Southern Asia, there's no way the British could have ever colonized for example India, "The pearl of the Empire". There would have been a larger, richer empire right next to it that would never have allowed it to happen.
So it's not just the opportunity for colonization that was lost. The Chinese literally banned seavoyages. Their superior navy was scrapped, generations worth of shipbuilding knowledge was lost
permanently and international trade took a massive step back.
One of the most interesting speculations here is of course that one of the presumed main reasons why the Chinese banned seavoyages was that the central power was worried about the growing power of merchants. If you take a look at the history of Europe, the nobility was of course right to be worried.
Even if we assume the Chinese never really developed a taste for colonization, just not going to the extreme of literally banning seavoyages would likely have lead to a completely different Chinese history, one with a rising powerful merchant class driving innovation and demanding reformations, much the same way they did in Europe.
That's why the Chinese decision to ban seavoyages in 1430 is my go-to suggestion for a lynchpin moment in history. Without this decision, world history would likely have been changed to a point where it would be barely recognizable.
The Chinese never did get around to colonizing or even trading with America, but they could have and absolutely would have eventually, and at least for the western side they'd have been there way before the Europeans. If the emperors hadn't banned it that is.
EDIT:
Obviously this is all purely speculative and shouldn't be taken very seriously.