China's naval power (Dube discussion April 17th)

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

After Clay's presentation last night I was struck by China's naval power in I think the 14th or 15th century. I wondered, if they truly had such a vast fleet of imposing ships, why didn't they desire to explore new worlds like the European's did, with much less adequate ships?

Clay's response was pointed out some obvious and not so obvious things. He said that since England, for example, was so small and was surrounded by strong and strictly established countries, their only option was to sail out to find more. China on the other hand was already a vast and expansive country - there was need for more territory.

Another interesting thing he told me was that the Chinese thought that "barbaric natives" were not worth their time. They didn't see the New World for it's resources (land, minerals, etc) but for the people who were so unsophisticated that they just were not important enough to spend time on.

Is this one of the aspects that lead to their decline in the 19th century? Not expanding their empire and thus influence on the world?

[Anonymous]

One has to understand the myopic nature of Chinese government and the elites then. Their entire focus for centuries had been on invasion (real and anticipated) from the West (prompting the use of massive resources in building land armies and defenses. The Yongle emperor was a breath of visionary, daring leadership and I doubt that anything like Zheng He's navy or voyages would have happened without the unique Yongle emperor's reign.

One also has to remember that England and Holland had a rising and powerful merchant class and a commercial revolution that was fired up to find items from abroad that wealthy Europeans were hankering to purchase. Historically, Chinese Confucians effectively repressed their business sector. Without free reign, there was no real pressure to venture away from the old, reliable (but waning and dangerous) Silk Road network and the Pacific-Indian Ocean system (also dangerous and costly to police). Europe's business class footed much of the cost of exploration and trade development, with subsidies and military protection from their governments. Western respect for the profit motive drove the expansion of its mercantile interests, something China lacked. Westerners' greed fueled the development of weapon systems to protect the markets and resources they were finding (both from each other and from the dangers beyond Europe.)

China did not pay attention to the West's ocean-going potential and therefore did not develop any way to protect itself from a sea invasion the like of what the Europeans were building. When it came, the Chinese, in their increasingly unfounded confidence, denied the potential of the West and, more and more, frustrated and eventually angered Western traders and their governments. The resulting Western military intervention in the early 19th century was the result and China would lose control over its economy and international relations.

[Anonymous]

Interesting points and I need clarification, not being a history teacher. What was the resulting Western military intervention in the early 19th century. Was that the cause of or result of China's economic slump?

[Anonymous]

The intervention was the British attack on China for reparations to the Opium traders who had lost all their product when it was siezed and destroyed by Qing officials. The Opium war was the trend setter for future European dealings with China; all bad for China, during the rest of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Thanks to the flood of silver from the Americas, Europeans had been buying Chinese exports. The Qing were enjoying a favorable trade imbalance, but European treasuries were being drained. England resorted to Opium. Debates in Parliament went in favor of backing up the drug traders (ironically, Britain would end up facing its own opium epidemic later). According to the AP text I taught with, China's economy was already stagnant. Much of what made China famous was being done by a small class of elites. Most Chinese had lost contact with the great accomplishments of earlier dynasties and, consequently, no further development was being undertaken.

The Opium War just shifted control of the lucrative export sector to Britain, and, to a lesser extent, other European powers in later treaties. The Europeans had no interest in the local economy, and the Qing were really not doing much to deal with it either. Both the foreigners and the Qing ruined the standard of living for most Chinese as a result. By the 1920s, American children, like my mother, were being told, "think of the starving children in China!" by parents who wanted them eat their meals.[Edit by="vortiz on Jul 24, 1:36:11 AM"][/Edit]

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