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AGC & EEP: Far East

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I understand what you mean about Chinese colonies, but what about Taiwan and possibly Luzon? I think Taiwan is clearly an example of a chinese colony and Luzon I think is imaginable if you consider the massive deviation that regularily occurs.

I know most of the areas of Chinese "colonization" in this period, as opposed to trading posts, are internal and involve areas where EU states are now. But if China doesn't get colonists how do you represent Taiwan?
 
Taiwan can be represented with colonists, although the nature is different from european colonisation. but i dont see how having a few hundred ships necessarily means they will try to conquer other areas. that is not the purpose of the Zheng He voyages at all. unlike in other areas of the world, conquest in China is restricted by the confucian bureaucracy, who are not in favour of mindless conquest and exploitation. and no strong leader would really think about conquering other parts of the world for the purpose of domination or exploitation because at the time, China was already the richest and most powerful country in the world with no real rival, there is no need to exploit other resources.
 
Which is of course the reason China lost that foremost position...
 
i like to look at it the other way. it's europe who overtook the rest of the world. it's the striking changes that went on in europe that made it so powerful. it's not anything strange that China did that made it lost its position. if you look at some sources, you will find that china still accounted for the biggest share of the world's manufacturing output until 1800, and only after that did the west combined overtook china.
 
Originally posted by Sun_Zi_36
Taiwan can be represented with colonists, although the nature is different from european colonisation. but i dont see how having a few hundred ships necessarily means they will try to conquer other areas. that is not the purpose of the Zheng He voyages at all. unlike in other areas of the world, conquest in China is restricted by the confucian bureaucracy, who are not in favour of mindless conquest and exploitation. and no strong leader would really think about conquering other parts of the world for the purpose of domination or exploitation because at the time, China was already the richest and most powerful country in the world with no real rival, there is no need to exploit other resources.
Click to expand...

Sorry, when I said that China could become the foremost in the world I did not mean militarily. I meant more in a trade and dipomacy sense. China did have the potential in the 15th Century to become more of a world player than it did.
 
Originally posted by Sun_Zi_36
i like to look at it the other way. it's europe who overtook the rest of the world. it's the striking changes that went on in europe that made it so powerful. it's not anything strange that China did that made it lost its position. if you look at some sources, you will find that china still accounted for the biggest share of the world's manufacturing output until 1800, and only after that did the west combined overtook china.
Click to expand...

But by reducing their interact with the outside world they did lose a control over world politics. Would a more involved China have stopped the european colonisation of India and south-east asia?
 
China did have significant involvement with the outside world diplomatically and in trade throughout the period. China did dominate trade in the SE Asian region. even till this day, ethnic Chinese dominated the economies of many SE Asian nations. again, it's really the West which went around all corners of the world colonising, trading, exploiting, conquering, etc that made it seem like China is closing up comparatively. the gradual move further into the conservative direction that did occur is really relatively insignificant compared with what the West did that made China seem like comparatively. the most tolerant and open period during Chinese history was probably the Tang dynasty. however, China had never even attempted to become a naval empire in its history.

the furthest realistic possibility i think is that if Zheng He spirit had been embraced rather than suppressed, China would have continued to actively seek to sub-ordinate its nearby neighbours diplomatically and perhaps sought to build up a vassalage empire around SE Asia, like what Jinnai said. it could have increased interaction with SE Asia even further (India probably not since trade and diplomatic ties were never as strong) but i doubt they would have really stopped european colonisation because of the simple weirdness of this practice to other parts of the world. at the start, the europeans just built up a small fort or two or a trading post somewhere in the coast of SE Asian countries, something not even noticed by the authorities. then they developed trade in the area, something usually not really taken seriously by local authorities until it has already gained importance. then the europeans use trade to blackmail the locals or simply launch a surprise attack on the royal palace or something. by that time other nations would have realised whats going on but it would be probably too late. even if they are its vassals, i doubt China would bother to send its armies thousands of miles across the sea and probably have to stay there trying to wipe out the europeans just to secure a vassal which gives it nominal yearly tributes.
 
You're thinking in terms of troops and ships. I think some of the other people are thinking in terms of diplomats and merchants. Even if China wasn't going to waste time invading India, they might not take kindly to other powers intruding on their trade in the region, had they had any. Even the act of demanding the removal of European forces from the region would have made some Europeans more wary about expanding in that direction at all. It doesn't matter if China conquers the area themselves, as long as they keep the Europeans out of there, their own security from foreign encroachment is more or less guaranteed.
 
Actually I think the Emperor and the higher ups would when the realized the futility probably make some secret agrements with the europeans to allow them to conquer the outlying vassals in exchange for keeping off the China and is more closer vassals and neigbors. Much like a psedo Monroe Doctrine the US made.
 
unlikely that any agreement will be respected by either side though. once the europeans got hold of the outer areas like india they will intrude further and test the patience of the Chinese if they know they are on the upper hand. just as what happened to the Treaty of Nerchinsk. could have delayed colonisation a bit, i guess.
 
But the europeans were not strong enough to go against China diplomatically when they first began to colonise this area. Military might is one thing, but diplomats could have a out proportional effect on other countries.

You are Portugal, you have 50 ships in Asia and a few thousands soldiers, you maybe have some governors and admirals that can treat diplomatically. You would have been diplomatically overwhelmed by the Chinese delegation, even if they came with no Imperial soldiers.
 
yes true, but my point was, if you are small in size (like how you described), neither the Chinese nor the local nation would probably notice you or cared about you or think that you are any of a threat. once you become strong enough that the Chinese notice you (and that has to mean really strong even if China was more involved in the region, as in already controlling a number of colonies) then there is a possibility they might deal with you. but even then definitely the Chinese would think it a joke that they would need to agree to any spheres of influence with you or treat you as a threat. if you are still stronger (eg having conquered a number of important nations in the area) then, if the Chinese were more concerned about its "periphery" regions, they might come to some agreement with you and try to make you satisfied with what you already got. however by that time the europeans probably would have been consolidated and confident enough to keep expanding and test the patience of the Chinese how strictly they hold to their demands. the Chinese would probably never send troops to help its vassals except the closest ones and the most it would do is close all its trade with barbaric peoples. that gives more excuse for Europeans to keep expanding until they reached the nations closest to China. So in short more chinese involvement in the region in any realistic sense at most may slow europeans to a small extent.
 
You have a good point, as I said before I don't know much of Chinese history.
 
China had an arrogance complex worse than the Romans. Their old word for themselves is simply "The People" (I think that was T'ang. I'm probably wrong). They didn't even feel the need to conquer foregin peoples they just let their "civilized nature" raidate outwards, thinking that eventually the rest of the world would "see the light". Once they had Tibet and vassalage of the Southeast, they considered themselves at their "natural frontier," and didn't find it necessary to keep going. Were there any voices in China warning about the threat of the Europeans? If so, maybe there could be an event where they decide to take these warnings seriously, and become more aggressive, at least in relation to colonizing powers in the East.
 
It also depends on where the Europeans start to conquer. If they stay in India for a while, China won't be bothered by them continuing to push inward, unless they start to move past Bengal. If they start in SE Asia, its a different matter, espially if its around Taiwan.

And again it consideres how aggressive china is. Its doubtful they would still bother with a small contingent, but they of people, but they might if it started eating up a lot of money and resources once they became bigger. Again though i doubt they would bother sending anything beyond western India at the most, and only that if they felt they were losing some important resource.

The only difference imo from Sun Zi's statement is the time of reaction (when they became a moderate/local threat) and the range (western india/north western indoneisa) that an agressive China would try to protect, the latter is only if they viewed it of importance for trade/resources.

Beyond that, they'd try diplomatic means, but wouldn't take it seriously if Europeans captured them.
 
Originally posted by Archaalen
...Were there any voices in China warning about the threat of the Europeans?...
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being able to that would imply the person has the supernatural ability to predict the future. nobody even knew who the europeans were. even if they knew, they would know that they were simply insignificant barbarians located somewhere not even heard of, uncivilised by the Chinese customs and culture. we simply cant imply all the knowledge that we have in hindsight on the people back then. i dont think that even the europeans thought that they would threaten the rest of the world when they started to colonise.
 
Other people in other times have warned about the dangers of other powers without fortune-telling. It was a long shot, but my question was whether anyone in China recognized the threat of European expansion, and brought it up. Sorry if I insulted you, Sun.
 
no i wasnt insulted at all, just thought it a bit funny.:)
the short answer to your question is: not that i know of.
the longer answer is, even if there was, nobody would pay attention to it because it was not any simple danger but a danger of a phenonmenon (colonisation) completely unknown and unfamiliar to the people at that time.
 
alright, then, so much for that. Wasn't there a book published recently talking about how the Chinese may have discovered North America during the Zheng He period? I wonder what they would have done with it had they colonized it...but they're not colonizers really, so that's a moot point, right?
 
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