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 Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 1:57 pm
Post subject: World History |
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| China kept contact with the west to a minimun because |
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 5:08 pm
Post subject: Re: World History |
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I think you should rephrase your question. David is very helpfull in awnsering our questions, he deserves more respect than this.
But I guess it's an interesting subject. Is China's behaviour typical for societies in their phase of development? When an advanced society meets a reactionary society, there may be some logic in isolationism. The leaders of the former may have more to win than to loose in the short run (dictators don't like change).
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 2:22 pm
Post subject: Re: World History |
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I had to take some time to refresh my memory about Chinese history. Through most of their history the Chinese, like pretty much everyone else, considered foreigners to be a bunch of ignorant barbarians. They fought with the tribes of the northern steppe, the Hsiung-nu, Turks, and Mongols, but they also traded with them. They occasionally fought with the Arabs and Persians, but also had a long history of trading with them.
Their attitude towards foreigners seems to have hardened after the period of Mongol conquest and rule in the 13th century. China had been governed for a very long time by a bureaucratic structure. The Mongols did not make very good bureaucrats, and they did not trust the Chinese enough to allow them to hold the highest level bureaucratic positions. One solution to this problem was to recruit all of the educated foreigners they could find and give them the top level bureaucratic positions. This included Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle.
After the Chinese regained control of their country with the Ming dynasty in the 15th century, they seem to have been even more opposed to foreigners than in the past. It was also official Ming policy to organize most commercial activity as a state monopoly. Most silk and porcelain production was done in government organized factories and workshops under the control of bureaucratic officials. A significant portion of government revenue came from these monopolies and the tight control and taxation of commercial activity. The Ming rulers prohibited private dealings between Chinese and foreigners and forbid any private voyaging abroad.
In the early 1500s Europeans began to arrive on the south China coast by ship. The Portuguese appeared first followed by the Spanish, Dutch, and English. The Chinese chronicles of the time refer to Portuguese pirates and smugglers. It is entirely possible that the first European ships in east Asia behaved something like the Vikings in Europe. When they landed in an area that had strong defenses, they acted like commercial traders. When they landed in an area with little or no defense, they acted like raiders and pirates. The Chinese coast was largely unprotected. The early European arrivals may have filled their holds with Chinese goods through piracy or by going ashore and just taking anything of value. On the other hand, it could be that the Europeans got their cargoes by trading with corrupt Chinese officials, and their offense was more in the category of smuggling.
Jesuit missionaries began to appear in China in the 1580s, led by Matteo Ricci. These guys were first class scholars who very much impressed the Chinese court with their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. They also taught the Chinese how to cast cannon. The Jesuits learned the Chinese language, studied Confucianism, and adapted Christian theology to Chinese ways and traditions. Because of this they achieved a great deal of success and converted many Chinese, including some officials of the imperial court. Franciscans and Dominicans arrived later and were extremely upset with what they found. The Chinese Church was so foreign to them that they accused the Jesuits of heresy. This caused a major controversy in Rome, which was won by the orthodox hard-liners. They returned to China with an official Papal denunciation of the Chinese Church. This caused great distress at the imperial court and resulted in the banning of missionary activity in China in 1720. This entire episode is known in the Catholic Church as the Chinese Rites Controversy.
The Chin dynasty was founded in 1644 by Manchu conquerors. They were slightly more open to foreign trade than their Ming predecessors. Canton was designated as an open port for trade. By the late 18th century the English were buying massive amounts of tea, which was a problem because they had very little that the Chinese wanted to buy in exchange. So the British had to pay mostly in cash, which was a drain on their silver reserves. In the 1780s they found a remedy by shipping opium, produced in India, to China.
The opium market ballooned very quickly and drug addiction became a major problem in China. In the 1820s the emperor banned the importation of opium. This law was ignored by the British and their Chinese customers. The emperor appointed a drugs czar and sent him to Canton to stop the trade. In 1839 he confiscated and destroyed 20,000 chests of opium. The British were outraged and sent a fleet, which sailed up and down the Chinese coast
bombarding cities and causing a great deal of death and destruction. The Chinese were forced to capitulate, sign new treaties that opened up more ports to trade, and pay a huge indemnity.
China was now open to European exploitation that continued throughout the 19th century and led to the near dismemberment of the country. One result of the Opium War was a major anti-foreign popular movement that began in the southern coastal cities that had been bombarded by the Royal Navy. This grew in strength throughout the century and culminated in the Boxer Rebellion of the 1890s. This entire episode is much too large for me to describe adequately.
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