Calgary, April 2023
These days we aren’t allowed to say anything good about China. American propaganda wants us to believe that China is an enemy to be feared and hated. But China’s history spans four thousand years, from about 2000 BC till now. During that long time there were only 200 years (1800 – 2000) when China wasn’t a world power. China achieved its might not by the military conquest, but by the economic output based on inventions like paper, printing, compass, gun powder, and by products like porcelain, silk, and tea. But China was a closed society and its contempt for the outside world was the cause of their defeat by the British Empire during the Opium Wars of 1840 – 1860. The barbarians, after all, had a thing or two to show them.
For me the most interesting part of the Chinese history are the naval voyages of 1405 – 1433 under the admiral Zheng He. Those expeditions were enormous undertakings. There were seven voyages, each consisting of more then 300 ships with 28,000 people, reacheing all the way to the east cost of Africa. The biggest ships were over 100 m long, had 9 masts and carried 500 men crew. Comparing that with 1492 Columbus expedition of three ships of 20 m in length, three masts and 90 men crew total, I can only marvel about the Chinese achievement. But while the Columbus voyage marked the discovery a new world, the Chinese expeditions disappeared in the forgoten corners of history. Why?
The reason is the purpose of those expeditions. Columbus was looking for a new trade route to India and his was the voyage of discovery. Chinese expeditions were nothing like that. China was not looking for new trade routes. The country was selfsufficient and it was the outside world which was going to China to do buseniss. Moreover, trade had a bad reputation and merchants were at the bottom of the Chinese social clases. Admiral Zheng He would never allow trade to be part of his expeditions. Also, Zheng He wasn’t attempting any new discoveries. Chineses were in all those places before and he knew exacly how to get there. The purpose of those expeditions was something else. It was to impress the outside world by the power of China and its emperor. The message to the leaders of the other countries was: “Looked at us. You better behave, or you will be sorry.” I can well immagine that the sight of 300 heavily armed ships enterring a harbour underlined that message quite clearly.
But sending messages like that can be expensive and sending 300 ships with 28,000 people for two years expeditions was very expensive. Obviously, there were also benefits of Zheng He voyages, nemely the improved diplomatic and trade relations with the outside world. But the only people who would benefit was the merchant class, the lowest class of the Chinese social structure. It would increase their power at the expence of the local burocrats, and those buracrats didn’t like it at all. There was a strong opposition to what we now call a free trade, and in 1424, when the emperor Zhu Di died, admiral Zheng He’s influence in the empirial court diminished. The new emperor, the grandson of Zhu Di, authorized the last voyage (1431 – 1433), but after the death of Zheng He in 1433 the civil service began a campaign of systematic destruction of all the records of Zheng He’s voyages, and the emperor ordered the fleet to be left rotting in the harbours. China closed itself to the world and followed the policy of ‘China first’, but it didn’t work. Four hundred years later China was defeated by a new rising power, the British Empire. Will the policy of ‘America first’ work better for the United States?