How Did The Empires Influence China

This related perfectly with Charles d' Avenant's “An Essay on the East­Indian Trade”(Doc#8) which is written by a English scholar who speaks of how Europe also buys Asian commodities

there have been many changes in commerce. One change in commerce over the years was who dominated Trade in The Indian Ocean. Over the course of this time period the Indian ocean trade was dominated by the Indians, the Chinese the Arabs and even the distant European powers. Their were also changes in what goods were traded. Some trade goods like the exotic animals taken from Africa to China that weren’t traded for longer then a few decades. The reason Ming China had imported animals was because they were in an age of exploration at the time and wanted to have some animals for their exotic royal zoo. Also sending great explorers like Zheng He showed their ability to travel to distant lands and take what they please. Another change was how things were traded. Over the course of the 1,100 years described many changes occurred in the world of sailing. China had many of these inventions with in it’s walls before this time period. China was so Ethnocentric .that they did not spread their inventions till generations after they were made, and even then it was often by accident The compass were great improvements on how sailors navigated to their destinations. The ships them selves also changed throughout this period. The Chinese Junks were incredible ships, vastly larger then the ones Columbus used, They were equipped with cannons to defend them selves from pirates and were, in their time the most impressive ships on the water. There are changes in commerce in the Indian

In China, trade had a great effect on the people living there. Document Two, explains how Zheng He first prompted other countries to trade with China by giving them little gifts of what they had to offer. This showed other countries the luxuries and many different goods they could get from China. Demand for Chinese

Economic relationships between classical China and India were similar and almost seemed to rely on one another. India was considered “the center of trade”. Most trade routes were all passing through and dependent on India. Indian emphasis on trade and merchant activity was far more than in China, and also greater in the classical Mediterranean world. During the Maurya rule, India expanded their trade between the main centers of civilization Eurasia and Africa. Some products produced at one end of the system, such as Chinese silks and porcelains, were carried the whole length of the trading networks to be sold at the other end of the routes, in Rome. As a result, China and India both had to work together and figure out a way to make sure and help each other because both civilizations depended on each other for different things.

These traders brought with them different views on culture and government to China. One traveler named Marco Polo was hired by Kublai Khan to spread the ways of the Mongols with other tribes and empires. One negative impact of all of this trade was disease. People carried diseases and bacterias with them that were foreign to the new lands. When they reached a new location that disease would wipe out everyone in its path because they weren’t immune to it. Although diseases such as the black plague killed a lot of people, trade had more of a positive effect than a negative effect on the world because it led to new inventions that are still used to this

Many European countries such as Germany, France, and Great Britain, as well as Russia, Japan and the United States wanted to gain control of the Chinese market and dominate the trade and goods of that country. The result of

China experiences the pressure of the imperialist’s military which China did not have the knowledge or the experience to match. China went from a superior leader, self-sufficient country, that thought that everyone else were barbarians to a torn country. China accepted foreign trade, but they wanted to control and limit how much and with who the trade was used for, they felt that they European trade was unnecessary. They did not allow the western merchants to have any power or privileges and restricted them to Canton, plus they refused to open their trade system beyond Co-Hong which caused china to not become as prosperous as Japan. (Valentini 2013) Because China the believed that they were the center of civilization and that the Western culture was inferior the Chinese government refused to go along with any of the European’s request and the two nations became hostile towards

d. Contact with the West increased in the 17th century, but in the early 18th century, the Qing rulers restricted trade to land outside the walls of . The 1793 British mission to expand trade did not succeed, and the emperor Qianlong explained in a letter to George III that China British manufactured goods.

The Ming Empire was once a world-economic power, controlling the majority of the trade in the eastern world. The Ming Empire expanded due to Zheng He’s voyages, according to the book “China also undertook the largest and most impressive maritime expeditions the world had ever seen.” (Strayer, 392). These expeditions were funded by Emperor Yongle and it was not until his death that these expeditions had stopped and soon after Portugal and Spain began expanding.

Western imperialism in China was very significant, costed the lives of millions of people, but also helped shape China into a much stronger country than it was before, being ruled by the Qing Dynasty. Imperialism is a country extending its power and influence through the use of military force. There were two wars between the imperialists and China, the first and second Opium wars. The result of these wars was the weakening of the Qing Dynasty and led to a time of rebuilding, which was a great struggle, for China. The Europeans wanted to trade with China because of the great opportunity that they saw in the market. China’s population, which was 430 million, was seen as a fast and easy way for the Europeans to make a lot of money. The

In the 19th Century British planned to invade China for economic reasons. It had no motives to conquer the state rather entice it to accept a free trade. The country was rich in tea which was in high demand not only in Britain but all over the world. China also had porcelain and silk which the Britons envied. The intruders did not have enough silver to buy the commodities thus opted for a barter system. Consequently, a war between the two states occurred. It was fought between 1848 and 1852 with China becoming unsuccessful due advanced military competence of Britons. The signing of an agreement between them then followed, and British was additionally awarded extraterritorial rights by China. However, the imperialism in China was a positive thing to the natives because it introduced trade and much education in the region which opened up opportunities.

When explaining competition, most of Ferguson’s sources come from the comparisons between Europe and China. China, during the Ming period was an extremely stable and unified empire, and saw very little competition. Additionally, their technological

Europe seemed to remain the most neutral in this desperate silver trade, choosing to remain only involved enough to observe. British merchants were not entirely reliant on trade to or from the Asian worlds so merely recorded how China received “nothing but silver” (Doc. 4) and the Portuguese use this to “their good advantage in China”. However, England could not remain completely unaffected as scholars such as Charles D’Avenant observed. Luxury goods especially spices and silks have become prominent in European culture. While Europe draws from Asia “nothing on solid use” it has “tasted of this luxury” (Doc. 8) and it is not advisable for England to pull out of this silver trade. England could afford to remain more objective, but it could not pull out entirely. It had roots planted early on, and it would cause severe social disturbance to tear them up.

The Ming and Ottoman Empires arose after the Mongols in the mid-14th century. These two empires undertook massive renovation. Although there were some broad, common goals in their re-building, the Ming focused inward, while the Ottoman focused outward in building their empires, which reflected in their trading techniques. The Ming dynasty focused on internal trade and restricted external trade; the Ottomans however, mainly focused on external trade rather than internal. Trading across the ocean led to the Ottoman Empire becoming tolerant of ethnic religious minorities due to their large landmass, whereas the Ming dynasty’s geography caused them to become isolated, therefore leading them to become selective of their treatment towards ethnic

The Ottoman Empire and the Mongols controlled major trade routes, making it easy to trade with other countries. The Ottoman Empire and the Mongolian Empire both valued trade and protected its major trade routes from bandits and raiders. The Ottoman Empire controlled Constantinople, which was a big trade city bordering the Black sea and the Mediterranean sea. The Mongols controlled the silk road, which connected China to other asian and mediterranean countries.