How Did The Europeans Contribute To The Spread Of Maritime Expansion

The Chinese were greatly influenced because of trade. Marco Polo was a political influence because of trade. He left Venice, and crossed Persia and Central Asia to reach China. He then spent seventeen years in the emperor's service. Finally Marco Polo returned home and wrote an account of the splendor and wealth of China, which would not become popular until the printing press invention.

In the year 1500, Ming China enforced an isolationist policy for trade. China had totally separated itself from the outside world, and private international trade was made unlawful. Just certain trade was permitted, for example, the Japanese were permitted in an assigned port like clockwork. Be that as it may, around the mid-1500s, a few Europeans came to Guangzhou to exchange. After this, in 1517, a Portuguese endeavor arrived, however, the gathering was placed in prison. Fortunately, in 1557, the Ming court and the Portuguese agreed to a settlement, formally making Macau, a region on the south shoreline of China, a legitimate exchanging port for the Portuguese. Later on, exchanging got to be allowed among the Chinese once more, and was no

While differing ecomically and politically in their responses to western penetration, Japan and China had similarities in the way of geography. China only allowed Europeans to trade with it in a limited number of ports and cities, which limited the amount of goods Europeans were allowed to transfer overseas. Japan isolated itself as a whole from trade for an entire decade, and when it did open it was cautious towards westerners. Additionally, both were bordered by the ocean at least to a certain extent – Japan was surrounded entirely, being an island, by water, and a large percentage of China’s borders was water. It is because of this that the third similarity arose – both did trade by ocean. China with Britain, simply because it was the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient form of travel between the two, and Japan because there was obviously no choice considering Japan is an island. These geographical similarities arose purely from the coincidence that both were bordered by the ocean, which created the necessity for boats and by the time the opportunity for trade

During the early nineteenth century, both China and Japan enforced policies restricting foreign trade in order to avoid industrialization and western ideas, but after both societies experienced foreign invasions and unequal treaties being established by foreigners, Japan began to industrialize and became imperialists trying to create an empire, while China differed in that the people wanted reform and government restrained the reformation of their society, therefore causing multiple rebellions and overall the collapse of their empire.

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

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 beijing . The 1793 British mission to expand trade did not succeed, and the emperor Qianlong explained in a letter to George III that

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.

Asia was the center of trade, business and craft. Many countries tried to find a direct route to Asia, in order to increase trade. Whereas, China decided to uphold isolationism. Its population was one hundred million people in four million miles of square land. China did not want more land, nor more subjects to govern. In fact, China had more people than it can govern. Yongle Emperor sent Zheng He to purchase various spices, goods and conduct trade. Zheng He was a Muslim Chinese eunuch trusted by the

1. Trade rights and religious perceptions affected how Matteo Ricci viewed relations with china by taking a different strategy than the other missionaries. “…the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) encouraged his followers to immerse themselves in the language and to become conversant with the rich traditions of Chinese literature (Source 21.2, Ricci, Matteo, in Patterns of World History, Vol. 2, p. S21-4)”. Instead of limiting their training in Chinese language and culture and focusing merely on the conversion of the poor, the Jesuits instead immersed themselves in the Chinese language and high culture of the empire. They gained recognition through their advanced knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, military science and other European learning required by the imperial

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

Zheng He was a Muslim and eunuch, who led seven expeditions throughout the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433. His armada was over 300 and a crew over 27,000. Zheng He visited Africa, The Middle East and India. His journeys were trade missions, but not in the way of buying something and selling it for higher prices. At that time, China was not indeed of anything to import, but indeed of respect and prestige from other people. China engaged in a debasing ritual. This led foreign rulers going to China on a treasure ship with Zheng He to sail, bringing a lot of different stuff including exotic animals.

Throughout the late eighteenth century, China did not reject the outside world. It just failed to see that the globe had something to offer. China ran well enough with cheap labour and efficient administration. Supply and demand was easily met in a way that left no incentive to invest in technological improvement. Plus, China was unaware that an economic, technological and cultural revolution was taking place in Europe and expanding throughout the rest of the world. For this reason, China did not industrialize in the way that the West did. China became weak and fell behind the technology race because of its poor leadership. Chinese emperors were more

The opinions of the ordinary citizens as well as the emperors in China had very similar mentalities against merchants and the expansion of networks such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean Network: they wanted none of it. The merchant trade was iffy at best and only the most successful merchants could make a living off of their work so why bother. Culturally, China was much better off on its own as the foreigners who wanted to trade were greedy and unpredictable with strange beliefs and rituals that could ruin China’s stable and normal ways of living. The foreigners also took China’s money, more than a million dollars a year, and still wanted more (419). Emperor Yongle went as far as to suspend voyages because, “We do not have any desire for goods from distant regions” (438). Pirates didn’t help either as they drained resources that would be put into expanding the

At first, the Ming government thought of little of the arrival of the Portuguese. From the perspective of the emperor, the Europeans were only an unusual form of barbarian. To the Chinese ruler, the rulers of all other countries were simply “younger brothers” of the Chinese emperor, who was seen as the son of heaven. The Portuguese had little impact on Chinese society at first. The exchange of ideas between the Chinese and Europeans impressed both parties. Christian missionaries from Europe brought instruments, such as clocks, that impressed Chinese officials and made them more receptive to Western ideas. Both sides benefited from this cultural exchange. Chinese scholars marveled at their ability to read better with European eyeglasses. The

The first reason in China for getting involved in global trade is focused with an industrialized economy world that has an important role in the competition for massive trade. China has larger territory in the East Asia with open coast in Pacific Ocean on Southeast, with huge ports and growing stage profile of coastal territory into the country and with neighboring. The way how this traies are functioning in the market system and how capitalism creates wealth are a real example to China for very successful business. Open market economy are very beneficial and that trade protection are costly, frequently overwhelmed by expensive export and cheap import trading partners.