2.5: China in the Gloal Economy

China in the Global Economy

For all their aspirations for global supremacy, the European maritime powers of the early-modern world were destined to be role players rather than central figures in the global economy. That role was definitely significant. They were the key carriers of goods on the routes their mariners had pioneered – the trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, and Atlantic to Indian Ocean routes – as well as those they had seized like the inter-Indian Ocean routes, but the actual foundation of the early-modern global economy was built on China, not Europe. There is a common misconception that in comparison to the great powers of Europe, Chinese states were traditionalist, conservative, and inward-looking. Certainly, these traits can be applied to moments or even eras within the region’s history, but over the long term, it would be more accurate to say that the states that ruled within the borders of modern-day China were defined by economic dynamism, political experimentation, technological innovation, and a deep engagement with the broader world. In this section, we will turn our attention to the Ming Dynasty and its role in creating a global economy.

Ming China

In 1368 a great rebellion that began in southern China would finally culminate in the expulsion of the Mongols back to the steppes from which they had originated. The Mongols had ruled China as part of their massive empire for roughly 90 years before the combined effects of a volatile climate, misrule, discrimination against the southern Chinese, and a devastating plague inspired a mass movement against their authority. The rebels won their victory under the command of a man named Zhu Yuangzhang who would become the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Plague had orphaned Zhu when he was still a boy, and his early life was defined by poverty and want in what appeared to be a decaying world. His lifetime, for instance, happened to coincide with a global climate that was becoming generally colder, drier, and more unstable than it had been previously. His official biography describes calamitous conditions at the beginning of his career as a rebel: “The year 1344 was a time of drought, locusts, great famine, and epidemics.” (Brook, 72) Like many in those desperate times, Zhu joined up with one of the many anti-Mongol rebel bands that had begun circulating throughout southern China. Just 24 years later, at the age of 40, the once penniless orphan had defeated the Mongols and competing rebel armies to become, as the Hongwu Emperor, the first ruler of a new dynasty that he named the Ming.

The old cliche about the Ming was that it was a dynasty that restored “Chinese tradition” after the disruption of Mongol conquest and rule. It would be more accurate to say that Chinese tradition was reinvented under the Ming. Elites in the Ming Dynasty did look back to the dynasties that had preceded the Mongol conquest, but they were very selective in how they made use of those examples and it was not seen as a model that should be copied. As Timothy Brook describes it, “The past was comfortable, but it was a fiction.” Intellectuals debated with each other how to interpret their present. Those debates were full of a sense of uncertainty that tradition offered a useful guide to their present circumstances: “Was the prosperous and open age in which they had been born a better world, or was it a morass of busy profiteering and self-promotion that could only lead to moral and political ruin? Was the Way the way forward or the way back?” The big issue that vexed Chinese intellectuals during the Ming was the emergence of a more globalized world. The Ming Empire was both at the center of the process and deeply impacted by the economic connections (and their effects on politics, culture, and society) that emerged as a result. (Brook, 23)

The most famous period of the early Ming began with the 1403 decision of the Yongle Emperor (Figure 2.5.1), one of Zhu's younger sons, to order the outfitting of an enormous fleet of ships to sail into the Indian Ocean. He placed the fleets under the command of the imperial eunuch Zheng He. More than a century earlier, the Mongols had sent an invasion force to the island of Java, but it was exceedingly rare for a Chinese dynasty to take such an active role in the Indian Ocean. For this reason, the emperor’s decision was made against the advice of the more traditional-minded bureaucrats in the imperial court who tried to convince him to concern himself with more pressing issues. It was indeed a massive undertaking that required the attention of entire provincial governments to gather the necessary material, manpower, and skilled labor to make it possible. The first treasure fleet, as they came to be known, was made up of 317 ships carrying nearly 28,000 personnel and set out into the eastern Indian Ocean in 1405. Over the next 28 years, six more similar-sized fleets would be sent out, with some reaching as far as the Red Sea and possibly the Mozambique Channel in East Africa (Figure 2.5.3). As unprecedented as the fleets themselves were, they can also be seen as a continuation of his father's foreign policy. The Hongwu Emperor had adopted a system in which neighboring states would send tribute embassies to the Ming and would receive legitimacy and sometimes even protection in return. It is very possible that Zheng He's voyages were intended to extend those tributary relationships further afield than the Hongwu emperor had ever imagined. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): 

"The Yongle Emperor," in the Public Domain. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\):

"Tribute giraffe with Attendant," Shen Du, licensed under CC-BY. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\):

"17th-century woodblock print depicting Zheng He's fleet," in the Public Domain.

 

Indeed, the fleets were a huge presence in the Indian Ocean during these decades. They destroyed pirate sanctuaries, installed friendly rulers in Calicut (in southern India), Palembang (on the island of Sumatra), and Malacca (on the tip of the Malaysian Peninsula), carried envoys from various states back to China, brought Chinese Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, and carried trade and tribute items from one end of the Ocean to the other (Figure 2.4.2). There is an alternate version of history where the might, wealth, productivity, and aggressiveness of the Ming led to the Indian Ocean becoming a region dominated by China. Had that occurred, Portuguese ships arriving in 1498 would have encountered a massive Chinese navy patrolling the seas instead of the decentralized system that I described above. That is not what happened, however. For all their activity, the voyages were, as court officials predicted, a massive drain on Ming resources while providing few tangible benefits. After the Yongle Emperor died in 1424 enthusiasm for the voyages seems to have waned in the imperial court. One more voyage was sent out in 1431, but after its return in 1433 the voyages stopped. Admiral Zheng He died around that same time and Ming policy shifted away from its aggressive maritime policy and towards a more land-based strategy. Chinese trade in the Indian Ocean continued but after 1433 it was to be controlled by private merchants rather than directed from the central state. The ending of the Ming’s state-centered maritime policy stands in stark contrast to the policy of the Portuguese during the same century. Arguably, the first 33 years of Portuguese activities in the Atlantic Ocean were no more financially successful than the Ming in the Indian Ocean. Yet where the Ming pulled back, the Portuguese kept pushing forward. It is an interesting contrast, but is too often used to make grand claims about the differences between “China” and “Europe”. The reality is that the situation of Ming China in the 15th century was fundamentally different from that of Portugal. Each had a specific set of pressures, challenges, and incentives that are not comparable. What made sense for the Ming – ceasing the voyages – made less sense for Portugal – continuing theirs. When we make the European historical experience seem universal we end up taking something like “exploration”, which emerged out of an extremely specific context, and turning it into a stage in history that some states succeeded in accomplishing while others failed. The reality is that even despite ending their voyages, the Ming would continue to be far more wealthy, populous, and powerful than Portugal, Spain, England, or France.

Review Questions

• What factors led to the Ming ending their Treasure Fleets?
• How does a Eurocentric perspective give a misleading view of Ming China? Is comparison a useful historical tool in thinking about different regions?