What a strained case of fitting facts to a story. China was within 3000 sailing miles of all kinds of natural resources and material wealth. Look at Australia, for example, or India as a great trading nation for exploiting comparative advantages. But because this guy’s at Stamford and his explanation is tidily PC, this is getting trumpeted worldwide.
“What a strained case of fitting facts to a story. China was within 3000 sailing miles of all kinds of natural resources and material wealth. Look at Australia, for example, or India as a great trading nation for exploiting comparative advantages. But because this guy’s at Stamford and his explanation is tidily PC, this is getting trumpeted worldwide.”
Here’s the thing, they did exploit the resources of those surrounding regions. During the 15th century the Chinese had set up colonies and trading posts across the Western pacific and the Indian ocean from Indonesia to the coasts of Madagascar. It got to the point where the local kingdoms in Indonesia, the Philippines, and as far out as Sri Lanka were tribute-paying “vassal” states of the Chinese empire.
The Ming Chinese made a strategic mistake in completely halting their maritime expansion by the mid 15th century to devote their resources on ruinous wars with first the Mongols and later the Japanese.