European Domination part III: Europe vs. East Asia

Finally, the hardest question to answer is perhaps: why not the East Asians? Now THIS is far from a trivial subject, since the civilizations of the Far East and those of Europe / Middle East developed at about the same pace, starting out with about the same time line for landmark inventions. Asia had a writing system, similar weapons, advanced ship-building technology, and gunpowder was invented in Asia centuries before it made its way to Europe. The Chinese explorer Zheng He traveled all over the Indian Ocean and sailed as far as Kenya in the XV century. It almost seems as though it was the natural progression of history for the Chinese to be the dominant power in the world. Then why didn't it happen?

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While the outcome of the "clash of civilization" between Europe and the Americas was predetermined well in advance, the outcome was not so certain in the case of East Asia. Here luck and historical timing played very important roles. The two civilizations had been developing almost independently until the XV century, with little or no conflict of interest, simply because of the sheer distance involved. The Chinese voyages under Zheng He happened in the years of 1405-1433, after which there were no more trips of such magnitude. Fortunately for the Europeans, they did not arrive at the height of Chinese power. By the time the first white voyagers (or you might call them pirates) entered the Indian Ocean in 1497 with ships of Vasco da Gama, the Chinese voyages in that direction had already stopped.

Had the Europeans paid their first visit to the Indian Ocean only 70 years earlier, they would have encountered a massive Chinese fleet of 317 ships, which they couldn't beat. The entry of Europeans into East Africa, Arabia and India may well have given the Chinese just the motivation they needed to keep their navy active and ward off the European invaders who were a clear threat. This could have easily changed the course of history, especially for places like South Africa, India, Australia, and Indonesia.

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This issue of timing begs the following question. Why did the Chinese scale back their fleet in the first place? The answer lies in the fact that all the way up to the arrival of Europeans, China had been too centralized and did not have enough competitors in the region. Japan, Korea and others in East Asia had always looked up to China. In the early XV century, China was the world's largest empire, with no significant rivals, and an army of 1 million troops. Under the command of Zheng He, the Chinese undertook a series of great voyages around the Indian Ocean, from East Africa to Arabia to Indonesia. The Chinese had a much larger fleet and better ships than even the Europeans.



While the Chinese voyages were grand in scale, they did not return a significant profit. In some ways China was like a fat lazy cat, who didn't have to work hard to get what he wanted, while Europe was like a pack of skinny and hungry cats, out against each other, forced to be clever and opportunistic with the resources that they did have. European trips to every corner of the world were extremely focused on returning with the most valuable cargo, and beefing up the coffers of their respective empires. The Europeans had always been in competition with each other, and any country that decided not to send out expeditions would have been at a competitive disadvantage. After a while the European voyages started to pay for themselves.

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If we were to dig even deeper, we would have to turn once again to the brilliant Jared Diamond and his book Guns, Germs and Steel. In the last chapter he tackles the reasons for WHY China was so unified and Europe so divided. The answer seems to lie in regional geography. China seems to have few natural barriers and peninsulas, while Europe is inundated with those - the Alps, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Peloponnesus.

Just take a look at the superimposed map for comparison:

Diamond argues, that the Europeans states have always been close enough to spread technology and innovation, but never really had the possibility to unify for long periods of time.

With Europe constantly divided, noone could get away with deciding to ban guns (like they did in Japan) or to ban shipping (like they did in China). Plus, any time an inventor wanted funding for a new technology, or a voyager wanted funding for a big trip, he had several heads of state to turn to. Christopher Columbus is a good example of that. Perpetual competition and division ensured very few inventions were left behind, and contributed to the rise of Europe as a whole.

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This just about covers the series of essays on European domination. Stay tuned for other posts, perhaps from entirely different areas.