I think you both confuse politics and economics with military ability. Clearly the three are linked, but the Chinese armies and navies were not always as behind-the-times as they were when the Europeans finally arrived. (It was only in the Ming dynasty that the Chinese Empire turned in on itself and ignored the outside world. Those sorts of policies were then continued under the Ching.) The Europeans for their part generalized the state of affairs they found to the entirety of Chinese history (it fit with European beliefs about themselves and their superiority, if we can make such a generalization) but they were wrong. One consequence of that misunderstanding is that their cultural descendents continue to make such inaccurate statements as those above.
Taking those cases in point:
- Virtually all of the technological developments that allowed Europeans to sail around the world were discovered in China, and there is evidence to suggest that that knowledge was transmitted to the West (rather than its being independently discovered there).
Chinese ships of the Empire sailed to and traded along the East African coast almost to the 15th century, IIRC, and were many times the size of anything the Europeans built until the 19th century. (In fact, much of the “Arabic” knowledge that helped trigger the Renaissance and supposedly came from India (as opposed to that which came from Greece) may have been transmitted directly from the Chinese, rather than from them through India. An example is the “Arabic” writing system which, the Encyclopedia Britannica notwithstanding, is clearly Chinese-derived; even a casual observer can see it without much explanation.) That the Chinese did not round Cape Horn, and that they later pulled back entirely and dismantled the ships, were political decisions.
2. There is evidence to suggest that the first Western cannons were not built from descriptions of Chinese cannons - they were in fact directly copied from them. The Chinese developed significant gunpowder technology; again, their eventual stopping of research into that area was probably political (with some economics thrown in, as well), as 1) there were few perceived major threats once they pulled back and consolidated the Empire under the Ming; 2) the Ming botched their administration of the economy over time; and 3) (this is a WAG) due to the timing of events, the cannons were probably developed by Chinese engineers under the hated Mongols, and once the Mongols were overthrown it may have been easy to stop looking into things Mongols had liked (sort of similar to the allegation that the Nazis didn’t pursue nuclear weapons as strongly as they might have because it was somehow “Jewish” science). It was under the Mongols that we find a record of an officer defecting and taking working cannons into the West for purposes of selling them - just a few years before the first drawings of Western cannon are found.
Did the Chinese blow their large lead? Yes. But for most of history their culture was not as decadent as the Europeans found when they themselves finally got through the Middle Ages and started exploring.
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Perhaps it is something about my British/German ancestors, or maybe it’s just my own fault, but I’ve always believed in giving credit where credit is due. I too was raised in an environment filled with the implicit message that the West, and the U.S. in particular, invented just about everything really important in human history. Thus it was with some annoyance that I discovered how I had gone, or been led, astray, and how even today such “founts” of knowledge as Enc. Britannica still refuse to get it right. The Agricultural Revolution, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution which have given us so much? Much of it builds on knowledge discovered, and possibly- to probably-transmitted from, China. (Base 10, zero, the stirrup, the plow, paper, printing, the compass, water-tight compartments for ships, gunpowder, industrial steel - the list is pretty impressive.)
For those who are interested in such things I highly recommend China: Land of Discovery and Invention, which purports (and I have no reason to doubt it) to be a greatly condensed version of Joseph Needham’s work (at Oxford). Even the list of other things the Chinese did first, but which we almost certainly did not get from them, is pretty interesting: manned flight (recorded in the 6th century CE), natural-gas-powered industry, hormone treatments for diabetes, etc.
A reading of this book might open your eyes, as it did mine, and make you realize something about our common Western attitudes and how we play down other’s achievements and play up our own.
For example: “They” just used their “fabulous level of [architectural] skill…for religious reasons, or reasons that were not very utilitarian?” Really? To be fair, then, aren’t you discounting all those Gothic cathedrals in Europe? Or do you mean that such achievements as the world’s first suspension bridge, or its first segmental arch bridge were useless? (They weren’t for show, believe me.) I’ve been to the place in Szechuan where the Chinese controlled the Yangtze river - in early Roman times - and diverted it for agricultural purposes and to prevent flooding. I’ve been past the Grand Canal. IMO, it’s the height of ethnocentrism to discount them or judge them unimportant.
It is true that the common people believe a lot of medical things for which there is little or no medical proof - and it’s true on both sides of the Pacific. That’s what happens when five thousand years of “knowing” collides with 50 years of science; and we’re certainly not immune, either. You bring up the humors; I point out that the Chinese figured out the heart and diabetes long before the West did. The point is just: be careful in assigning “barbarian” status too quickly.
We have our flaws, and others have their achievements, too. (And one of our flaws is the taking of other’s credit. The story of the American “inventor” of the “Bessemer” steel process is a good example.) Just because a given group did not discover the steam engine does not make them fools or mentally inferior. And just because we discovered ways to kill most or all humans does not make us “better.”
