“One of the problems with this sort of subject is that the Chinese get a kick out of making all manner of dubious or bizarre claims about ancient China in an effort to feel better about themselves.”
struck me as a little condescending as well as the use of ‘they’ to give the impression that the Chinese people as a whole have been pushing these ideas. Come on, every country has its bunk science and thinks highly of its history. The fact that somebody publishes bad research doesn’t entitle the poster to make it seem a whole culture gets a kick out of making ridiculous claims about their history. That’s just how I read Hemlock’s post. There’s no beef here if that’s not how he meant it.
In the case of the explorations of Zheng He, maybe not. In only a few years after the Ming mandarins ordered the end to China’s maritime explorations, all the ships and even all the records and maps of his voyages had been destroyed. So, maybe the continuity of memory was simply lost.
Also, unlike so many other accomplishments whose lack of further development could be blamed on foreign invasions and so forth, this one was ended by the acts of the Chinese themselves. Without a comfortable answer available to the question of why nothing further happened, they may prefer to simply avoid the subject.
Since we’re talking in gross generalizations about over a billion people and thousands of years, that is.
kryptonite2 - apologies if I come across a bit flippant, but I encounter manifestations of Chinese nationalism quite frequently (though probably not as much as China Guy), and they can get tiresome.
Essentially, the nature of this nationalism springs from shame for the relative backwardness and humbling of China in the last 500 years. To compensate, China’s government and many of its people over-glorify the country’s past achievements, twist history and accept myths as fact. Chinese historical/archaeological scholarship is often politically driven and untrustworthy.
I guess Chinese sailors could have taken a great circle route via Alaska. But so what? Does Norway proclaim its superiority because the Vikings did the same to get to Newfoundland? No. But I can see the “China is #1” machine going into overdrive when this (British) guy publishes his book. He’ll be treated like royalty when he passes through China.
(FWIW, I find hubristic American nationalism just as irritating as the virulent Chinese variety.)
Hemlock, earlier was a bit of a simulpost. My computer tends to crash on preview (convenient excuse) so I didn’t see what you had posted. Nice posts though.
kryptonite2, while it may be true that China “invented” almost everything first, in many of the cases that invention was made independently elsewhere in the world (noodles?) or else made into a practical application by someone other than the Chinese(gunpowder). If you are really curious, google Joseph Needham and you will discover probably more than you would ever want to know on the subject.
I hear these claims all the time, yet the discovery of America is not one of the usual suspects.
This topic is also being covered in Great Debates in the Who discovered America? thread.