Why did the Chinease not expand and create a colonial empire?

This question has perplexed me. China had huge population reserves, a huge fleet and army and ample resources. And dont tell me that they wornt expansionist as they sent huge expladtory fleets around the pacific and dominated its smaller neibours. And yet....... it never started a serouse colonial empre. why?

I've read Guns, germs and steel and articals and books by Neil Fergusson and they all give strong arguments and reasons. Competition in europe creating " excess violence" and forcing innovation and exploration. And they had a good stratigic position facing the atlantic. They also argue that China had no need to innovate and focosed on internal matters. But this cannot explain all the details.

China had dominence over the pacific and its fleet could have used its immence size and backing to establish colonies in the pacific ( although i'll stop short of reaching americas.)

Was their simply not the political will to do so? did they fear that colonists would slip out of their influence and break away ( like many europian colonists.)

Please tell me your own personal opinions and Pleaes please add links to back it up!

good luck!

China does have a colonial empire, in a sense. They possess land and cultures that are not originally part of the founding people. Just look at the Han chinese dominance of the Uyghurs. China didn't cross the seas, but that's because they didn't have to. Same as the United States. California is basically a colony of the original settlers. We ousted the government, sent our own people in, and took over. The only difference is we are on the same landmass. The only reason the Europeans set up overseas colonies is because there wasn't really anywhere else to go.

matashowski said:

China does have a colonial empire, in a sense. They possess land and cultures that are not originally part of the founding people. Just look at the Han chinese dominance of the Uyghurs. China didn't cross the seas, but that's because they didn't have to. Same as the United States. California is basically a colony of the original settlers. We ousted the government, sent our own people in, and took over. The only difference is we are on the same landmass. The only reason the Europeans set up overseas colonies is because there wasn't really anywhere else to go.

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Yet surely such a huge population in china would promote aggresive overseas expansion, such as in Japan in the late 19th/ 2oth centuary? And by colonial i mean outside their actual borders OTL.

Technically they did. Their system was more Hegemonic then direct colonial.
Though the guts of it is that simply they had more to worry about by their immediate neighbors be they Mongolian, Manchu, Viet, or Korean. During the periods when the capital and main influence of the Chinese rulers were in the South such as the Wu or Song or Early and Late Ming they turned to the seas because the main people in the Courts influencing the Emperor were people who were merchants or eunuchs. When the capital and character of the dynasty moved north such as the middle Ming the main concern was more insular and defensive against Mongolians and such.

Though if we look at the Tang who were VERY much influenced and partially related to the Turkics they expanded a overland colonial empire into Central Asia. The same with the Yuan and Manchu. They encouraged Chinese overland colonialism by moving settlers into Manchuria or Tibet or Xingjing.

The Late Song and Late Ming who were forced south of the Yangtze extensively relied on Naval supremacy and development to maintain themselves.

Matashowski basically got it. The Chinese did have a colonial Empire, but it was based on taking the land of non-Han people and assimilating them into the Han culture, so eventually the 'colonies' became incorporated into 'metropolitan' China. Arguably, this form of colonialism is still going on in areas like Tibet or what was once the Uigher republic.

As for forming large fleets, you have to ask yourself-what did the Chinese want? There isn't really very much overseas that would have driven them to invest the time and resources necessary to develop and maintain overseas colonies.

It may surprise some people, but the dream of exploring the world, combined with seeking the loneliness of the wide sea, is not universally shared by all men.

Some things are culture-specific.

OS fan said:

It may surprise some people, but the dream of exploring the world, combined with seeking the loneliness of the wide sea, is not universally shared by all men.

Some things are culture-specific.

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And the chinease are not amongst thoes people. They DID send explatory fllets to explore the pacific ( one controversal thoery even claims one reached calfornia- but theres sadly no evidece.)

so they were an inquistitive people and had the ambition.

Archon of Thessaly said:

And the chinease are not amongst thoes people. They DID send explatory fllets to explore the pacific ( one controversal thoery even claims one reached calfornia- but theres sadly no evidece.)

so they were an inquistitive people and had the ambition.

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...not to mention all the Overseas Chinese. And the Zheng Clan (Koxinga) and other Merchant-Pirate Confederations of the East Asian Seas.

King of Malta said:

...not to mention all the Overseas Chinese. And the Zheng Clan and other Merchant-Pirate Confederations of the East Asian Seas.

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Of course-never forget thoes pirates.

Firstly there is the point that China's ideas about identity and position in the world are fundamentally different from those of European colonisers, but this would take too long to go into.

The main thing, and this largely explains the failure of most places that aren't Europe to partake in colonialism, is to consider what motivated colonialism in the first place. Trade. Wealth. Obtaining trade goods not present in your home country and selling them on there to make money and improve your standing in society. All started by individuals or companies with only loose authority from national governments.

Europe was poor in such resources. It craved luxury goods like silk and spices, and had ever since Roman times. When the old overland trade routes to Asia were made ever more difficult by the rise of the Ottomans, new strategies had to be tried, whether it be the Portuguese circumnavigating Africa or Columbus mistakenly thinking it would be easy to sail to Japan from the east and go around the world, and ended up banging into a new continent by accisdent. Everything that would become the age of imperialism stemmed from this single drive. Later, with the industrial revolution, European manufactured goods began to flow out to the colonies, with new markets available, but in the beginning it was about obtaining luxury goods from Asia. Most of the gold and silver wealth found in the Americas ultimately ended up in India or China, used to pay for spices and silk and so on.

The reason for this is that precious metals were just about the only thing the Chinese and other Asian powers actually wanted from Europe. There was nothing Europe or other parts of the world could offer them: partly introverted cultural arrogance, but partly the truth as well. Why should China go and demand tribute from across the world when they had everything they needed? In the 18th century British attempts to open up Qing China to trade failed because the Qing simply dismissed all the new technologies the British tried to sell (like steam engines) as irrelevant. Hence the Opium Wars a few years down the line: selling a product the Chinese would buy, and warring against the government when they tried to stop it.

Confucianism also plays a role here of course--the idea of isolationism for its own sake--but this explanation can be generalised to other parts of the world, which Confucianism can't. Europe 'won' the global wars of cultural supremacy not despite being an upstart backwater but because it was an upstart backwater: it needed things that everyone else already had, and that encouraged its powers to expand out into the world to get those things, while everybody else stayed where they were.

China fairly consistently reached out to expand for items it desired or control markets such as the Silk Road routes by land and sea. Further given the Class divisions within the Chinese it did lead to overseas movements of its population. The whole Treasure Ship Voyages is rather overhyped by Western and Chinese commentators that it rather eclipses private ventures overseas. Take the Overseas migrations of poor Chinese underclasses and the on and off alienated merchant classes that turned to piracy.

1. China is not made up of one "Chinese" people. There is immense diversity in traditional customs, language and culture in Shandong than from people in say Guangxi. This is the direct result of one kingdom (Ming Dynasty?) conquering others and incorporating them into their territory centuries (much of that remaining as modern China).

2. You have too look at the reasons the Europeans went out exploring. Europe's borders were generally defined (I say this in the loosest manner) and resources were running out. Colonial ventures were answers to this. China on the other hand had space to expand and a lot of resources making the need redundant.

Alex1guy said:

1. China is not made up of one "Chinese" people. There is immense diversity in traditional customs, language and culture in Shandong than from people in say Guangxi. This is the direct result of one kingdom (Ming Dynasty?) conquering others and incorporating them into their territory centuries (much of that remaining as modern China).

2. You have too look at the reasons the Europeans went out exploring. Europe's borders were generally defined (I say this in the loosest manner) and resources were running out. Colonial ventures were answers to this. China on the other hand had space to expand and a lot of resources making the need redundant.

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And each one interested in getting away from the Chinese state at one time or another. The Southern Mindset is influenced by the larger rivers and open sea compared to the North dominated by the Plains.

Further 'China' was split or moved back as many times as it advanced. The Chinese states of Song and Ming had very seafareing mindset a when they were pushed back by the Mongols or Manchu/Jurchen. The Wu Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms period discovered Taiwan or the Ryukyu islands which shows when pressed by their neighbors they looked outward for wealth and resources.

Whenever the capital moved inland or north it signified a land trend, but when It moved southward and coastal it signified a policy of looking out to sea. Take the Ming Changeover when the capital was at Nanjing the government was supportive of reaching out to the world (to ensure dominance) but when it moved inland we got insular Ming which went to a rather intense extreme policy for several years before China opened up again.

King of Malta said:

And each one interested in getting away from the Chinese state at one time or another.

Further 'China' was split or moved back as many times as it advanced. The Chinese states of Song and Ming had very seafareing mindset a when they were pushed back by the Mongols or Manchu/Jurchen. The Wu Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms period discovered Taiwan or the Ryukyu islands which shows when pressed by their neighbors they looked outward for wealth and resources.

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Oh yes, the Chinese Kingdom wars and rebellions hold like 7 out of the top 10 places for bloodiest conflicts by death toll. It took the entire planet going to war with itself to finally knock the Chinese off the top of that board.

Thande said:

Firstly there is the point that China's ideas about identity and position in the world are fundamentally different from those of European colonisers, but this would take too long to go into.

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Yes, unlike Europeans, the Chinese had unfounded ideas about their culture and racial superiority.

Alex1guy said:

Oh yes, the Chinese Kingdom wars and rebellions hold like 7 out of the top 10 places for bloodiest conflicts by death toll. It took the entire planet going to war with itself to finally knock the Chinese off the top of that board.

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Chinese Civilization, even the name of China, holds a sort of supreme hubris concerning its place in the world. Literally, the Middle Kingdom, the center of the world and the universe. At different times in Chinese history this has expressed itself between a desire to go out and confirm this and other times just by keeping to themselves showing that they have everything a true civilized kingdom needs and certainly doesn't need anything else.

In modern China the latter was expressed keenly under the Mao years and the former in recent times.

Faeelin said:

Yes, unlike Europeans, the Chinese had unfounded ideas about their culture and racial superiority.

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Not quite the same, Thande is right. There are unique differences in Chinese and European brands of Ethnocentrism.

As mentioned, China *was* colonial. The Qing dynasty saw China's borders expand significantly, and these borders are the basis of modern China. I mean, if you look at a map, China proper, where most Chinese people live, only covers a minority of Chinese land area. Similarly, European Russia holds the majority of Russian people - Siberia is basically a colony. And Tibet or Inner Mongolia are basically Chinese colonies, as well. And there were massive movements of peoples from inland China into newly conquered territory all the time, colonizing those areas.

Alex1guy said:

Not quite the same, Thande is right. There are unique differences in Chinese and European brands of Ethnocentrism.

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This is complicated, and so worth exploring.

I mean, China is currently led by a nationalist regime whose founding mythos was created by a German Jew and imported by way of Russia. One of its major religious traidtions was imported from India.

So, what's appreciably different?

I think my TL "Ming of the West" takes a realistic view on how the Imperial would react and see to a Chinese Overseas colonial venture. The Golden Gate is pretty much a family clan cartel rather then a free stock company, but the relationship does certainly grow to resemble the Dutch or British companies. For the most part the Ming look upon the colony with utter disdain and don't really acknowledge it. Yet the Jing clan still goes to the Imperial and proclaims obedience to the Son of Heaven which the Imperial Court just brushes off. Even when the colony becomes productive in terms of mineral wealth the official stance pretty much remains the same even though they demand import quotas and taxes. This pretty much gives the Jing Clan free reign and they monopolize things and allows for Merchant and political outcasts or opponents to be sent/exiled to the Golden Gate which forms a valve for political and social pressure in the 'perfect middle kingdom'. Only later in the Ming Dynasty as the rulers and court officials become increasingly corrupt and lazy do the Imperial Court try to establish official rule, but the Jing pretty much dupe the representative and business as normal. Only with the Manchu invasion and the collapse of Mainland Ming rule does the Golden Gate become seen as important and the 'Imperial Court' attempt to establish direct control, but they are going to find out that the Golden Gate has developed its own divergent culture and trends.