AHC: Ming colonies in Southeast Asia

Does the Ming dynasty have the ability to limit any European incursion into lands west of Gujarat

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 55.6%
  • No

    Votes: 8 44.4%

  • Total voters
    18
After realizing my last thread was rather ignorant regarding the distances of the Pacific in comparison to the Atlantic (apparently on a straight line London to San Francisco is about the same distance as Tokyo to San Francisco.)

So how can we get Ming colonies in Southeast Asia, most likely starting out somewhere in Taiwan and eventually later maybe the Philippines, Borneo and Java. (Australia and India also possible, but less likely.)



bonus question:

Can a colonial outward-looking Ming dynasty limit any European incursion into lands west of Gujarat and east of New Zealand?
 
After realizing my last thread was rather ignorant regarding the distances of the Pacific in comparison to the Atlantic (apparently on a straight line London to San Francisco is about the same distance as Tokyo to San Francisco.)

So how can we get Ming colonies in Southeast Asia, most likely starting out somewhere in Taiwan and eventually later maybe the Philippines, Borneo and Java. (Australia and India also possible, but less likely.)



bonus question:

Can a colonial outward-looking Ming dynasty limit any European incursion into lands west of Gujarat and east of New Zealand?
The possible areas of Chinese conquest is Vietnam and Borneo.
 
With pre-1800 China, the usual answer to the colonization question is that they can, but they won't, because they felt they had no need to do so since they considered themselves the centre of the world (or in Chinese, 中國). The only colonization that happened was Taiwan, and this happened (informally) due to population pressures in Fujian. Other than that, there was no outright campaign to expand the actual borders on China's part, and instead, preferred to exert their influence by receiving tributes from the foreigners who wish to deal with them.

You need to give China a fairly hard knock on the head by outside forces, without the outright conquest of China, in order to change this Chinese mindset of passive superiority. IOTL, it took Britain, Russia, and Japan to do this.
 
After realizing my last thread was rather ignorant regarding the distances of the Pacific in comparison to the Atlantic (apparently on a straight line London to San Francisco is about the same distance as Tokyo to San Francisco.)

So how can we get Ming colonies in Southeast Asia, most likely starting out somewhere in Taiwan and eventually later maybe the Philippines, Borneo and Java. (Australia and India also possible, but less likely.)



bonus question:

Can a colonial outward-looking Ming dynasty limit any European incursion into lands west of Gujarat and east of New Zealand?

There were already Chinese settlements in Southeast Asia, places like Java, Sumatra, Malacca Sultanate. The easiest way to get colonization going is to have these communities enter into an alliance with the Ming Empire to establish permanent trading ports and a naval presence. In return they will make it financially worthwhile. For example they could follow the Dutch model, establish a base in a place like Jakarta or Singapore, funnel in all regional trade goods from China, India, the Spice Islands etc, and use the base as a distribution hub.

I wouldn’t expect large numbers of settlers until the 16th century when Chinese population recovers. Until then expect China to ignore the Philippines and maybe even Taiwan as they are not critical to controlling the trade routes.

The Ming should be pretty keen on keeping competitors out of Southeast Asia but I can’t why they would prioritize defending India and New Zealand. Perhaps the Indians would take advantage of the Chinese presence to play them off against the Europeans, maintaining independence through access to naval technology. With New Zealand unless the Chinese have already settled it by the 18th century why should they keep someone else out?
 
I believe you could have merchant communities, from the coastal parts of China, to settle in places within the South China Sea. After seeing that trade is profitable, they would be followed by many more
 
The possible areas of Chinese conquest is Vietnam and Borneo.
They tried for Vietnam!

Vietnam is easy enough to take (hit Hanoi hard and you can claim legitimacy) but it's almost impossible to pacify due to the terrain and early patriotism.

Now for colonies, Formosa and Batavia were basically run by Chinese communities and even French Indochina was heavily reliant on Chinese merchants. If you speak French, there was an interesting class of the College de France about this recently
 
Beyond the OTL Lanfang Republic, could the Chinese (particularly the Ming) have taken all of Borneo earlier on and perhaps even undergone some degree of Indianization?
 
I think it's going to be far less China having colonies than the Chinese having colonies.

Historically, a unified, centralized Chinese state has always been inwards looking by necessity, because of how big China would have become. However, this does not mean the Chinese were inwards looking--Cantonese and Hokkienese settlers made their way across Southeast Asia from the Song Dynasty onwards, and are the basis of the Chinese diaspora in the Americas as well. Ming China wouldn't be able to invest the time and effort in colonization, but sub-national groups surely would.
 
As such any settlement in the subcontinent would I imagine, rather quickly be assimilated and become just another caste- although it could potentially be interesting to see whether the Confucian model merges with for example, Vaishnavism to actually have an impact on the overall religious composition of the subcontinent
 

Lusitania

Donor
The interesting part would be who these larger Chinese communities ally themselves with once the Europeans show up. For these communities depending on how they dealt with locals in South east Asia and their relative size might be defeated by combined European / local armies if there was slot of resentment by locals who would ally themselves with the europeans to rid themselves of the Chinese rulers. It would also work the other way where smaller Chinese communities ally themselves with Europeans to defeat stronger local rulers.

I do not see China sending troops to help
 
They tried for Vietnam!

Vietnam is easy enough to take (hit Hanoi hard and you can claim legitimacy) but it's almost impossible to pacify due to the terrain and early patriotism.

Now for colonies, Formosa and Batavia were basically run by Chinese communities and even French Indochina was heavily reliant on Chinese merchants. If you speak French, there was an interesting class of the College de France about this recently
Well, the Ming policies in Dai Nam didn't help their hold on it.
 
I think so yeah.

If Portugal can't negotiate a trade deal and get Macau then they might start pirating. If the Ming emperor then decides to strike back hard they certainly have the resources. Stopping ALL european colonization will be hard though.
 
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