Could the Chinese have colonized the Americas and Africa before Europe?

I don’t think you understand what an ocean going ship is or what a river barge is, for that matter. And since those primitive sails are still used today with not many changes, it may be you are shaky on that topic too.

The first ship to circumnavigate the planet was an 85-ton carrack about 20m/70ft long. That’s not a high technical hurdle to clear for any nation with experience trading overseas or fishing on the open ocean, providing they have the motivation to attemp it. But that motivation is a high political hurdle, probably not far off the Apollo missions in our era in ambition, if much less costly in terms of cash. So absent political rivalry or economic necessity, why would the Chinese bother looking far and wide for more wilderness and more barbarians?
Now I don't claim to be an expert in ships, if anything the opposite in that I hope someone else can correct me or add more if they know, but larger sea journeys required more than simple a ship being a certain size. There's a reason a cog didn't cross the Atlantic (ignoring the island hopping of Vinland), despite some of the larger ones regularly being over 50 meters long. It was about a number of rather minor structural improvements in carracks that made them more able to handle the sort of necessities of ocean going vessels.

Clinker type vessels, like cogs or other longships based on the Vikings, were advantageous in their region because they could bend and flex. This aided in the sort of rollers of the North Atlantic, and clinker vessels were lighter and thus displaced less water. This meant they could travel up river, and go faster than carvel ships of the same size and with the same sail rigging. However the way they were built gave them less structural stability, lending to an general size and cargo limit. These structural limitations also limited the amount of sails that could be used without tearing the ship apart when those sails were used for tacking, as clinker ships simply didn't have the rigidity to support them.

Carvel ships were structurally stronger, allowing not only ships several magnitudes larger to be built, but also for 20 m long vessels like carracks to have much greater sailing rigs. This allowed them to utilize wind power far more efficiently than clinker vessels, which typically relied upon some degree of oar for thrust. Carvel vessels also had the internal strength to support a centerboard and deep keel, which is important in allowing a vessel to sail against or across the wind/currents.

So it was more than simply building a 20 m long vessel, which people did long before the Age of Discovery, nor having the motivation to send ships elsewhere. They needed to develop the technical and engineering aspects of ships like the carrack or caravel that made them better able to handle oceanic voyages.

Now whether the Chinese had some idea of these characteristics in their ships, I have no idea. However getting a Chinese Emperor to declare to build a ship to cross an ocean requires more than simply building one big enough. The Portugese needed to learn the Volta do mar, to learn of ways ships could travel against water currents and winds through indirect routes. They needed Henry the Navigator to decide to try to bypass the trans-Sahara trade routes by oceans and thus develop a caravel purely for exploration using technical aspects from the Mediterranean and Atlantic/North Sea vessels. They needed the lessons learned in the caravel to develop the carrack, and so forth. It was a general process where lessons or problems were handles one at a time.

I'd say the best bet for China is indeed going north along Siberia before crossing the Bering Straight. It involves the shortest distances and requires overcoming the least amount of technical challenges.
 
before they can colonize the new world, they first have to find it... there has been speculation that they did, but nothing solid is known. So, on a purely theoretical look at it, could the Chinese have decided to go exploring and found the new world by moving north, hugging the coast along Siberia, across to Alaska, and down the coast?
 
Now I don't claim to be an expert in ships, if anything the opposite in that I hope someone else can correct me or add more if they know, but larger sea journeys required more than simple a ship being a certain size. There's a reason a cog didn't cross the Atlantic (ignoring the island hopping of Vinland)o handle oceanic voyages.
That’s impressive. A giant textwall about how the Europeans couldn’t possibly have made voyages of discovery without a whole bunch of vital technical innovations, which you start by handwaving away that in fact the first Europeans actually discovered the Americas without any of these vital technical innovations, and you end by admitting you have no idea if the Chinese had any of these allegedly vital technical innovations. So helpful.
before they can colonize the new world, they first have to find it... there has been speculation that they did, but nothing solid is known. So, on a purely theoretical look at it, could the Chinese have decided to go exploring and found the new world by moving north, hugging the coast along Siberia, across to Alaska, and down the coast?
The Chinese traded by sea with everyone from the Arabs to the Okinawans and Koreans and all spots in between. Apart from those periods when the emperor decreed foreign trade an imperial monopoly, the major Chinese ports had large communities of foreign merchants and seamen who brought foreign technologies to China, just as Chinese merchants and sailors were doing abroad. Shipbuilding technology was exchanged between Korea and northern china, southern China and Southeast Asia, India and Southeast Asia, between northern and southern China. It seems likely that the ships in general use were adequate for reasonably long voyages although with the possibility of repeatedly re-shipping it is hard to be certain.
The Quanzhou wreck dated to 1272-1280 and had a keel, transverse bulkheads fastened to the hull with iron stiffening brackets, hybrid clinker-carvel double (partially triple) planking on a v-form hull, a pointed prow, transom stern with rudder, three masts, and a cargo originating from south-east Asia, estimated displacement ~375 tons. It apparently shared a number of features with the Shinan shipwreck (Korea, 14th century) although this had only a single layer of planking.
The keel and hull planking synergistically contribute to longitudinal strength. The keel is composed of three members and thick garboards are fixed. The hull planking that extends from the garboards form a steep deadrise angle. The hull planking is edge-fastened by skew nailing with rabbeted seams. The system of multiple layered hull planks has also been standardised for the purpose of the inner planks’ protection, and possibly to the shell hull planking itself for longitudinal strength. The bulkheads function in providing transverse strength. Large half frames are attached to secure the bulkheads’ planks, fixing them into the hull planking with brackets
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...inan-shipwreck-bottom-Produced_fig3_247159281
Not being a naval historian I have no idea just how far you could sail ships of this tech level, but as I said before only madmen and idiots sail blindly past the point of no return into the unknown. For poking a few hundred km at a time past the furthest explored point of a coastline or island chain I don’t think you need anything more than the sort of robust practical vessels that evidently existed. Given sufficient time and determination that would eventually locate every major landmass without resorting to dramatic measures. Again, the vikings got across the North Atlantic regularly with basically a big rowboat, a big blanket on a stick, and some oars.

Once places are found the basic astronomy of locating them all relative to one another is not challenging, and then figuring out the shortcuts between is a matter for those who enjoy scurvy and the risk of dying of thirst. Or recruiting some Polynesian guildsmen who could probably do it in their sleep.

The killer POD is finding a way for the imperial bureaucracy to either push it along, or at least stop hindering those who were interested. Given the resources large merchant houses had available it’s not impossible someone could privately sponsor expeditions.
 
The Chinese traded by sea with everyone from the Arabs to the Okinawans and Koreans and all spots in between. Apart from those periods when the emperor decreed foreign trade an imperial monopoly, the major Chinese ports had large communities of foreign merchants and seamen who brought foreign technologies to China, just as Chinese merchants and sailors were doing abroad. Shipbuilding technology was exchanged between Korea and northern china, southern China and Southeast Asia, India and Southeast Asia, between northern and southern China. It seems likely that the ships in general use were adequate for reasonably long voyages although with the possibility of repeatedly re-shipping it is hard to be certain.
The Quanzhou wreck dated to 1272-1280 and had a keel, transverse bulkheads fastened to the hull with iron stiffening brackets, hybrid clinker-carvel double (partially triple) planking on a v-form hull, a pointed prow, transom stern with rudder, three masts, and a cargo originating from south-east Asia, estimated displacement ~375 tons. It apparently shared a number of features with the Shinan shipwreck (Korea, 14th century) although this had only a single layer of planking.
so.... does that translate to "These ships were solid enough to go up into the northern seas around the Bering Strait and then down along the coast from Alaska to CA/etc."? It's a tough POD to find a reason just why the Chinese would do this, but if their ships were physically capable of doing it, then there's a shot at getting it done. I'm thinking something along the lines of 'hugging the coast all the way' instead of 'sailing blindly into the open ocean and hope something is out there'...
 
Zheng He did visit the Swahili coast. Maybe if the Ming didn't end their sea voyages, Chinese merchants could set up some communities there like the Arab and Indian traders did. It wouldn't really be colonization, but it would be something.
 
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