The Effects of Chinese Influences on 15th Century Africa?

hey, all. i'm batting around a number of ideas for the parts of my ASB ATL that i've been neglecting thought on. one of these is if the voyages of Zheng He were a bit more extensive and influential, ultimately resulting not only in trade goods from Africa reaching China, but also some changes to eastern African culture based on Chinese culture of the time. specifically, i'm thinking of Chinese-like technology (adapted based on what African cultures in the region have at the time) and religion influencing or being adapted to countries and cultures as far inland as OTL Ethiopia.

two main questions for this, the latter probably requiring more discussion than the former:

  1. Is anything along these lines plausible?
  2. If it is plausible, what's the most likely things to be shared between East Africa and China?
 

katchen

Banned
I believe that in the 15th Century the part of East "Africa" best suited to culturally borrow from China is Madagascar, if Zheng He can get that far and bring some emisarries from Madagascarian kingdoms back to China with him. The Malagasians are, after all, descendants of Dyaks from Borneo and already cultivate rice. They might well be capable of borrowing from (and even thirsty for knowledge of) Chinese culture in a variety of ways from ship building to methods of governance to Buddhism. And once one king unifies Madagascar, the Malagasy are perfectly capable of expanding east to Mauritius and Reunion and west to Mozambique and the Zambezi Basin.
 
I believe that in the 15th Century the part of East "Africa" best suited to culturally borrow from China is Madagascar, if Zheng He can get that far and bring some emisarries from Madagascarian kingdoms back to China with him. The Malagasians are, after all, descendants of Dyaks from Borneo and already cultivate rice. They might well be capable of borrowing from (and even thirsty for knowledge of) Chinese culture in a variety of ways from ship building to methods of governance to Buddhism. And once one king unifies Madagascar, the Malagasy are perfectly capable of expanding east to Mauritius and Reunion and west to Mozambique and the Zambezi Basin.

In the 15th century their were no Kingdoms in Madagascar, their were only tribal groups; the largest, oldest and most coherent state on the island, the Merina Kingdom, only formed in 1540, and it was until the late 18th century limited to part of the inland highlands, isolated from the wider world.

Additionally Madagascar has historically not been very populous; in the fifteenth century Madagascars population was only in the low hundreds of thousands, potentially less.

In other words their will be no Malagasy Empire ruling over large parts of Africa.
 
East Africa was not isolated from china,
several emissaries from the swahili states went back to china on zheng hes ships.

The Chinese coastal cities had frequent visitors from east Africa.
Most swahili and hadhrami traders went to India and states in the malaca straites, but allot went to china.
 
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