WI:More Contact BTW China and Africa

was there EVER Sino-African contact?

there was a dense trading network between China, SE Africa, the Middle East, and India. Chinese pottery has turned up as far inland in Africa as the ruins of Zimbabwe. One of the African coastal cities sent a giraffe to the Chinese court. Even after China dropped out of the Indian Ocean trade, the rest of them kept up the trade routes. It wasn't until the Portuguese conquests that they were severely disrupted...
 
was there EVER Sino-African contact?

The wealthy African families on the east coast used to set Ming porceline plates into the outer walls of their house as a display of wealth and prestige. There's also a group of people (in Madagascar IIIRC) who claim to be descendants of Zheng He's sailers.

It's doubtful to me China would have colonized Africa even if Ming retained strong trade presence in the Arabian Sea. But if they did and settled the Cape, the Portugese would have a near impossible time establishing themselves in the Indian Ocean.

Who knows, maybe the East African states like Ethiopia would be more advanced. I have picture in my mind of African Zen Buddhist monks. :) Zen Buddhism may involve master teachings involving lions and zebras.
 
was there EVER Sino-African contact?

Zheng He made a voyage there once, but the other guys gave many other examples.

Anyway, since Africa is pretty far away from China, I could assume there's more trade in Chinese society since ships and seagoing will be required. I also suppose a less isolationist chinese society.
 
Maybe Portugla puts more effort into building routes in the New World? Or else they try to expand their influence out of the Kongo.
 
there was a dense trading network between China, SE Africa, the Middle East, and India. Chinese pottery has turned up as far inland in Africa as the ruins of Zimbabwe. One of the African coastal cities sent a giraffe to the Chinese court. Even after China dropped out of the Indian Ocean trade, the rest of them kept up the trade routes. It wasn't until the Portuguese conquests that they were severely disrupted...

Perhaps, but Chinese pottery doesn't necessarily mean that there was direct contact.
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
What kind of fusion culture would develop in Africa? or in China if more African slaves were brought in?
 
China already had a huge, cheap source of manpower available. There would be no real economic need for a slave trade on the scale of Africa to the New World. Certainly, there would be African slaves, but they would most likely be integrated into the Chinese economy rather than cause a change to it.
 
I think Africa exported gold and ivory and salt, and imported fabrics and other manufactured goods (such as that Chinese porcelein)...
 
The wealthy African families on the east coast used to set Ming porceline plates into the outer walls of their house as a display of wealth and prestige. There's also a group of people (in Madagascar IIIRC) who claim to be descendants of Zheng He's sailers.

It's doubtful to me China would have colonized Africa even if Ming retained strong trade presence in the Arabian Sea. But if they did and settled the Cape, the Portugese would have a near impossible time establishing themselves in the Indian Ocean.

Who knows, maybe the East African states like Ethiopia would be more advanced. I have picture in my mind of African Zen Buddhist monks. :) Zen Buddhism may involve master teachings involving lions and zebras.
everyone is quoting my moment of ignorance... :(:rolleyes:

but that would be verrrrrry interesting, a buddhist Ethiopia. :eek: me likes.
 
Ethiopia having a long tradition with Chritianity (which survived Muslim attempts at conversion) I'd suspect it to resist Buddhism... though Zanzibarese Zen Buddhism would be interesting.

I agree there would be only small-scale slave trade from Africa to China-proper - maybe if the Chinese started moving in on Australia they would import labour, but I'd suspect them to use SE Asians instead.

I also doubt colonising in the European sense - more likely commercial trade-posts or districts in the East African coastal cities for ex-pat traders and their families. Taking a look at OTL experience, that seems to have been the Chinese over-seas-expansion modus operandi.

They'd likely only colonise the Cape if they were looking to expand into the Atlantic, otherwise it would be too remote. More likely in Sri Lanka, I'd think, as being a waypoint between Africa and China. Also gives them a strong strategic position in the entire IO basin...
 
I agree there would be only small-scale slave trade from Africa to China-proper - maybe if the Chinese started moving in on Australia they would import labour, but I'd suspect them to use SE Asians instead.

Oddly, Southeast Asia was very lightly populated until the last 100, 200 years.
 
Oddly, Southeast Asia was very lightly populated until the last 100, 200 years.

So was Africa, relatively speaking, during the slave-trade years. It (sadly) doesn't take that much...

But then again, would the Chinese even bother with settling new land with plantations and such, requiring a large slave population to provide the labour? Probably not - they never bothered to much with the large tracks of land to the north, why bother going south to colonise (or west to Africa, as originally posted)?
 
All long-range trade is in high value items, and has been since cave men traded to get the stone types best used for weapon tips. The treasure fleets carried this stuff, procelein, silk, laquerware etc in bulk to the Indian Ocean. nd returned with bulk spices, ivory, tropical woods etc in bulk. The Chinese were there for exactly the same reason the Europeans went there, high value/profit trade that was easily worth the risk and effort.


If these fleets, which can be compared to European fleets of later years doing similr things, kept up this trade I'd imagine the result would be Chinese hegemony in the Indian ocean for a long time after Europeans arrive. I doubt Portuguese carracks would be able to overwhelm cannon armed Chinese sailing ships sailing in company with the other huge ships of the Chinese ships. But in the 1600s I think things would be different, European ships and their weapons were much more powerful and numerous then and would be able to wrest the hegemony from China.
 
Top