That's what happened in 1776.
When was the last time China was technologically superior to the West?
- Thread starter Roger604
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Red___Sword
Junior Member
Wow, this thread is really good. After I read all the posts here, I have a rather important question, for this thread itself:
You see, throughout all the 3 pages and till now 42 numbers of posts, NOT SINGLE ONE is made by any forum modulator. Which could be meaning, either this thread (especially the way to discus in this thread), is OK to continue in this fashion, or this thread is simply till now, un-audited.
Guys, history means: national relationship(happy or unhappy espionage) of history; philosophy and / or mindset of certain group of people; religion interfere of natioanl historic path; interact (normally not happy ones) of people from different races; Aye or Nay to certain XXX-ism; trust and un-trust of certain "evidence" brought by someone that MAYBE lead to trolls between members... So many bullets waiting to shoot.
Without offence, personally I though some of the previous posts were already cross some of the line (although I myself don't mind) - So, is it still OK to discuss like that?
You see, throughout all the 3 pages and till now 42 numbers of posts, NOT SINGLE ONE is made by any forum modulator. Which could be meaning, either this thread (especially the way to discus in this thread), is OK to continue in this fashion, or this thread is simply till now, un-audited.
Guys, history means: national relationship(happy or unhappy espionage) of history; philosophy and / or mindset of certain group of people; religion interfere of natioanl historic path; interact (normally not happy ones) of people from different races; Aye or Nay to certain XXX-ism; trust and un-trust of certain "evidence" brought by someone that MAYBE lead to trolls between members... So many bullets waiting to shoot.
Without offence, personally I though some of the previous posts were already cross some of the line (although I myself don't mind) - So, is it still OK to discuss like that?
Red___Sword
Junior Member
My "test of water" starting from some STATEMENT of facts, which didn't mention above, yet.
1. Han dynasty, when roughly equals Rome republic and early Rome Empire: Rome's goal is to conquer other non-advanced nations (if not races); Han's goal is to PRESEVE the potential to (still) be a centre kindom when the Qin dynasty before it has reduced 3/4 of the nation's population and ruined ALL (I am not using "almost") of the nation's infrastructure, and nomadic tribes and kindoms (Hun is one of many) from north, west, northwest, southwest... trying to "make some easy money", as frequent as like twice a year...
2. Although many big or small, long or short, loved or hated dynasty after Han and before Tang (Sui, actually), but we can use simpler term as "there's MORE splited and warlord-divided times than peaceful, infrustructure building times.", plus foreign (mostly, nomads) invasions trying to "make easy money", or even to "usurp" the middle kingdom, at her weakest, everytime.
3. Symbolic Tang dynasty, if there is something that can (foreseenablly) threaten the early till middle years of Tang empire, they are the unhappy kingdoms (not nomads, although barbaric) that at north, west, northwest, southwest of door-steps of Tang. Not to mention started form middile years of Tang, THE greatest rebellion throughout China's history, of auxillary forces rebel against imperial forces, minority-races (naturalisation citizens) rebel against majority-races hans (born citizens), that historians generally and simplified called " An Shi Zhi Luan" 安史之乱 - that this kind of social plague rooted form border area of the nation.
4. Song dynasty, simple term - under the thumb of "converging attack / threat" of numerous ethnic-unified, Chinese culture influenced, kingdoms (may or may not be nomads, but somewhat civilized-infrustructured kingdoms), tribes, even self-claim empires, form north, west, northwest, south, southwest.
5. Yuan dynasty, some (including me) consider them - usurper of middle kingdom, (if consider threated), faces threats at north and west. - To east, not yet threatened.
6. Ming dynasty, although drived the mongols back, threatened from north, west, north west... and somewhat threatend form east, and they dealing the easten threat with shut down the sea, effectively.
7. Qing dynasty, some (including me) consider it a very successful, even admirable - usuurper of middle kingdom, untill defeated by British, threatened from north, west, north west... and ignored the threat from east by shut down the sea, not effectively.
What points I am making here, is that: Gentlemen, ancient China, from philosophy to stratege, from national infrustructure to common people's life style... was designed, prepared, meant, to deal with threat from north, west, northwest, south, southwest - if not within - from the land / ground.
It is like Maginot line, you can't say it is weak or inferior. It's just it didn't EFFECT, when time comes. Defining "technology superioity" by wins or lost, by gains or wastes, by GDP or gold stock... it is unpractical.
1. Han dynasty, when roughly equals Rome republic and early Rome Empire: Rome's goal is to conquer other non-advanced nations (if not races); Han's goal is to PRESEVE the potential to (still) be a centre kindom when the Qin dynasty before it has reduced 3/4 of the nation's population and ruined ALL (I am not using "almost") of the nation's infrastructure, and nomadic tribes and kindoms (Hun is one of many) from north, west, northwest, southwest... trying to "make some easy money", as frequent as like twice a year...
2. Although many big or small, long or short, loved or hated dynasty after Han and before Tang (Sui, actually), but we can use simpler term as "there's MORE splited and warlord-divided times than peaceful, infrustructure building times.", plus foreign (mostly, nomads) invasions trying to "make easy money", or even to "usurp" the middle kingdom, at her weakest, everytime.
3. Symbolic Tang dynasty, if there is something that can (foreseenablly) threaten the early till middle years of Tang empire, they are the unhappy kingdoms (not nomads, although barbaric) that at north, west, northwest, southwest of door-steps of Tang. Not to mention started form middile years of Tang, THE greatest rebellion throughout China's history, of auxillary forces rebel against imperial forces, minority-races (naturalisation citizens) rebel against majority-races hans (born citizens), that historians generally and simplified called " An Shi Zhi Luan" 安史之乱 - that this kind of social plague rooted form border area of the nation.
4. Song dynasty, simple term - under the thumb of "converging attack / threat" of numerous ethnic-unified, Chinese culture influenced, kingdoms (may or may not be nomads, but somewhat civilized-infrustructured kingdoms), tribes, even self-claim empires, form north, west, northwest, south, southwest.
5. Yuan dynasty, some (including me) consider them - usurper of middle kingdom, (if consider threated), faces threats at north and west. - To east, not yet threatened.
6. Ming dynasty, although drived the mongols back, threatened from north, west, north west... and somewhat threatend form east, and they dealing the easten threat with shut down the sea, effectively.
7. Qing dynasty, some (including me) consider it a very successful, even admirable - usuurper of middle kingdom, untill defeated by British, threatened from north, west, north west... and ignored the threat from east by shut down the sea, not effectively.
What points I am making here, is that: Gentlemen, ancient China, from philosophy to stratege, from national infrustructure to common people's life style... was designed, prepared, meant, to deal with threat from north, west, northwest, south, southwest - if not within - from the land / ground.
It is like Maginot line, you can't say it is weak or inferior. It's just it didn't EFFECT, when time comes. Defining "technology superioity" by wins or lost, by gains or wastes, by GDP or gold stock... it is unpractical.
Very interesting thread! It seems there´s quite a few cultural aspects to take in account, when dealing with Chinese vis-a-vis western (weapons) technology, through history. While there is philosophical and economical aspects, some differences might be considered to be a part of strategic culture as such. More specifically, I am thinking of the ancient Chinese abstraction of Shi (fourth tone) 势 (勢). And it´s paired opposite Li 力 (not sure if this is the right li, but I guess it is this because of it´s meaning).
Here is a few quotes from a book I am currently reading:
“The defining theme In Sun Tzu´s The Art of Warfare, the essence Shih was the dynamic power that emerged in the combination of men´s hearts, military weapons, and natural conditions.
Strategic thinking focused on Shih was Shih-strategy, which converged Shih along three broad dimensions of warfare: the people, the context, and the enemy.”
“Since men and their hearts were critical to Shih-strategy, their commanders and rulers needed to understand how to mobilize them. A ruler´s adherence to the right way –Tao- brought the people into accord with the ruler in internal harmony. The ruler with a great Tao gained the deep, sincere, heartfelt support of the people. The ruler who had or created Tao could build a strong Shih for his people and his army.”
“In marked contrast to Euro-American emphases on technology, Weaponry, doctrine, or policy, Shih-strategists are unequivocal in their conviction that power dwells among its people. Chinese strategic thought embodies the Confusion worldview that man was the center of the universe and the ultimate source of power.” William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim 2006.
What do you guys think about this explanation?
Here is a few quotes from a book I am currently reading:
“The defining theme In Sun Tzu´s The Art of Warfare, the essence Shih was the dynamic power that emerged in the combination of men´s hearts, military weapons, and natural conditions.
Strategic thinking focused on Shih was Shih-strategy, which converged Shih along three broad dimensions of warfare: the people, the context, and the enemy.”
“Since men and their hearts were critical to Shih-strategy, their commanders and rulers needed to understand how to mobilize them. A ruler´s adherence to the right way –Tao- brought the people into accord with the ruler in internal harmony. The ruler with a great Tao gained the deep, sincere, heartfelt support of the people. The ruler who had or created Tao could build a strong Shih for his people and his army.”
“In marked contrast to Euro-American emphases on technology, Weaponry, doctrine, or policy, Shih-strategists are unequivocal in their conviction that power dwells among its people. Chinese strategic thought embodies the Confusion worldview that man was the center of the universe and the ultimate source of power.” William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim 2006.
What do you guys think about this explanation?
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That aspect of Chinese strategic culture's aversion to expansion is true to this day. It is risk averse, self-preserving and therefore self-limiting at the same time.
Both sides of the coin have been proven by the varying outcomes of the expansionist strategic cultures of the colonial powers. In fact, Britain's history proves the Chinese both right and wrong, the US broke off from the British empire, yet the US turned out to be Britain's saviour little more than a century later.
And now the USA is suffering from the same problems of over expansionism, and Britain itself is facing the potential to break up as EU nations in general are facing strong nationalist sentiments.
We do have to remember at times that China at times represented around 60-80% of the worlds GDP, foreign trade brings very little revenue compared to internal revenue.
You can say this is one of the reason why China was so successful in preserving its cultural identity as it is a self sustaining economy unlike Persia where when the silk road faded, so did they or the Romans, where the available land for conquest ran out, they can only result in conquering themselves.
I won't call the US the UK's savior. The UK basically brought her freedom with her entire treasury, the UK was castrated by the USA during the Suez Canal crisis in 1957 after which every British operation were with American consent or under American lead.
Kurt
Junior Member
That's a difficult question on Chinese supremacy. Europe had a very fast military development and outstanding naval capabilities that allowed them to profit from trade with the world while China's wealth became increasingly internal.
From an economic and technological perspective, I'd say the Song dynasty was China's most dominant age, from a military perspective the Yuan and Ming dynasties in recent times and from a cultural perspective the Tang and Han dynasties while for aggrandizing territory by conquest none beats the Quing and the Quin dynasty.
Europe in comparison is hard to qualify and quantify, but I would go with the old embassies swapped between China, Rome and later the Byzantine Empire that the Mediterranean and Europe together always formed an equivalent to China in economy, culture, science and power. This view does include the Muslims on the southern shore of the Mediterranean other then the Europeans with Christian-Muslim-interaction, passing on the torch of progress between each other (yes, the Muslims will make a comeback).
Until the advent of the industrial revolution, that enabled to replace organized craftsmen workshops with machinery, China and India dominated the global economy with their productivity. China in a competition between these two giants did have a slight lead due to early adoption of water and wind powered mechanical gear for some machinery and not so much hindrance through a gouvernmental system that took all available surplus as a grab for free and invested it in war (stabilizing a political system with a stagnant economy, India had impressive armies with weak financial backing t5hat crumbled against the well-organized and supplied European-led professional career-mercenaries)). That's why regions of the Indian tradition (including modern Indonesia) had a highly developed skill level of craftsmen with insignificant tools that had little problem to compete with Europe.
China was an economy in between India and Europe with less capable gear for powering machines. In my opinion, this has to do with China taking care to preserve the state against internal threats while European states had to worry more about external threats within Europe and mobility of disenfranchised citizens. These emigrants found similar economic conditions under a new jurisdiction not far away from home. The economic and military competition in Europe enabled to overtake China around the 18th century, but was not little indebted to introducing new plows from China that enabled Europe's agriculture to boost production and sustain this development.
As a sidenote the colonies were no big pay off for Europe. In case they enabled some extraction that was more than the costs, this directly financed the goals of warlike monarchies. These monarchies were not well disposed towards sharing power with some merchants (same problem in China) who traditionally had a say on taxes and budget derived from the native European sources. But there were a few states in Europe where the merchants took control and ever since won the wars against their opponents because of lower interests for state debts incurred to fight these wars (absolutism against constitutional monarchies and "democracies") due to the effect that major lenders having a major say on the state finances and not fearing to lose their money at the drop of a hat or the pen stroke of an absolute monarch (who used debt acquisition as bribes for the acquisition of offices that allowed exploitation of the population). Plus, representation and perceived influence on the decisions about the collected money allowed to collect higher taxes, a common characteristic of representative against non-representative gouvernments (irrespective of the formal status).
Europe did gather wealth by trade and production and the de-industrialization of India with many forbiddens on India's former products of excellence in order to boost the profits of the British merchants (Ghandi picked out the salt issue as one example).
The European colonization is a difficult issue, it most certainly meant transforming the world into a system open for European exchange and the European economic system. The power derived from this access is still felt in today's economies that would be unthinkable without the massive former investements into a new world order. Conquering and settling new land has been done by China (conquest of Southern China), just like the British tried to own and resettle the earth for example. But while Chinese marched there, the British sailed settlers there, so the Chinese model can be better compared to the German colonization of Eastern-Central and Eastern Europe from the Midddle Ages onwards (see for more information). Just like in China, a cultural rift appeared between the northern motherland and the southern expansion land, there was a rift in Anglo-Saxon society and a rift between the new German lands in the eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire and the western old powersources(as a result from the eastern German lands, major powers like Prussia and Austria developed while resistance in the West to similar expansion led to the downfall of Burgundy and the creation of the Swiss). In the end the scholars and mandarins from the South triumphed over the eunuchs from the North, not dissimialr to the US taking over from Britain as the naval superpower, but still being tightly aligned within the framework of an Anglo-Saxon alliance system, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand other than the UK and the USA. By large expansion every culture creates a new, more powerful, derivate of herself that will someday dominate the motherland one way or another with very different concepts.
From an economic and technological perspective, I'd say the Song dynasty was China's most dominant age, from a military perspective the Yuan and Ming dynasties in recent times and from a cultural perspective the Tang and Han dynasties while for aggrandizing territory by conquest none beats the Quing and the Quin dynasty.
Europe in comparison is hard to qualify and quantify, but I would go with the old embassies swapped between China, Rome and later the Byzantine Empire that the Mediterranean and Europe together always formed an equivalent to China in economy, culture, science and power. This view does include the Muslims on the southern shore of the Mediterranean other then the Europeans with Christian-Muslim-interaction, passing on the torch of progress between each other (yes, the Muslims will make a comeback).
Until the advent of the industrial revolution, that enabled to replace organized craftsmen workshops with machinery, China and India dominated the global economy with their productivity. China in a competition between these two giants did have a slight lead due to early adoption of water and wind powered mechanical gear for some machinery and not so much hindrance through a gouvernmental system that took all available surplus as a grab for free and invested it in war (stabilizing a political system with a stagnant economy, India had impressive armies with weak financial backing t5hat crumbled against the well-organized and supplied European-led professional career-mercenaries)). That's why regions of the Indian tradition (including modern Indonesia) had a highly developed skill level of craftsmen with insignificant tools that had little problem to compete with Europe.
China was an economy in between India and Europe with less capable gear for powering machines. In my opinion, this has to do with China taking care to preserve the state against internal threats while European states had to worry more about external threats within Europe and mobility of disenfranchised citizens. These emigrants found similar economic conditions under a new jurisdiction not far away from home. The economic and military competition in Europe enabled to overtake China around the 18th century, but was not little indebted to introducing new plows from China that enabled Europe's agriculture to boost production and sustain this development.
As a sidenote the colonies were no big pay off for Europe. In case they enabled some extraction that was more than the costs, this directly financed the goals of warlike monarchies. These monarchies were not well disposed towards sharing power with some merchants (same problem in China) who traditionally had a say on taxes and budget derived from the native European sources. But there were a few states in Europe where the merchants took control and ever since won the wars against their opponents because of lower interests for state debts incurred to fight these wars (absolutism against constitutional monarchies and "democracies") due to the effect that major lenders having a major say on the state finances and not fearing to lose their money at the drop of a hat or the pen stroke of an absolute monarch (who used debt acquisition as bribes for the acquisition of offices that allowed exploitation of the population). Plus, representation and perceived influence on the decisions about the collected money allowed to collect higher taxes, a common characteristic of representative against non-representative gouvernments (irrespective of the formal status).
Europe did gather wealth by trade and production and the de-industrialization of India with many forbiddens on India's former products of excellence in order to boost the profits of the British merchants (Ghandi picked out the salt issue as one example).
The European colonization is a difficult issue, it most certainly meant transforming the world into a system open for European exchange and the European economic system. The power derived from this access is still felt in today's economies that would be unthinkable without the massive former investements into a new world order. Conquering and settling new land has been done by China (conquest of Southern China), just like the British tried to own and resettle the earth for example. But while Chinese marched there, the British sailed settlers there, so the Chinese model can be better compared to the German colonization of Eastern-Central and Eastern Europe from the Midddle Ages onwards (see for more information). Just like in China, a cultural rift appeared between the northern motherland and the southern expansion land, there was a rift in Anglo-Saxon society and a rift between the new German lands in the eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire and the western old powersources(as a result from the eastern German lands, major powers like Prussia and Austria developed while resistance in the West to similar expansion led to the downfall of Burgundy and the creation of the Swiss). In the end the scholars and mandarins from the South triumphed over the eunuchs from the North, not dissimialr to the US taking over from Britain as the naval superpower, but still being tightly aligned within the framework of an Anglo-Saxon alliance system, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand other than the UK and the USA. By large expansion every culture creates a new, more powerful, derivate of herself that will someday dominate the motherland one way or another with very different concepts.
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Just an addition.The herring fisheries near what is now Southern Sweden was extremely rich during the High Middle Ages. A few centuries later the herring appeared about as abundant for the coasts of the Southern North Sea and made the towns of Holland, Zeeland and Flanders so rich that they could borrow against an interest rate of 4 %, while the kings of England, France and Spain had to pay a lot more because they occasionally went bankrupt. After the first eight years of the eighty years war the Spanish king had very nearly won, when he ran out of money.
During that war the financial prudence of the towns was extended to the state they controlled, the Dutch Seven United Provinces, the first capitalist state. It was not a democracy but it was a step in that direction.
During that war the financial prudence of the towns was extended to the state they controlled, the Dutch Seven United Provinces, the first capitalist state. It was not a democracy but it was a step in that direction.