I'm not sure it's planned or not. Finally, Chinese are generally proud of 4 great inventions. one of compass, another one of gonpower. Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization. So I don't know what kind of agenda they have. But I do know one thing: except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from. If it's cheap or free, they use it, and no one cares. No one apologizes to the US for losing monopolies.
> can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization
They did. Just as a land power. Modern China includes conquered territory of the Mongolians, Turkics and Tibeto-Burmans, among others [1].
(The proximate answer is the Ming-Qing transition [2] overlapped with the Age of Discocery [3].)
> except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from
This is breathtakingly wrong, as a simple perusal of every single country's trade restrictions would show. (Even if you're talking about the population versus policy, show me a market where no premium is paid for luxury products imported from such and such distant land.)
> I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization
maybe it's offtopic, but that's what I'm good at, so I'll anwser this
First, ancient China was a feudal centralized dynasty that centered its interests on land and population, unlike commercial company-based regimes such as Britain and the Netherlands. This meant that, in the eyes of the Chinese imperial government, the East India Company was a threat rather than a cooperative partner.
Another reason is that ancient China was a typical land-based power, surrounded by various forces. It could only maintain its sphere of influence through annexation and the tributary system, without the ability to expand further. (Genghis Khan was the only exception—he carried out invasions but never truly established effective rule.)
However, ancient China did, to some extent, "colonize" certain Southeast Asian islands. But this was not institutionalized colonization; rather, it was a form of population migration. The central government had no control over these Chinese people venturing into the seas, which is why it repeatedly tried to prevent maritime expansion.
btw, in case someone said about xinjiang and tibet, you'll see he don't understand history outside the west, base on what i said, you can see it was annexation but not colonization
Only european powers had the urge for colonization, no other civilization in Americas, Africa or Asia really ever want to colonize, expand perhaps but not really colonize.
There was no economic need to do so, for most of last three millennium the economic center of the world has been India and China , they didn’t feel the need to go anywhere , the land is fertile with large local population and good weather to grow more than one crop with rich cultural heritage and throughput there is no payoff for undertaking risky voyages.
Everyone wanted to trade with them, colonial powers bombed ports forcing trading agreements or sold opium and other narcotics to get a foothold, funded expensive expeditions for new trade routes to India and colonized another continent instead , most of era of industrial revolution have been focusing on them as the market for European products not merely resource extraction.
Similarly given the people resources both regions had, there was no need for slavery that is also a european/Mediterranean thing primairly .
Not saying workers were or are treated well or there was great value for human rights in India or China, just that they need to go and find slaves from far off to do the work. They could find all the resources domestically.
> Only european powers had the urge for colonization, no other civilization in Americas, Africa or Asia really ever want to colonize, expand perhaps but not really colonize.
* Inca Empire: Relocated entire communities (the mitmaqkuna) into new provinces to cement imperial control—these were explicit colonies with an imposed administrative and cultural framework.
* Ancient Egypt: Occupied Nubia, built forts, stationed garrisons, and imposed Egyptian officials and religion on the local population.
* Mongol Empire: Installed governors across conquered regions stretching from Eastern Europe to East Asia, moved artisans and workers to bolster Mongol centers, and demanded tribute—hallmarks of a colonial system.
* Imperial China: Established commanderies in newly acquired territories (e.g., southern China), encouraged Han settlement, and superimposed its bureaucracy over local governance.
Historians do not consider mongol or Inca empire colonial . I would say mongols were probably polar opposite of colonizers they were extremely open and integrated extremely well into every region culture they occupied, there was no classical markers of colonization.
I specifically added Mediterranean later in my parent post to cover Egypt , Phoenician and Arab colonization which are considered as examples of pre modern era colonizing.
The hard separation of North Africa is sadly a modern view of the region that I have to do that explicitly, for most of history empires always had some land on both sides of the Mediterranean. This view is either promoted and exploited by far right in southern europe to justify many policies.
Your original claim was that "only European powers had the urge for colonization," but now you're citing Arab, Egyptian, and Phoenician examples. Do you see these as exceptions? If so, wouldn't that contradict your original claim? Or are you reconsidering your definition of colonialism—or using "European" in a broader sense (that somehow includes Arabs and Egyptians)?
Yes, the Chinese didn't like colonizing. They actually preferred complete extermination. The West has been much too kind in this regard.
Also slavery is a European thing? Cute! I think indeed we have been much too kind with foreigners, they somehow managed to thing that the laws, ethics and technology we gave them are just innate things found in nature, when in fact they are just European culture. Just like exploring the entire planet, cataloging its history and animals. We in fact had an extremely small amount of slaves compared to Arabs or Asians and to your lament we ended slavery. Somehow you still found ways to do it to this day though. Additionally the society with the most slaves in history has been Korea. And the time of us accepting millions of immigrants desperate to either live with us or copy us and then tell us how much greater their own societies are, will end soon. You are free to go and live there with your own people.
Genocides in Americas, Australia and elsewhere of first nation people notwithstanding i suppose
> laws, ethics and technology we gave them
Unasked and unwanted "civilizing" by European powers is what got us Congo Free State and dozens of other atrocities all under the name of "civilizing". It is not like rest of the world was living in trees with no laws and morality.
> Most slaves in history has been Korea
This is a controversial view of Korea, there is no consensus if nobi and the class system during the Joseon period (much less so in Goreyo period) was serfdom or slavery, that is not easy classification to make, given that they had many rights, many earned salary, nobi women in 1400s got 100 days maternity leave by law, a lot more than modern American women do today.
Even if we take assume they were all slaves, Korea was by no means the leading country by % of population, and also we have to consider nobi were largely ethnic Koreans, not foreigners explicitly captured to be slaves and the economy didn't run on continuous capture of foreign slaves
> us accepting millions of immigrants desperate to either live with us or copy us and then tell us how much greater their own societies are, will end soon. You are free to go and live there with your own people.
While there is a discourse to be had socio-economic policies in the west from repatriation of cultural artifacts, to climate change or geopolitics that can stabilize the global south and reduce immigration, at this point I have to stop engaging.
We are talking ancient history ? Not Japan post Meiji restoration trying to be copy and catch up to world powers after stagnating during the Tokugawa shogunate for centuries.
After the sengoku jidai[1] the failed imjin wars under Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the only serious attempt to expand to China and Korea, they of course failed and Japan faced inward till Meiji period as was typical of most of their history
Post Meiji restoration is hardly a fair comparison the Japanese believed that they have to be like other world (colonial) powers to be powerful.
[1]Unrelated note: one of my favorite periods in history.
But if we are, the Arab colonization of the Middle East + North Africa has to rank among the most dominant of all time, yes? Still apparent to this day.
Yes, Arab Phoenician and Egyptian empires all are classified as early colonizers and/or slavers. I added the qualifier European/Mediterranean hoping to signal i covered them as well, but that doesn't seem to be coming across.
Let me put another way- sub Saharan African, Chinese, southeast/far-east Asian, Indian, North/South American(first nations), Polynesian empires etc largely did not do empire building via colonization or slavery.
This is not to say they valued human life or did not commit atrocities, it just means that economic models that necessitated colonies for resource extraction or large markets to sell to, or foreign slaves for human labor never evolved there influenced to environmental, population and cultural factors so colonization is atypical response when the empires are built there.
We can see observe difference today in how say China deals with foreign investments, loans and other development initiatives compared to how western powers do. The deals tend to be primarily economic with willingness to work with existing regimes and less non-economic conditions attached and so on.
> the economic center of the world has been India and China , they didn’t feel the need to go anywhere
You're describing two modern states that encompass geographies that were constantly at internal turmoil. (Including as empires [1].) It's like asking why the Germans were late to the game in colonising: they're a land power and were in a constant state of internal turmoil.
"They had enough" flies in the face of human history and European colonialism itself.
I didn’t mean to say They had enough to mean they were satiated , it was supposed to mean they had enough in their own regions to fight , win and enjoy over they didn’t need to go overseas to acquire riches .
Neither region is a utopia in history or today, simply there was enough land and people and other resources within, so they viewed their region to be the world, there was no economic impetus to colonize or enslave from far off places is my point .
Have you looked at the map of China in the past? Much of the West and North was only recently conquered in the same time period as Colonialism, and the South prior to that. Xinjiang literally means "New Frontier", and the ongoing tensions can be viewed as the continuation of such colonialism in modern times.
>Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization
They literally had emperors who banned all overseas travel because it represented a threat to their own power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin . China is the extremely large and extremely centralised, so the rulers' primary focus has always been on maintaining their own power. Fortunately the current government still allows private firms enough freedom that one was able to invent DeepSeek, however if the recent crackdown on financial firms had happened a few years earlier then the firm behind DeepSeek wouldn't have had the money to fund its creation.
