How come the far east never dreamed of sailing across the Pacific?

>>584909

the Chinese have a thing about them being the most important thing in existence and not really wanting to bother outside their own sphere cause what's the point, they already have All under Heaven.

There's a commercially published crackpot theory that the Chinese treasure fleets discovered the Americas a few decades before Columbus got there. Largely discredited, however, but it may provide leads on your question.

>>584919
This. Why bother? There nothing we needed from the outside and when outsiders slow up they only want to trade with our merchants for accessories anyway.

>>584936
It is also important to note that the Chinese are masters at stealing other people's things and claiming it as their own

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>>584909
I'm sure someone in Asia dreamed of sailing East to Europe. If we were to assume both East and West developed identically technology-wise, Europe would still land on America first; the Atlantic is smaller.

Plus, the East coast of most of the Americas is hospitable, plus Caribbean islands too. If you landed in the Americas on the West Coast, it would be mostly arid lands (from Central CA all the way down to Chile), much less hospitable

>>584959
True, I hadn't considered that aspect

>>584959
>it would be mostly arid lands (from Central CA all the way down to Chile), much less hospitable

Uh, what is Cascadia?

>>584968
come on man you even quoted it in your post lol

>>584968
By Cascadia do you mean the land from Central CA north to Canada?

The far east did go to the Americas,just 12,000 years ago when there was a land bridge where the Bering Strait is.

>>584978

But the West beat them to the punch even then.

>>584959
Why would an East Asian dream of sailing *East* to Europe? The Chinese thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits taught them otherwise.

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>>584991
The same reason Columbus had a dream of sailing *West* to Asia.

>>585003
Are you fucking dumb? Europeans knew the earth was a globe and that they'd reach Asia eventually by sailing West. There's no indication the Chinese thought similarly before contact with Europeans.

>>584909
There was no real need. You have to remember that most Europeans initially were traversing the New World looking for a way to quickly get to the Indian Ocean / Pacific trade networks. The Far East was already there: they were already in on the trade and wealth Europe was after. Alongside that was the fact that East Asia was far less politically divided among rival states, thus there was less incentive to look outside of their surrounding area for ways to "get an edge" over their rivals.

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>>585008
>>585008
In my first post >>584959
>If we were to assume both East and West developed identically technology-wise, Europe would still land on America first; the Atlantic is smaller.
The East and West did not develop identically. As you said, the idea was brought to China by European missionaries. I am saying that even they both civilizations realized a spherical Earth at the exact same time, it still would have been Europe reaching the Americas first.

>>584909
>discovered
to do that kind of shit, people needed some reason. european reason was to reach india. after the fall of constantinople, the route for india was either impossible or very expensive so to keep indian exports coming to america, they needed to find another way. Vasco Da Gama discovered that you could get india bordering africa. Columbus said that rounding the world to get to india is a much shorter route (i guess that didn't sound as retarded as it sounds today) so the spanish kings (hoping he would find a unique route to import indian exports in europe) gave him the means to do so and Columbus reached america beliveing he found india.

On the other hand, the far east never had a reason. (except russia that when they reached the pacific, america was already known and colonized, but colonized alaska at least)
The chinese and koreans always belived they were the center of the world and everything beyond their borders was land unworthy of being ruled by them.
japan (for the time they would have been technologically able to cross the pacific) had it enough battling inside feudal wars and invadeing korea over and over again. crossing the pacific was neither a good idea nor something they had the time to do

>>584909
>How come the far east never dreamed of sailing across the Pacific?

Because far east Asia did not have a need to due so, but Europe did. To east Asians the silk road and other related trade routes were just places to make money and get rid of surplus. To Europeans it was the only source of highly desired commodities that were also status symbols, and the source of income for their main cultural enemies. After 1195 it stopped matting as much when Egypt felt it no longer needed its navy and just let it rot in harbor. That caused the most powerful Muslim country of the time to no longer be a threat to Europe itself. It was a case that they may dislike their trading partnesr, but nothing more then that. Then came the Rise of the Ottomans.In the 1430s they quickly built up a Navy and showed to the world that they were more then happy to put it to good use and to invade European lands. European trader were force to either trade with this new enemy, or brave the waters full of Ottoman spondered privateers leading to Egypt. The Ottomans were very aggressively trying to cut Mameluke ruled Egypt out of the equation btw.

It became a matter of realpolitik for Europeans to sidestep the Ottomans on the Asian trade routes. Sailing west was not the first choice in the matter, rather it was to go around Africa. However Africa ended up being bigger then excepted.

>>584958

>It is also important to note that Westerners are masters at stealing other people's things and claiming it as their own

Fixed that for you

>>584909
Why would they need to?

The reasons Europeans sailed across the Atlantic is to get to Asia because there's fucking nothing worth trading in Europe.

For the far east it's all right there. Easy access to China, India and the Spice Islands.

>What would have happened if the Japanese found America
Were the Japanese to find America they would probably land somewhere like British Columbia or California, where there is nothing worth a damn so they'd probably go home and forget about it. Were they to land in Mesoamerica or South America they probably wouldn't be able to create a sustainable power-base to conquer from.

Europeans had the good fortune of being at the perfect position to land at the Carribbean. Which was both naturally rich and strategically important as fuck, as well as being full of natives who could barely defend themselves.

>>585027

No you're fucking stupid, no one thought the world was flat. That's nothing more than modern fiction.

>>585360
Actually the goal for the Spanish in opening up trade in India wasn't to side-step the Ottomans, it was to trump the Portuguese.

Whilst Granada still existed they gave the Spanish valuable African commodities like gold and ivory. When Granada fell Portugal effectively had the European monopoly on African goods, so if Spain wanted to stay relevant they would have to get something equally valuable. Which effectively amounted to opening up trade straight to the source in Asia.

>>584909
>What would have happened if say the Japanese found America first?
In the 1960s the archaelogist Betty Meggers submitted that the asethetics of the Valdivia Culture in Ecuador were very similar to the contemporary Jomon culture of Japan. Her theories passed peer review and were published at the time but are no longer popular. Wiki says there have been recent genetic studies consistent with the idea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdivia_culture#Japanese-Valdivia_contacts

>>584909
why visit the rest of the world when you have China?

>>585501
for the bantz

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>>585385
I was under the impression that the end goal of the Portuguese sailing around Africa was to get to India. The new markets that they found were just nice and profitable, but not what they were looking for. I was also under the impression that the reason why they restarted exploring further down the West Africa coast was because the flow of Asian sourced goods across north Africa came to a halt do to a number of actions taken by Mesih Pasha in the 1480s

there was no reason to
all the goods asia had to offer was already there
europeans wanted in on that skipping the turks

Why didnt any asian countries colonize australia?

>>585551
Have you ever look at Australia? It was a hellhole, man. A hellhole. During 11th-12th century, Srivijaya one of the old Malay/Indonesian Empire colonized Madagascar but not Australia. And that is saying something. The Brit manage to colonize Australia because they have advanced medicine and better weaponry to get rid of native wildlife.

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The Pacific is just too big.
If you ever played Eu4 you will know that you'll need at least 3 explorers just to get from Chile to Australia.meanwhile you can cross the Atlantic in just a few days.

>>585526
Partially true. While they certainly were trying to get around the ottomans, it makes no sense to establish colonies in the Americas if you want to sail around Africa to get to india

>>585736
>and better weaponry to get rid of native wildlife

What wildlife would they have to get rid of, you ignorant dunce?

You know nothing about the colonisation of Australia.

>>585551
They did. Dingoes were introduced by south asians I think.

>>585373
Shame. Japanese fighting the Aztecs would have been really cool.

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>all these people saying that Europe didn't trade within its borders
>"what is Venice"
>"what is genoa"
>"what is sevilla"
>"what is champagne"
>"what is luweck"
>"what is the English channel"
>"what are the guilds"

>>585809
There was, but it wasn't as lucrative.

>>585809
Ignore the idiots and chinaboos, it's for the best. People just like to conveniently forget the salt, iron, craft items, wood, and grain which was traded all over

>>585809
Seville actually only came to prominence as a trade city after the Spanish began colonising the New World. It was basically a reaction to English privateers constantly raiding the Spanish coastline, so they just moved their centre of trade inland

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>>584952
>implying you're chinese
>implying the chinese aren't just lurkers

Then you get shit like the Opium war and the Japanese invasions and suddenly you need a lot of shit from the outside.

>>585365
t. Pin Lu

>>585551
Australia is more or less the most inhospitable and unwelcoming place on the planet short of Antarctica.

If the fact that the overwhelming majority of it is barren wasteland doesn't kill you, the wildlife will.

>>585084
>I guess that didn't sound as retarded as it sounds today

Considering that a couple of kings rejected Columbus before he got support from the spanish monarchy, it probably sounded pretty retarded even then.

>>585365
China hasn't done shit for our common technological advance in 500 years.

>>585551
Unfavorable sea currents, combined with the actually habitable parts of Australia being in the south.

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>>585871
Why is it that everytime the English come up during the age of colonialism they seem like total bastards?

>>585901
Well they were a pirate state for centuries.

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>>584909
>Chinese
Middle Kingdom mentality. Not to mention China was in itself a massive empire that had everything it ever needed.

People tend to forget that China proper is only the Northwestern part of the country. It launched an expansion campaign southwards and effectively colonized it with Chinese to the extent that by 700 AD its considered part of the Chinese heartland.
>Korea and Japan
Both entities inherited Chinese middle kingdom mentality.

Japan's insularity however is further exacerbated by the fact that it had a Religious aspect. Japan created by the gods and all that.

Now for commercial reasons: unlike Europe, the Far East isn't cucked by Muslim/Italian trade monopolies. As far as the Far East is concerned: *they* are the monopoly.

Even if the Steppe Nomads make the Silk Road shit they could always send goods via sea. Not to mention the same Nomads are actually vying in power to keep the Silk Route safe so Nomadic Powers can benefit it off em.

There was no incentive to look for alternative routes at all. Expansion to somewhere else, yes, as with China to the South and West or Japan with its neverending quest to bitch Korea.

>>585787
>FINALLY INDIA
>these ppl have stuff, good
>seems like this isnt india afterall
>but they have stuff
>lets investigate further and take what we can

>>585809
obviously not true yurop had no trade
but there were goods in high demand which was through the ottoshit empire, avoiding that was advised

Just a quick point. Columbus wasn't trying to get to India to trade spices with them. He was trying to get China, with the ultimate aim of converting the Emperor to Christianity and getting him to attack the Turks from the East while Europeans attacked from the West, so that they can re conquer Jerusalem.

>>585878
Cry some more. Opium is a direct, deliberate and forceful application of your new fancy economic doctrine system on a China. At that time, China still thought about international trade is a means of giving gift, receiving tributes and is more about diplomacy than necessity. Hell, China didn't even think about diplomacy the way you barbarians did.

As for now, yeah, of course China doesn't play by the rules or conventions sometimes, but that is just because they understand how international trade and is deliberately skirting the rules and walking on the line. Besides, the rules and convention of modern international trade applied to developing countries usually kills their economy or subjugate their economy to the needs and whims of more advanced economies anyway, unless there is intention to do the opposite, ie Germany and Japan vs banana republics.

>>585992
No

>>585992
Just no.

>>584919
How a Japanese soldier feels when he rapped girls of "all under Heaven" kingdom

>>586147
Like the dog that he is. If he was human he'd want a quick end to his miserable existence.

>>586054
t. 30 Yuan Army

>>586196
I'm sorry, I'm still new here and don't understand the "t. X" thing that is often used. Is it shorthand for "see x" or "refer to"? By yuan army do you mean Yuan dynasty army or something else?

Europeans had the geographic, ideological, and economic reasons for finding the Americas. The Atlantic is easy to cross relative to the Pacific. Europeans wished to spread Christianity. Many in Europe wanted to find new routes to India and China so they could stop paying Ottomans Muslims for everything.

Now look at China. The Pacific has shifting seasonal winds and ocean currents that would have made voyages into the middle of the ocean dangerous. Ideologically China was more obsessed with self improvement and stability than spreading their filial piety around the world. Finally, China had no economic reason to search out other lands. They had all the goods that everyone else wanted.

>>585736
>>585790
>What wildlife
maybe he means the abos

>>584909

The Chinese sailed across the Pacific and discovered America in 1421.

Now you know.

>>585084
>The chinese and koreans always belived they were the center of the world and everything beyond their borders was land unworthy of being ruled by them.
To be honest the christian world wasn't all that different. Most maps would paint Jerusalem as the center of the world and everything outside of europe to be barbarians, I mean they even tried to make an alliance with the mongols, just ignoring that they might have entirely different motives and goals then they did.

>>584971

Cascadia i.e the pacific northwest

>>586703
That is bullshit and you know it

>>586054
Why are so many Chinese women lining up to marry western men?

Are there as many rub and tugs in China as you guys open here?

>>584909
>How come the far east never dreamed of sailing across the Pacific?
Because as far as the Chinese cared, only savages lived in either direction, aka people they don't want to associate with.
>Was it too large for them to plausibly traverse?
No, it was perfectly feasible. The problem was that the ships they had were humongous treasure ships that would be a disaster if they were lost at sea. It wasn't worth the risk.
>What would have happened if say the Japanese found America first?
The Japs were the least likely to have discovered the Americas. They didn't even have a united country until nearly a hundred years later.

>>584959
Something else to consider is that for California at least, docking a sailing ship is nigh impossible.
Check out Two Years Before The Mast for sauce.

>>586233

Some meme where t. is a sign off from Finnish culture.

>Romans think of themselves as the greatest civlization and people
>oh that's only natural, they were surrounded by barbarians
>Chinese think of themselves as the greatest civilization and people
>oh my god that is so insensitive and arrogant?!?!? hello?!?! how can they possibly think this way it's sooo backwards of this 200 AD peasant faggot to think that! no wonder China has so many human rights abuses and they're killing those poor Tibetans (forget the Uyghurs, they aren't mystical Buddhists so they don't count as victims lol!)

>>586233
t. is shorthand for 'regards' in finnish

>>584958
A lot of early machines and inventions, as far back as the cart, that were created by other civilizations were improved by the Chinese once the Chinese got a hold of them.

>>586787
I'll take "things nobody said ITT" for 400, Alex.

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>>586787
>People didn't hate Romans for thinking themselves the best shit ever

>>586727
>pacific northwest
>central california to chile

pick one or at least buy a map.

>>586783
So a dismissive "refer to"?

They had no reason to. The main reason the Portuguese and Spanish looked south and west was the Ottoman Empire controlling the silk and spice trade routes. China didn't have direct contact with the Ottomans, let alone Japan.

>>586787
> Rome
> surrounded by Barbarians

You've never heard of Persia?

>>585084
Columbus was such an idiot.

>>586893
Please, barbarity isn't about what an outside nation is actually, but rather whether your own is good enough to regard then as barbaric and if you wanted to look at them as barbarians. Both China and Rome understood this.

>>586196
What about the Yuan? They're barbarians before and they're still barbarians after they took over China. Their dynasty barely lasted a century, a metre blink in Chinese history. I will give then credit where it's due, but they're not that special to China.

>>586873
It's more like

Post 1: I think the Germans were shit troops in WWII, the average Soviet soldier was far superior.

Post 2: >>1
>t. Vladimir Vladivostok

The implication being that 1 was written by a biased vatnik.

Alternatively it can be used to distinguish oneself.

>1: Why are Americans so lazy?
>2: Because they're also stupid. t. American

>>586901

For not knowing a couple of continents existed that no European, or as far as I am aware Asian or African knew existed?

You're the idiot.

>>586924
Oh okay, I see. So it's an implication or declaration about the identify of the poster. Thanks for the explanation. This is a pretty useful meme.

>>586928
>t. Cristoforo Colombo

>>586928
But it's basic geography and geometry even during his time. To make this kind of mistake means he had no idea of India's geography, what n it's neighbouring countries are, the size of the globe as it was estimated to be then and also to have forgotten to bring a translator. After multiple visits! Either he was a colossal dumbass or he was way too full of hubris to ever admit he'd made a mistake.

>>586960

No you're right.

He should have looked up North and South America on Wikipedia before he left.

>>586830
Are you retarded?

>>584959
>. If you landed in the Americas on the West Coast, it would be mostly arid lands (from Central CA all the way down to Chile), much less hospitable


But that's wrong.

You have Rainforest in Washington, North of that you have Taiga all the way to Alaska, south you have boreal forests until you hit central California which isn't actually that arid on the coast and is more Mediterranean and semi-arid. Then you move south and you have legit desert in Baja California until you cross the sea of cortez and hit mainland Mexico where it becomes semi-arid again until it becomes a freaking jungle around Colima and that continues until Peru.


tl;dr Fucking NO

East Asians didn't have to sail across the Pacific, because they already walked there long before the Europeans.

>Native Americans

>>586712
yes, but at least christians and arabs knew there was a world beyond what they knew and they had interest in what they foudn there (spices, silk, chinaware, etc), thats how marco polo reached china but it took a shit load of time for a chinese to reach europe.

>>586960
yeah, man. he also was such an idiot for not using steam engine boats to cross the ocean, or limes to avoid scurvy, or using google transalte in his ipad to comunicate with natives.

>>587233
Limes and Google translate, essential for all superior navies.

Mainly Limes.

t. Horatio Nelson

>>585895

Actually they have, some of the recent "innovations" in the West that happened in the past 300 years already existed in China centuries before like the Bessemer process, industrial weaving machines and the use of natural gas for energy.

>>586928
No, he was an idiot for underestimating the size of the planet when it was accurately known for thousands of years at that point, and also thinking the planet was shaped like a pear instead of a sphere.

>>587045
you know what he meant fagit

>>584909
>What would have happened if say the Japanese found America first?

Old Japan can't even make seaworthy ships if you held a gun to their head.

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>>587716
They can. Just in a tiny way.

What everyone is shitting on them for is warships. Particularly when the 1500's rolled in and they were still stuck in boarding-based naval battles.

>>587723
That thing probably couldn't even cross the Bering Strait although the idea of some impoverished noble turned merchant founding his own feudal state in Alaska would have been cool.

But didn't they have a hard time with even Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands?

It's honestly pretty weird the Old world and the New Wolrd are closest at the Bering Strait and the Aleutian islands almost reach Siberia with Bering Island being less than three hundred Km from Kamchatka and forming an chain all the way up to the Alaska Peninsula straight into what would be the port of Anchorage.

I guess the miles upon miles of desolate and uninhabited coastline on top of the extremely cold winters and lack of visible resources/trade goods really put people off on further exploration.

Otherwise some disgruntled Han Chinese would have founded fiefdoms in Canada and Alaska.

>>587742
Nigga, no premodern ship can cross the Bering safely.

>But didn't they have a hard time with even Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands?
Nope. They crossed them just fine. Japs just couldnt stand the winter there.

>>587827
>They crossed them
No I meant colonizing and actually populating them.

> Japs just couldn't stand the winter there.
Which was my point, wtf were they going to do in Alaska? Commit seppuku and bleed everywhere?

>>585815
>but it wasn't as lucrative
For most of the 16th century (especially the first half) the baltic trade was more lucrative and vital than far eastern trade was.

>>587948
They did; have you ever been to Vancouver?

There was traversing and trade, see hawaii.

That being said, its extremely hard to tax a nation across the sea, and china never had a shortage of military problens locally.

>>584909
>How come the far east never dreamed of sailing across the Pacific?
There were myths about magical places across the ocean, and there wasn't really a distinction between magic and the material world in the mindset of the time.

Also, remember one of the Europeans' reasons sailing across the Atlantic was for trade, to reach the east side of Asia and bypass the muslim kingdoms which controlled the silk routes. The Chinese, for instance, weren't seeking to reach Europe at the time.

So there simply wasn't an incentive to send a fleet across a gigantic ocean. As far as the Chinese knew, it was too big to cross and there was no indication of anything but more ocean there.

>Was it too large for them to plausibly traverse?
Most likely, yes, the Pacific is simply enormous. Even sailing for weeks and weeks you'd find literally nothing but more ocean. If you were extremely lucky you'd find a tiny island or two.

Like I said earlier, the European explorers had a clear goal, they wanted to reach a landmass they knew about. The Chinese didn't have any such goal across the Pacific. Why sail into the unknown when there's no indication that there is anything worthwhile out there?

Because only the Western soul even conceives of the universe in that way.

Read Spengler.

>>584909
>>586770
This guy.

China did have a navy and sailed as far as Australia before deciding that the rest of the world was filled with barbarians rather than trading partners.

Similarly, if you look at what happened to Zheng He,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

You will see that political clout may be won by any seafaring adventurer who makes unauthorized deals with foreign kings and brings them back to become threats to the status quo.

As a result even the silk road was shut down as a danger to governmental or rather political stability. This bit China on the ass in the 1900s though once international banking became the law of the land.

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>>585807
>Japanese fighting the Aztecs would have been really cool.
Holy fuck, I am vehemently anti-anime, but I would watch this shit


>"MONTEZUMA-SAN! WATASHITACHI NI ANATA NO ŌKOKU O TE YA SEPPUKU O OKONAU KOTO O YOGINAKU SA REMASU. WATASHITACHIHA,-SŌDENAKEREBA ANATA NO HITOBITO O TAIJI SHIMASU!"
>*unintelligible barbarian speak* - Montezuma
>"ANATA WA WATASHI NO NINTAI-RYOKU O TESUTO SHITE IMASU! SAMURAI TO RITĒNA, BANZAI!"
>*Japanese exterminate the populace of Tenochitlan*

>>588125
Translation: Only Westerners believe prosperous nations has to depend on stealing and bargaining for survival.