GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
>
> Steve Davies wrote:
>
> > The real story of technology in China is more chilling (and much more scary)
> > than either of these scenarios. For most of history China was the most
> > dynamic and inventive civilisation on Earth. Under the Sung (11th-13th
> > centuries) they had an economy which had all the features you describe
> > (rapid innovation etc). So what happened? After the Mongol invasions, the
> > Ming Emperors systematically destroy many technologies and create a static
> > society - "Chinese stasis" only really exists after that. Steve Davies
>
> You're right that the Mongol conquest was likely the catalytic event that
> sent China into an introspective and deep conservatism. However, the seeds
> of Confucian orthodoxy were already there. It only took the humbling
> experience of conquest by the western barbarians to cause the phase-change of
> ossification that locked China into almost a thousand years of stasis.
Robert Wright discusses this event in _Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny_
(2000), in Chapter 12 "The Inscrutable Orient" (pp. 162-164):
"The impetus behind [globalization] is strong largely because individual
states see that their long-term interest lies in plugging into the system...
China, of all nations, should know. Its epic mistake -- the mistake that
got it labeled an underachiever -- was unplugging from the system beginning
in the late fourteenth century. The consequences of this, a single political
decision, have ever since been taken as final proof of some deep
anti-modern streak in the Asian character.
CHINA CHICKENS OUT
The unplugging came during the Ming dynasty, which reigned from 1368 to
1644. When the Ming vanquished the Mongols, it was in theory a
glorious moment for China: renewed native control after a century of
barbarian rule...
The irony of this isolationism is that during the early Ming period
the Chinese were king of the sea...
The reasons for China's withdrawal are much debated... The historian
John King Fairbank concluded simply that "anti-commercialism and
xenophobia won, and China retired from the world scene." Others
discern a more rational move. The historian Peter Perdue sees China
consciously shifting resources from one vast project -- ocean voyages
that had shown little profit -- to another vast project: building
the Great Wall to keep barbarians at bay. In this view, the move
was neither mindlessly xenophobic (centuries of barbarian rampages
were no figment of China's imagination) nor anti-modern (the Great
Wall was high-tech back then).
Whatever the cause for China's withdrawal, the timing was bad.
For centuries, China had been a big exporter of good ideas, and
western Europe a big importer. Now, just as Europe's social brain was
really humming, China opted out of the exchange.
The timing was bad in a second sense, too. Over the next half-
century, European nations would embrace sailing big-time, and
find the New World. Some scholars believe this stroke of fortune
explains why the industrial revolution happened where it did..."
> Interestingly, a similar phenomenon happened with Islamic culture. The
> conquest of the Islamic heartland by Genghis and his progeny also caused a
> premature closure of the Islamic world to new ideas from outside and
> innovation within their own cultural realm.
What a delightful opportunity. Genghis Khan and his honey:
http://store.yahoo.com/pomegranate/7495.html
Jim F.
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