Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume I
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume I
- Part I Rethinking the Pacific
- Part II Humans and the Natural World in the Pacific Ocean
- Part III Deep Time: Sources for the Ancient History of the Pacific
- Part IV The Initial Colonization of the Pacific
- Part V The Evolution of Pacific Communities
- 22 Towards a Unified Theory for Pacific Colonization, Exchange, and Social Complexity
- 23 The Evolution of China’s Political Economy of the Sea, 960 ce–1900 ce
- 24 China and the Sea in Literature and (Mis)Perception, 1644–1839
- 25 Pacific History Viewed from Eastern Indonesia: The Eastern Archipelago of Southeast Asia and the Sea in the Early Modern Period 1400–1830s
- 26 The Maritime Cultures of the Northwest Pacific Seaboard of the Americas
- 27 Mesoamerican–South American Pre-Columbian Pacific Contacts: Evidence, Objects, and Traditions, 1500 bce–1532 ce
- Part VI Europe’s Maritime Expansion into the Pacific
- References to Volume I
- Index
23 - The Evolution of China’s Political Economy of the Sea, 960 ce–1900 ce
from Part V - The Evolution of Pacific Communities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2022
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume I
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume I
- Part I Rethinking the Pacific
- Part II Humans and the Natural World in the Pacific Ocean
- Part III Deep Time: Sources for the Ancient History of the Pacific
- Part IV The Initial Colonization of the Pacific
- Part V The Evolution of Pacific Communities
- 22 Towards a Unified Theory for Pacific Colonization, Exchange, and Social Complexity
- 23 The Evolution of China’s Political Economy of the Sea, 960 ce–1900 ce
- 24 China and the Sea in Literature and (Mis)Perception, 1644–1839
- 25 Pacific History Viewed from Eastern Indonesia: The Eastern Archipelago of Southeast Asia and the Sea in the Early Modern Period 1400–1830s
- 26 The Maritime Cultures of the Northwest Pacific Seaboard of the Americas
- 27 Mesoamerican–South American Pre-Columbian Pacific Contacts: Evidence, Objects, and Traditions, 1500 bce–1532 ce
- Part VI Europe’s Maritime Expansion into the Pacific
- References to Volume I
- Index
Summary
In the long-term history of East Asia, China’s activities at sea loomed large in two distinctive periods during the Song (960–1279) and the Ming (1368–1644), respectively, but not before and not after. One thus wonders why and how the same culture and the same tradition obviously failed to generate a linear growth in maritime activities in the manner, say, of the post-Renaissance Europeans who eventually went on to colonize the globe after Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama, ruthlessly surpassing the passé seagoing power of Ming China. The secret was in China’s peculiar political economy which this chapter spells out.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean , pp. 521 - 548Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023