Could China or Japan ever colonize North America

[Tulius]

as recorded, he was given access to the ming court storage, and was ordered to draw with western mapping drawing techniques.


Ricci is unrelated to the Spanish explorations. it was not a time of sharing back in that time.
more over, knowing the sea route from central america to asia does not imply any knowledge of the western coast of america.

further more, australia already shows on the ming map. the map was first made a few years before the netherland exploration of australia.

You didn’t answer to my question, heylouis. I would like to hear a direct answer.

Anyway, your post has a couple of incorrect things. Mateo Ricci was a Jesuit. You may know that the Jesuits were a originated Spanish order.

Commonly the Jesuits arrived to China via the Indian Ocean, to Goa, the Catholic Metropolitan See for all the Orient, that made often the Jesuits a tool of the Portuguese diplomacy in the East, while the mendicant orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans were closer to the Castilian diplomacy, so a Jesuit in the Orient was totally related with the Iberian Explorations, in fact they were a tool of them.

Furthermore you should take a look of the usual trade routes from North America (Acapulco is in today’s Mexico, North America) to the Philippines, in the age of sail. It was not a strait forward route. If it was the Castilian would not take so long to find an ideal one. Take a quick look to Wikipedia: Manila galleon - Wikipedia

I already posted an academic study about the route here. If you want further details I will search if and post it again. But in a quick look to the map you will be aware that the route went along the American Coast, the same happened when links were made to Panama and Peru.

The case of Australia is a quite different one. You know that Ricci studied in Coimbra, sailed with the Portuguese to the Orient, was in Goa and Macau. Either the Castilian or the Portuguese (at the time with the same king) can be the source of the coast of Australia, naturally there are other possibilities, and the Chinese are not the only one. The Dutch were officially the first Europeans to discover Australia, if they were in fact the first ones is a matter of hard debate, we have tips that they weren’t but we have not a final uncontroversial evidence, that was discusses recently in a thread about the theme. But the idea that there was a land there could be even older than the European explorations.

 

[heylouis]

That is simply not true. The Mercator map of 1569 is superior in detail, even for the West coast of North America, than Ricci' 1602 map. Ricci's map isn't bad, but Europeans had a long history of making world maps, going back to ancient times, but the Chinese had never made a world map until the Jesuits arrived in China.

1. 大明混一图 Universal Map of Great Ming, made around 1388, is a world map, except the american continent, and except it did not use the western projection method as proposed by Mercator. the map shows the Cape of Good Hope, despite the westerners did not yet know its existence.
2. i was wrong on the western coast america. it should be on the south america,
it can be seen in neither the Merator map of 1569/1595 or the Ortelius map of 1570, the south america has the correct shape.
while the shape is correct on the chinese map.
notice they all use the same projection method, so it is valid to compare their shapes.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Mercator_1569.png
Great Universal Geographic Map — Viewer — World Digital Library

Again, not true. Ricci map does not show the continent of Australia as you claim, and his maps show no more detail than what could have been seen on European maps line the Mercator 1569 world map, or Ortelius 1570 world map made several decades earlier than Ricci's map. More, the shape of the land masses are less accurate on Ricci's map than on these earlier maps, reflecting the inferior state of cartography in China and the fact that Ricci was not a profession map maker.

it shows a australia place, with a note that it is undecided whether it is a continent or a small island.

 

[heylouis]

You didn’t answer to my question, heylouis. I would like to hear a direct answer.

Anyway, your post has a couple of incorrect things. Mateo Ricci was a Jesuit. You may know that the Jesuits were a originated Spanish order.

Commonly the Jesuits arrived to China via the Indian Ocean, to Goa, the Catholic Metropolitan See for all the Orient, that made often the Jesuits a tool of the Portuguese diplomacy in the East, while the mendicant orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans were closer to the Castilian diplomacy, so a Jesuit in the Orient was totally related with the Iberian Explorations, in fact they were a tool of them.

Furthermore you should take a look of the usual trade routes from North America (Acapulco is in today’s Mexico, North America) to the Philippines, in the age of sail. It was not a strait forward route. If it was the Castilian would not take so long to find an ideal one. Take a quick look to Wikipedia: Manila galleon - Wikipedia

I already posted an academic study about the route here. If you want further details I will search if and post it again. But in a quick look to the map you will be aware that the route went along the American Coast, the same happened when links were made to Panama and Peru.

The case of Australia is a quite different one. You know that Ricci studied in Coimbra, sailed with the Portuguese to the Orient, was in Goa and Macau. Either the Castilian or the Portuguese (at the time with the same king) can be the source of the coast of Australia, naturally there are other possibilities, and the Chinese are not the only one. The Dutch were officially the first Europeans to discover Australia, if they were in fact the first ones is a matter of hard debate, we have tips that they weren’t but we have not a final uncontroversial evidence, that was discusses recently in a thread about the theme. But the idea that there was a land there could be even older than the European explorations.

i don't see why i should try to prove a speculation that spanish sponsored raw data for Mateo Ricci's map.
do you have information they the spanish court or any of other departments had communications with him on maps?

i was wrong on the west american coast, i acknowledge the mistake.

it should be on the south america, especially and directly visibly, on the comparisons of the shape of the south america.

 

[Bart Dale]

1. 大明混一图 Universal Map of Great Ming, made around 1388, is a world map, except the american continent, and except it did not use the western projection method as proposed by Mercator. the map shows the Cape of Good Hope, despite the westerners did not yet know its existence.

That map is a poor, showing a large non existent lake it what appears to be Africa, and showing the East coast of Africa as island, and shapes so divorced from actual shaps it is hard to tell what they are depicting. Looking at it, I wouldn't have seen it was a world map unless I was told that.

Compared.to the Ptolemy map made a thousand years earlier, it is inferior in almost every way. The earliest reconstructions of Ptolemy world map.datd from the 14th century before this map, from the details given in Ptolemies writings.

Albeit, it appears that the Chinese did make world maps, (but inferior to European world maps made a 1000 years eatlier ) before the Jesuits arrived in China, so I.sas mistaken about that. But Europeans have been making world maps a thousand years before the Chinese, they had a lot more experience and it shows. The Chinese world maps before the Europe were crap

2. i was wrong on the western coast america. it should be on the south america,
it can be seen in neither the Merator map of 1569/1595 or the Ortelius map of 1570, the south america has the correct shape.
while the shape is correct on the chinese map.

It was well known that the Spanish sailed along the coast of South America, while we have no dvidencd at all the Chinese every sailed to the New World. The claim that Ricci got his information from Chinese sources has no basis but Chinese egotism. Ricci's map is 30 years newer, which is major a.ount of time in the rapidly expanding knowledge in the Age.of Exploration.

notice they all use the same projection method, so it is valid to compare their shapes.

The shapes on Ricci's map are less accurate drawn than on the better earlier maps like Mercator's and 0telius. The details of Europe and Africa are inferior, and the coast of China is inferior as well.

it shows a australia place, with a note that it is undecided whether it is a continent or a small island.

The image shown bears no relationship to the actual shape of Australia. There is a difference between a continent and an island, and the place in question could be the island of New Guinea for all we know. Where is New Guinea on the map?

I don't see any land that wasn't seen on the earlier Mercator map. This is just counterpart to the widespread intellectual property modern China practices today on a routine basis. Instead of making illegal copies and stealing patents, you try to steal credit for others dizcoveries with no basis on than Chinese ego. Note, since the map was made by an European, and Europeans ships were known to be sailing around the world, while there is zero evidence any Chinese ships were, not even 3 centuries later, the assumption must be Ricci obtained that knowledge from European sources until proven otherwise.

(The earliest evidence I have seen for any Chinese ship in American waters date to the 19th century, about centuries after the Europeans. If you have solid evidence earlier I would like to see it. The stone anchors that have been found have been shown to be from Chinese fishing ships known to have sailed those waters in the 19th century. And the earliest Chinese ship I know of to sail beyond Africa and to Europe and East coast of NA was the Keying in the mid 19th century. Which is surprising, since you would think some enterprising Chinese merchant would try sailing to their markets and reap the profits that the European middlemen merchants were making instead. But none tried apparently.)

 

[heylouis]

That map is a poor, showing a large non existent lake it what appears to be Africa, and showing the East coast of Africa as island, and shapes so divorced from actual shaps it is hard to tell what they are depicting. Looking at it, I wouldn't have seen it was a world map unless I was told that.
Compared.to the Ptolemy map made a thousand years earlier, it is inferior in almost every way. The earliest reconstructions of Ptolemy world map.datd from the 14th century before this map, from the details given in Ptolemies writings.

it does not use the western projection method.

you need to be open minded on how maps are drawn.

also you are violating your own logics.

as already mentioned by you, america is expected to be less known to china than to west due to the distance.
similarly, africa is expected to be better known to west than to china, due to distance, and even more, due to historical and cultural relationship.

despite of that, the Cape of Good Hope was unknown to west, when it is known to china.

Albeit, it appears that the Chinese did make world maps, (but inferior to European world maps made a 1000 years eatlier ) before the Jesuits arrived in China, so I.sas mistaken about that. But Europeans have been making world maps a thousand years before the Chinese, they had a lot more experience and it shows. The Chinese world maps before the Europe were crap

It was well known that the Spanish sailed along the coast of South America, while we have no dvidencd at all the Chinese every sailed to the New World. The claim that Ricci got his information from Chinese sources has no basis but Chinese egotism. Ricci's map is 30 years newer, which is major a.ount of time in the rapidly expanding knowledge in the Age.of Exploration.

i believe it very clearly, and people can see it very clearly, the 1595 map does not have a correct information on south america.
there is no 30 years span here.

The shapes on Ricci's map are less accurate drawn than on the better earlier maps like Mercator's and 0telius. The details of Europe and Africa are inferior, and the coast of China is inferior as well.

"accurate or inaccurate" on shapes
"right or wrong" on shapes

the south america on the 1595/1570 maps has a wide southern land, which is *wrong*.
that is beyond accuracy issues

you can tell the difference.
you can do better

Mercator map also connects india with sri lank with a land link, though westerners should already sailed there, and knew it should be an island.

The image shown bears no relationship to the actual shape of Australia. There is a difference between a continent and an island, and the place in question could be the island of New Guinea for all we know. Where is New Guinea on the map?

again.
it is on "existence or nonexistence"
you can tell the difference

also, it might be seen by some westerners. indeed, that could be true.

but no contemporary western map has it.

it appeared in china firstly.

the west can communicate, right? why should not consider the communication between china and west?

no one would make a question that 'why cannot Germany *independently* make a world map *before others*', 'why cannot France *independently* make a world map *before others*'.

why china should *independently* make a world map?

did the spanish all *independently* make a world map

I don't see any land that wasn't seen on the earlier Mercator map. This is just counterpart to the widespread intellectual property modern China practices today on a routine basis. Instead of making illegal copies and stealing patents, you try to steal credit for others dizcoveries with no basis on than Chinese ego. Note, since the map was made by an European, and Europeans ships were known to be sailing around the world, while there is zero evidence any Chinese ships were, not even 3 centuries later, the assumption must be Ricci obtained that knowledge from European sources until proven otherwise.

(The earliest evidence I have seen for any Chinese ship in American waters date to the 19th century, about centuries after the Europeans. If you have solid evidence earlier I would like to see it. The stone anchors that have been found have been shown to be from Chinese fishing ships known to have sailed those waters in the 19th century. And the earliest Chinese ship I know of to sail beyond Africa and to Europe and East coast of NA was the Keying in the mid 19th century. Which is surprising, since you would think some enterprising Chinese merchant would try sailing to their markets and reap the profits that the European middlemen merchants were making instead. But none tried apparently.)

1. not necessarily all explored by chinese ships, communications between china and other places of the world do not block the fact that the 1595 maps show wrong (not inaccurate) shape of south america (again, comparison of shapes is only valid when maps using the same projection method, if you don't know this, you just do not know the basics of maps)
2. you are demanding impossibles. the sinked ships can be hardly re-discovered. in 2014, the US found a sinked ship (sinked in 1888) just around Golden Gate Bridge , one of the most known places of the world. more than one century, people cost it to find a known steel ship (the sink date is known, the sink place is known) just in front of them.

 

[heylouis]

there had been a *wrong* assumption been made previously that a china lacks the knowledge the new world, plus another implication that only *independently* discover new geography information could drive for colonization.

however, that is not the truth.

1. china knows the america. one may claim european missionary made a great job here. indeed, the west had more surviving records on world exploration. however, that is irrelevant to colonization issue. china knows southeastern asian islands thousands of years beofore europea, but no colonization happened.
knowledge of geography may be important, but it does not drive colonization.
2. on the other hand, colonization could happen based on explorations performed by other people.
many of french colonies were built by conquering the colonies of other powers.
one does not necessarily need to independently perform the exploration, but just to have some clue of the exploration

now, again, one may claim china had less chinese own brand of knowledge on world geography, but that is not necessarily the point the colony problems.

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some more.
europe and china were quite different economy bodies.
the mother nations of colonization were focusing on a predatory economy that they sought both resources and end market with a monopoly role, known for slave trade, sugar trade, and coffee trade.
the market was not in fact in the new world as they being colonies. they served as resources for the europe, based on a market of turning aborigine nations/tribes into colonies, or sending western people to expand colonies.

if the market rule was made based on equal trading, there perhaps would not be any colony even with the exact knowledge of all continents.
the local tribes had their own food, own cloth, own culture, which could be benefited by global trading, but not in a large enough scale that could support the massive trading as happened between colonies and colonizers.

thus it is basically wrong to assert " If the Chinese, knowing there was a profitable market for their goods, and knowing where the land was, didn't try to sail to North America, then I don't see the Chinese not even being certain there was land there, would ever bother to make the attempt. "

the western attempt to "find market" in new worlds is based on a twisted idea of monopoly to "create" markets of a predatory economy.

 

[Tulius]

i don't see why i should try to prove a speculation that spanish sponsored raw data for Mateo Ricci's map.

Humm, my question was not related with the “Spanish sponsoring”, it was, and I quote : “Or are you slightly suggesting that Ricci found some Chinese secret map and he kept it a secret?”. I had the idea that you were, and some of your consequent posts underlined that idea, i.e., the idea that the Chinese had previous knowledge of the existence of America.

do you have information they the spanish court or any of other departments had communications with him on maps?

We don’t need that information to raise a reasonable hypothesis.

Let us try it again:

Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit, and order quite active in the Iberian expansion, and an active political, diplomatic and religious tool of the Iberian crowns (Portugal and Castile) that at his time in china had the same king.

He studied in the University of Coimbra (Portugal).

He had knowledge of Geography and Cartography, as it was usual at his time to men in such positions has his.

He was sent to the Orient. In route (the voyage was quite long, it could take more than a year), and in the ships, he had contacts with Portuguese Sea Captains and Sea Pilots (and those are also quite aware of Geography and Cartography).

At the time Portugal and Spain, and in less degree other European powers), explored the American coast.

Many works were public and published. Others were available at the universities (such as Coimbra), or among sea captains and sea pilots.

The mentioned map was begin to be made in the Portuguese outpost of Macau.

After al that you seem to reach the obvious conclusion, and apparently without bases, that is knowledge of the West Coast of America was taken in Chinese archives.

Pardon me to raise my huge doubts! After all we in history need sources to point us in that direction.

i was wrong on the west american coast, i acknowledge the mistake.

it should be on the south america, especially and directly visibly, on the comparisons of the shape of the south america.

Yes, you were, but I also mentioned the South American coast. And Bart Dale as already mentioned this idea of yours about the South American coast is also wrong.

Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and after him many followed the exploration of the West American coast, both to North and South of Panama. Magalhães/Elcano explored even more in 1519, Andagoya and later Pizaro’s route to Peru in 1524 was partially made by the sea. And this just mentioning a few of the first explorers. So I don’t understand your surprise when some 80 years later someone draws a map of that coast, when must of the African slave trade from Panama to Peru (in great part conducted by the Portuguese) was made by that sea route. And oddly, without apparent evidence, your conclusion here seemed to be that Matteo’s knowledge came from Chinese archives.

 

[heylouis]

We don’t need that information to raise a reasonable hypothesis.

Let us try it again:

Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit, and order quite active in the Iberian expansion, and an active political, diplomatic and religious tool of the Iberian crowns (Portugal and Castile) that at his time in china had the same king.

He studied in the University of Coimbra (Portugal).

He had knowledge of Geography and Cartography, as it was usual at his time to men in such positions has his.

He was sent to the Orient. In route (the voyage was quite long, it could take more than a year), and in the ships, he had contacts with Portuguese Sea Captains and Sea Pilots (and those are also quite aware of Geography and Cartography).

At the time Portugal and Spain, and in less degree other European powers), explored the American coast.

Many works were public and published. Others were available at the universities (such as Coimbra), or among sea captains and sea pilots.

The mentioned map was begin to be made in the Portuguese outpost of Macau.

After al that you seem to reach the obvious conclusion, and apparently without bases, that is knowledge of the West Coast of America was taken in Chinese archives.

apparently, i did not say it is made based on chinese explorations.
but chinese knows the existence of america, and america appeared on chinese maps.

and more, those things got NOTHING to do about a colonization.

Pardon me to raise my huge doubts! After all we in history need sources to point us in that direction.

Yes, you were, but I also mentioned the South American coast. And Bart Dale as already mentioned this idea of yours about the South American coast is also wrong.

Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and after him many followed the exploration of the West American coast, both to North and South of Panama. Magalhães/Elcano explored even more in 1519, Andagoya and later Pizaro’s route to Peru in 1524 was partially made by the sea. And this just mentioning a few of the first explorers. So I don’t understand your surprise when some 80 years later someone draws a map of that coast, when must of the African slave trade from Panama to Peru (in great part conducted by the Portuguese) was made by that sea route. And oddly, without apparent evidence, your conclusion here seemed to be that Matteo’s knowledge came from Chinese archives.

i did not draw the conclusion, that chinese archives are the EXCLUSIVE source of the map.

anyway, as already showed, the 1595 maps have the wrong shapes of south america, despite whatever explorations being made.

 

[Tulius]

apparently, i did not say it is made based on chinese explorations.

No, you didn’t, but you seemed to imply, thus my question to you.

but chinese knows the existence of america, and america appeared on chinese maps.

Ok, let us follow this reasoning. When did the Chinese knew about the existence of America? And what Chinese maps are you referring?

and more, those things got NOTHING to do about a colonization.

In all my posts in this thread I didn’t mentioned the word “colonization” once. I doing it for the first time.

i did not draw the conclusion, that chinese archives are the EXCLUSIVE source of the map.

None of us did. But now you are implying that Ricci did have acess to Spanish sources, a thing that you seemed to question earlier

anyway, as already showed, the 1595 maps have the wrong shapes of south america, despite whatever explorations being made.

Two maps can be made in the same year by different authors, with different skills and different knowledge. But the map that you are dating from 1595, isn’t the Mercator world map of 1569? It isn’t natural that in the age of Exploration the knowledge of the world increases and that leads to an increase of the map accuracy?

 

[Bart Dale]

it does not use the western projection method.

you need to be open minded on how maps are drawn.

It is the lack of projection that hinder Chinese is showing large scale (world projection). On.small.scale, Chinese maps.could be quite good. And to be fair, for the 14th century, the world map.of the Great Ming was not bad. Map making improved in the 15th and 16h century, especially world maps, and China did not keep.up

as already mentioned by you, america is expected to be less known to china than to west due to the distance.
similarly, africa is expected to be better known to west than to china, due to distance, and even more, due to historical and cultural relationship.

All.true, but even areas close to China are not always that accurate drawn. Indo China is poorly drawn on the Kangnido 1402.map, and that is close to China.

i believe it very clearly, and people can see it very clearly, the 1595 map does not have a correct information on south america.

Later maps.are not always more accurate. Diogo Ribeiro 1527 world map, regarded as the first scientific map due to being drawn on exact lattitude measurements, has South America more accurately drawn than the 1569 Mediator map, or Ricci 1602 Chinese maps.

the south america on the 1595/1570 maps has a wide southern land, which is *wrong*.
that is beyond accuracy issues

As I pointed out, the Diogo Ribeiro 1527 map.has South America and the rest of the contintinents more accurately drawn than many later maps, including Ricci's 1602 map. Mistakes made by on map.were often copied by later map makers. Some later maps.sometimes showed the Baja pennisula as an island, even though earlier maps like Mercator's 1569 clearly showed it as a pennisula.

Mercator map also connects india with sri lank with a land link, though westerners should already sailed there, and knew it should be an island.

And Ricci's Chinese map shows large islands off the coast of Indo China apparently Indonesia? Way off in both lattitude and longitude, even though the Chinese had been sailing there for hundreds of years. In constrast, Diogo Ribeiro&s map does show Sri Lanka as an island.

again.


also, it might be seen by some westerners. indeed, that could be true.

no one would make a question that 'why cannot Germany *independently* make a world map *before others*', 'why cannot France *independently* make a world map *before others*'.

Because German, French, Euopeans map makers freely exhange ideas, and moved from one country to another. They were not isolated from another. Europe, however politically fragmented, had a cultural unity. Copernicus was a Pole, but his theory was championed by an Italian. One of the iconic works of English music, the Messiah, was written by German. The achievements in Europe of one country can't be taken in isolation of another . China, because of its distance, was isolated. Name me a major artist in China, of a statue of Holbein in England, who was not Chinese? What famous scientific discovery was made by the combined efforts of Chinese and Korean scientist, similar to how the German Kepler used the Danish Brahe's data to come up the true shape of the orbit of the planets and Kepler's Law?

why china should *independently* make a world map?

You tell me. Why should you card if the Chinese didn't make world maps or weren't good.making them? What is wrong with saying, "China was very good at many things, but world making was not one of the them"

1. not necessarily all explored by chinese ships, communications between china and other places of the world do not block the fact that the 1595 maps show wrong (not inaccurate) shape of south america (again, comparison of shapes is only valid when maps using the same projection method, if you don't know this, you just do not know the basics of maps)

Except you just earlier admitted the Chinese maps did not projection, that was an European introduction. The 1527 Rioto Ribeiro map as I said, had South America properly drawn, and 1527 is before well before 1602.

2. you are demanding impossibles. the sinked ships can be hardly re-discovered. in 2014, the US found a sinked ship (sinked in 1888) just around Golden Gate Bridge , one of the most known places of the world. more than one century, people cost it to find a known steel ship (the sink date is known, the sink place is known) just in front of them.

Not impossible. We know the Vikings discovered America because of archeological finds, even though we did not know where the Vikings landed. We have found sunken Portuguese ships in the Nambia desert, and it was not because people were looking for a ship in the desert. The burden is on you to show these Chinese ships existed, not me to to show they did not. And you haven't provided any evidence to support your claims. Until you provide some evidence, you shouldn't make the claims.

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