Why didn't the Chinese colonize Australia first?

Question

Chinese certainly don't have any problem with migration, so why, over the many centuries didn't they colonize Australia? It was much closer to them than England was. They had the ships to do it. Ghengis Khan and the boys had proved that they can be very roudy and violent. There was an account written many centuries ago about a Venetian merchant (not Marco Polo) who wrote about traveling on a Chinese ship to Australia (e-mail me for more info on that account). I just really don't get it! Australia was extremely sparsely populated by small bands of naked Australoids, so they wouldn't even have to engage in any military conquest either.

I had forgot to mention that I read once where a very large single Chinese ship made it all the way to SE Africa. Also, when I mentioned Ghengis Khan, I was pointing out that they wouldn't necessarily have any moral problem with a conquest of territory. They didn't a real number on Northern Europe for a time, and other regions down to Persia. I'm would not use the current Red Chinese gov't as a measuring stick for Chinse sensibilities though.

Answer 1

It was essentially a decision made in the Chinese court. In the early 15th century, China built a fleet of huge ships, the largest fleet ever built at that time and for long after. These ships underwent several long and successful voyages of exploration. Some historians even have proposed that they discovered America and sailed around the world.

But after 12 years, the voyages wee discontinued and the ships destroyed. No sustained attempt was ever made by the Chinese government to plant Chinese colonies in areas unconnected to China by land.

This was due, probably, largely to the prejudices and beliefs of the neo-Confucian scholars who dominated the Chinese court. They regarded areas outside China as inferior and unimportant. They also had little respect for merchants as a group, and never grasped that commercial activity is the basis of a strong state. The explorations were an expensive activity that brought, as they believed, little result for the funds spent. And when the tribes of Mongolia began to pose a more serious threat, they were able to persuade the Emperor to focus on that problem.

Answer 2

All empires seem to come to a point where they know they cannot expand (territory-wise) any longer. China reached that point centuries ago, as did the Roman Empire. It would be folly for China to expand much further because it could not adequately defend its far flung territories or assimilate their populations into Chinese society. China had client states or buffer states that bordered its territory, but those could not be held by China for very long by outright force.

Genghis Khan was not Chinese although he ruled over China. He was Mongol. The Mongolian Empire no longer exists (although there is an independent Mongolia today). The borders of China (less modern Mongolia and Taiwan) are essentially the borders of the old Chinese Empire.

Answer 3

It has to do with missionaries that came to China, there were many missionaries came from Russia and England to inform Chinese about their lands. Australia was barren and didn't have a civilization as earlier as England. People there were ostracized by Britain, forming colonies, they probably don't have enough resources to bring to China.