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[BlueDragonMagik]

July 20, 2005
China Has an Ancient Mariner to Tell You About
By JOSEPH KAHN

NANJING, China, July 17 - The captivating tale of Zheng He, a Chinese eunuch who explored the Pacific and Indian Oceans with a mighty armada almost a century before Columbus discovered America, has long languished as a tantalizing footnote in China's imperial history.

Zheng He (pronounced jung huh) fell into disfavor before he completed the last of his early 15th-century voyages, and most historical records were destroyed. Authorities protected his old family home in Nanjing, but it was often shuttered, its rooms used to store unrelated relics.

Now, on the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's first mission in 1405, all that is changing. Zheng He's legacy is being burnished - some critics say glossed over - to give rising China a new image on the world stage.

Books and television shows, replicas of Zheng He's ships and a new $50 million museum in Nanjing promote Zheng He as a maritime cultural ambassador for a powerful but ardently peaceful nation.

Officials have even endorsed the theory, so far unproven, that one of Zheng He's ships foundered on the rocks near Lamu island, off the coast of today's Kenya, with survivors swimming ashore, marrying locals and creating a family of Chinese-Africans that is now being reunited with the Chinese motherland.

The message is that Zheng He foreshadowed China's 21st-century emergence as a world power, though one that differs in crucial respects from Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and, most pointedly, the United States.

"In the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, China did not seek hegemony," says Wan Ming, a leading scholar of the era. "Today, we are once again growing stronger all the time, and China's style of peaceful development has been welcomed all over the world."

The Communist Party hopes to signal to its own people that it has recaptured past glory, while reassuring foreign countries that China can be strong and non-threatening at the same time.

Even within China, though, the use of poorly documented history as modern propaganda prop has generated a backlash.

Several scholars have publicly criticized the campaign as a distortion, saying Zheng He treated foreigners as barbarians and most foreign countries as vassal states. His voyages amounted to a wasteful tribute to a maniacal emperor, some argue.

Zheng He resonates, favorably or not, in Asia. Arguably for the first time since his final voyage in 1433, China is vying to become a major maritime power.

Beijing has upgraded its navy with Russian-built Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers, Kilo-class diesel submarines and a new nuclear submarine equipped to carry intercontinental ballistic missiles. It has flirted with the idea of building an aircraft carrier, according to conflicting reports in state media.

Sustained double-digit increases in defense spending have helped make China one of the largest military powers in the world, though still well behind the United States. China says it aims only to defend itself. But others are skeptical.

"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment?" Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asked recently in a speech on China's buildup during a visit to Singapore last month.

Beijing clearly hopes history will help answer the question.

Zheng He was a Chinese Muslim who, following the custom of the day, was castrated so he could serve in the household of a prince, Zhu Di.

Zhu Di later toppled the emperor, his brother, and took the throne for himself. He rewarded Zheng He, his co-conspirator, with command of the greatest naval expedition that world had ever seen. Beginning in July 1405, Zheng He made port calls all around Southeast Asia, rounded India, explored the Middle East and reached the eastern coast of Africa.

The three ships Columbus guided across the Atlantic 87 years later, the Niña, Pinta and Santa María, could fit inside a single large vessel in Zheng He's armada, which at its peak had up to 300 ships and 30,000 sailors. Some of China's maritime innovations at the time, including watertight compartments, did not show up on European vessels for hundreds of years.

Zheng He was China's first big ocean trader, presenting gifts from the emperor to leaders in foreign ports and hauling back crabapples, myrrh, mastic gum and even a giraffe.

In time, though, the emperor turned against seafaring, partly because of the exorbitant cost, partly because of China's religious certitude that it had nothing to learn from the outside world. By the latter part of the 15th century the country had entered a prolonged period of self-imposed isolation that lasted into the 20th century, leaving European powers to rule the seas.

For Chinese officials today, the sudden end of China's maritime ambitions 600 years ago conveniently signals something else: that China is a gentle giant with enduring good will. Zheng He represents China's commitment to "good neighborliness, peaceful coexistence and scientific navigation," government-run China Central Television said during an hourlong documentary on the explorer last week.

Earlier this month, authorities opened a $50 million memorial to Zheng He. Tributes to him fill courtyard-style exhibition halls, painted in stately vermillion and imperial yellow. A hulking statue of Zheng He, his chest flung forward as in many Communist-era likenesses of Mao, decorates the main hall.

As the Zheng He anniversary approached, delegations of Chinese diplomats and scholars also traveled to Kenya to investigate the claims that islanders there could trace their roots to sailors on Zheng He's fleet.

On one remote island, called Siyu, the Chinese found a 19-year-old high school student, Mwamaka Sharifu, who claimed Chinese ancestry. Beijing's embassy in Nairobi arranged for her to visit China to attend Zheng He celebrations. Beijing has invited her back to study in China, tuition-free, this fall.

"My family members have round faces, small eyes and black hair, so we long believed we are Chinese," Ms. Sharifu said in a telephone interview. "Now we have a direct link to China itself."

The outreach effort has generated positive publicity for China in Kenya and some other African countries, as well as around Southeast Asia, where Zheng He is widely admired.

But Zheng He has been more coolly received by some scholars in China and abroad.

Geoff Wade, a China specialist at the National University of Singapore, argued in an academic essay that Zheng He helped the Ming state colonize neighboring countries. His far-flung expeditions aimed at enforcing a "pax Ming" through Southeast Asia, allowing China to wrest control of trade routes dominated at that time by Arabs, he wrote.

Several Chinese experts also questioned whether Zheng He's legacy is as salutary as government officials hope.

Ye Jun, a Beijing historian, said the official contention that Zheng He was a good-will ambassador is a "one-sided interpretation that blindly ignores the objective fact that Zheng He engaged in military suppression" to achieve the emperor's goals.

"These matters should be left to scholars," Mr. Ye said.


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I saw this item on the New York times. ... It looks interesting. ... .... Is there any stuff on him? .

[naruwan]

This guy is now officially being overrated.

When this guy wasn't even mentioned on the history books, that's not right.

When he is being treated as a explorer or a national hero, he's overrated.

This is a guy that didn't venture a sea mile over unknown waters. He followed the merchant routes of the Arabs and nothing more.

I guess you can brag as much about how impressive his fleet looked, but that's about it.

This guy is not Columbus who sailed out to the unknown, or the guys who found out how to sail around Africa, or around the world.

Zheng just followed other people's foot steps with really giant pair of shoes.

[Sephodwyrm]

Check your history. There are evidences that Columbus did not sail out into the unknown. I personally have more praise to the Portuguese than the Genoese.

I wonder what would have happened if Columbus did land in Taiwan.

When he established a colony in Hispaniola, local population were decimated to less than 10000 (from the original half a million).

[naruwan]

Check your history. There are evidences that Columbus did not sail out into the unknown. I personally have more praise to the Portuguese than the Genoese.

I wonder what would have happened if Columbus did land in Taiwan.

When he established a colony in Hispaniola, local population were decimated to less than 10000 (from the original half a million).

That happened to every island the Europeans landed on.... It's the diseases that they brought which were new to the islands.

It actually happend to Taiwan just as well.

Though the island of Taiwan itself managed to kill over 50% of the early arrivals as well.... Dutch, Han or otherwise.

[Sephodwyrm]

Actually not necessarily. Smallpox had a toll of 30-50%, but Hispaniola saw a decrease closer to 95%.

[naruwan]

Actually not necessarily. Smallpox had a toll of 30-50%, but Hispaniola saw a decrease closer to 95%.

same thing happened to Hawaii and the other percentage is called "STD".

[bhchao]

Zheng He's voyages did not bring any territory directly under Chinese control.

[dragonlord]

Zheng He's voyages did not bring any territory directly under Chinese control.

That's true. I believe that he wanted to promote the greatness of Ming Dynasty to outside world...

[Miborovsky]

"In the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, China did not seek hegemony," says Wan Ming, a leading scholar of the era. "Today, we are once again growing stronger all the time, and China's style of peaceful development has been welcomed all over the world."

Off topic: What would the uneducated American prole think of this uncanny coincidence?

[Yun]

"In the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, China did not seek hegemony," says Wan Ming, a leading scholar of the era. "Today, we are once again growing stronger all the time, and China's style of peaceful development has been welcomed all over the world."

In the heyday of the Ming, China annexed Vietnam, conquered Tai states in Yunnan, and threatened the same fate on Srivijaya if it continued to not send tribute. What the Ming court was unaware of is that Srivijaya had already been subjugated by Majapahit. Empires are the same wherever you look.

[naruwan]

In the heyday of the Ming, China annexed Vietnam, conquered Tai states in Yunnan, and threatened the same fate on Srivijaya if it continued to not send tribute. What the Ming court was unaware of is that Srivijaya had already been subjugated by Majapahit. Empires are the same wherever you look.

Don't forget Ming armies commited racial extermination all over the south west.

[Tibet Libre]

Ye Jun, a Beijing historian, said the official contention that Zheng He was a good-will ambassador is a "one-sided interpretation that blindly ignores the objective fact that Zheng He engaged in military suppression" to achieve the emperor's goals.

Didn't he know Zhang He was the Ming's version of Santa Claus bringing peace, civilization and sweets to the yearning peoples of the Indian Ocean?

How ignorant of him, didn't he read the official 'how to interpret correctly Zang He's voyages' manual by the CCP?

[naruwan]

Didn't he know Zhang He was the Ming's version of Santa Claus bringing peace, civilization and sweets to the yearning peoples of the Indian Ocean?

How ignorant of him, didn't he read the official 'how to interpret correctly Zang He's voyages' manual by the CCP?

CCP angle of the voyage is way overrating Zheng He.

[Tibet Libre]

CCP angle of the voyage is way overrating Zheng He.

The CCP's message is obvious.

Domestically: Let's not repeat the mistake again of isolating ourselves from influences from abroad.

To the world: China's rise is peaceful and not to the detriment of anyone.

Mainly, it's about propaganda, not history.

[naruwan]

The CCP's message is obvious.

Domestically: Let's not repeat the mistake again of isolating ourselves from influences from abroad.

To the world: China's rise is peaceful and not to the detriment of anyone.

Mainly, it's about propaganda, not history.

I frankly don't see how China can get "peaceful and not to the detriment of anyone" from ZhengHe's voyage.

Yes, ZhengHe didn't setup any Ming offices on his voyage, but what Zheng did was "policing the world".

Which is funny, because that's one thing China bashes on the USA for.