Why was Europe First?

 

Your first point about Europe "discovering" China first, which I assume is one way of gauging it. In this case, the Chinese traveler Wang Dayuan would precede the Portuguese who first landed at Macao, since it was Wang who sailed into the Mediterranean Sea (with escorts from Aden) and traveled up the North African coast as far as Morocco in the 1330s AD. I guess it depends on if you consider Morocco just south of Spain part of the Western World.

 

In your second point, Europe evolving much faster than China due to underlying economic systems of banking and free commerce, creating ships, and raising military forces. If I'm not mistaken, during the Middle Ages, China (in the form of the Tang and Song Dynasties) was the most affluent nation on earth, a reason why Europeans during the Middle Ages coveted "Cathay" or Asian riches. It's no secret that the Chinese gentry-scholars drafted as bureaucrats from the Imperial Exams and running the government despised the great amount of wealth coming from the most affluent of merchants, whom they saw as largely parasitic to the labor of the farming peasants, artisan craftsmen, and other groups within society. Also, it was no secret that the government held several widescale monopolies on things such as salt, iron, liquor, silk, and porcelain. However, all other enterprises and commodities-for-production besides the ones I just listed were free-trade and fair-grounds for average and wealthy Chinese merchants to pursue.

 

In regards to creating oceangoing ships and raising military forces, the Chinese during the Middle Ages crafted enormous naval fleets and drafted large naval forces to patrol in riverine areas in southern China, the vast coastline of China, as foreign assistance (like the the Yamato Japanese naval invasion of Korea during the 5th to 7th centuries AD, Sui Dynasty China had invaded Korea previously, but Tang China aided the Korean Silla Kingdom against the Japanese, finally defeating the Japanese in an allied effort in 663 AD, where Japan wouldn't attempt to invade Korea again until the Imjin War of the 1590s), as well as to provide military escort to large groups of merchant vessels and Chinese tributary collectors sailing into the South East and into the waters of the Indian Ocean to perform trade actions or collect tribute from regions such as Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Persia, Arabia, East Africa, etc. China was most certainly not "isolated" as you point out, they were merely "isolated" from Europe and the Americas during the Middle Ages. Everywhere else, the Chinese made their presence. The Chinese easily could have rounded the tip of Africa and sailed up the Western African coast all the way to Europe...however, unlike Europe, they had no drive or desire to do so, whereas European monarchs were obsessed with filling their coffers with gold and silver to sustain dominance over competing European kingdoms, and since Europe understood (or at least believed to be true) that Asia was filled with prosperous kingdoms full of riches (which in fact it was), they were motivated to seek and explore, and ultimately to colonize and uphold overseas empires to provide their kingdoms back at home with a constant flow of foreign raw materials and precious metals. In contrast, the Chinese believed (with good reason) that most of what China needed was grown, produced, and manufactured indigenously within China already, and therefore overseas trade should be limited and only when there were certain benefits involved (like selling luxurious lacquerwares, silks, and porcelain goods to Indians, Arabs, etc.). Although China contended with the kingdoms of Korea and Japan during the Middle Ages, their main contendors and external threat came from the north, from the nomadic tribes. And let's face it, they weren't as powerful or advanced as the Chinese (save moments like the Jurchen, Mongolian, or Manchurian invasions, however, all of which could have been avoided and beaten back, as it was more of political failure than military failure of the Chinese to stop these two groups from encroaching into China). In contrast, falling behind in advances such as technological achievement or lack of raising a sound naval and land force meant almost certain extinction of one kingdom's power over another. The Chinese had different drives in their society's needs besides competition with external threats in order to achieve high levels of innovation, a completely different mindset and situation than the European conscience.

 

Last but not least, your point on European mathematics, politics, their unique systems of law, and strategy. This I would need you to be a bit more specific on, because there were many different political alignments, mathematical standards, different laws, etc., for nearly every single region of Europe during the Middle Ages. European mathematics have a long tradition since the early Greek mathematicians, yet the Chinese tradition of high mathematics stems back yet as far, and advanced to a high zenith degree of indigenous innovation during the Middle Ages. As far as laws go, that's a complicated matter that differs from region-to-region during the Middle Ages in Europe, yet since China was unified by the Tang and then Song during the Middle Ages, universal codified law was extended throughout the entire Chinese empire, which differed from Europe, since Europe, unlike in previous times like the Roman Empire, was not united under one system of universal law. That's but one nuance and difference between Medieval Chinese codified law and Medieval European codified law (which makes Europe more at odds with different factions, but diverse nonetheless, and therefore much greater chance of a certain region being able to promote campaigns of seafaring than others). If anything, I would say the most accurate thing you mentioned was politics, with European seafarers looking to various monarchs like Columbus did to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to fund voyages across the Atlantic. With this in mind, one must consider the very complicated and sophisticated political intrigue and atmosphere during this age and this new drive to discover and to expand interests abroad. If you ask me, more than anything, the Renaissance was an underlying factor to drive Europe forward into the Age of Exploration. This and the general drive of competition between European kingdoms to gather riches in foreign gold and silver than other nations, in essence, to become the most affluent and therefore the ablest to dominate in foreign affairs.

 

Eric

P.S. Perikles: It is a fair assumption to compare ancient and Medieval China with the whole of Europe. Yes, it is correct that Europe is a patchwork of different cultures, societies, ethnicities, langauge groups, etc., but so is China (past and present). What we consider "China" today is Central Asia (Xinjiang), Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, northern part of Indo-China, and last but not least, the heart of China, China proper, home of the Han ethnicity (which didn't even really exist as one unified culture and percieved ethnicity until the vastly unifying Han Dynasty in the 3rd century BC). There are hundreds of different classified ethnicities living within China today, much as there is in Europe. So when you say it's unfair to compare a single nation with the whole of Europe, think about these similarities between the two.   

 

...Sorry, do you have the ISBN of that book "Carnage and Culture"? It sounds really good!