https://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/232/zheng_he_ancient_chinas_greatest_diplomatYeah...It is called 'extortion'. You pay me so I do not beat you up.
The conquest and maintenance of lands outside one's borders are not easy. Defeating that army is one thing, but continued suppression of resentment, pacification, mollification, deals making, trade, etc, are different, as the US found out in our recent military adventures. This is even more problematic if bodies of water are involved. Conquests of BORDERING lands are actually easier than conquests of lands protected by bodies of water. The serious study of the technical aspects of military affairs are scant when it comes to the Chinese and their supporters in this forum.
Man -- as a species -- evolved to be land based. Ninety nine percent of what we invented and do are for land based activities. So when we encounter a body of water, naturally we hesitate. We have to invent new ways to survive in the water. As an interesting aside, in special operations training, the first and best test to eliminate candidates is water survival. For the US military, there are very few blacks in the special operations community, specifically the SEAL teams. Most American blacks are urbanites or city dwellers so they do not have much experience with water outside the community swimming pool.
Take everything that make up a special operations soldier, then scale those factors up to the national level.
Overseas expeditions are enormous undertakings, especially when when the word is literal and not figurative -- involve an ocean or a sea. To commit to a conquest of a land that is geographically protected by water means the military must first be mobile in doctrines, willing to be expendable, willing to be stationed for extended duration away from home, willing to live natively as in 'off the land' if necessary, innovative, and independent while away but submissive to orders from home when summoned. The people inside this military must also be extraordinary, not in the sense that individuals are geniuses but in the sense that they are disciplined, trained higher than the standards exhibited by other militaries, better equipped, and philosophically and morally motivated towards what they do. In other words, an expeditionary military is the best type of military that can be created.
In military history, this type of military is actually rare and even rarer are the ones that can cross water and achieve its goals. The Romans and the Brits are examples of this extraordinary type of military. Today we have the US military. China is a majority land power, not a maritime power. The Chinese navies in history have been used mainly to support land based objectives on home soil, not in overseas ventures. The history of the expansion of the various Chinese empires have been land based.
So if China in history have not taken overseas territories is because that historical China was not able to do so. For those island countries that were extorted, they paid because it is less expensive than to be repeatedly fighting off Chinese invaders. They probably did not believed that the Chinese military was not capable of sustaining an overseas territory. Often, an implied threat is just as good as an explicit one. So they paid the extortion. There is NEVER any respect by the victim when being extorted, unless the interpretation is 'fear' and not 'respect' in the true sense of respect.
While Zheng He became little more than a footnote in most Chinese histories, his legacy in Southeast Asia is far different. His memory was not only preserved, it was worshiped.
Before employing force to pacify the island(Sri Lanka), Zheng He attempted to reach out to the various religious traditions represented on the island. He erected a monument with inscriptions in Chinese, Persian, and Tamil praising - in equal measure - Buddha, Allah, and Vishnu. Meticulously, each deity was offered identical quantities of precious metals, embroidered silk, and other goodies. Despite the warm symbolism of the stone tablet, warring factions continued to make trade impossible on the island. It failed ultimately to inspire the peace and stability for which Zheng He had hoped. Despite the failure, the surviving tablet remains one of the few places in Sri Lanka where the island's three major faiths can be found in the same place.
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post...-boats-china-philippine-fleet-retraces-sultan
The passage to China aims to commemorate the 1417 voyage of the Sultan of Sulu, whose name was Paduka Batara (or Paduka Pahala, according to other sources) and who set sail from the southern Philippines to pay tribute to the Yongle emperor of the Ming dynasty, in Beijing. Two other Muslim leaders accompanied the sultan, as did 340 members of their official delegation, including Batara’s two wives and three sons.
According to Ming annals, the party was warmly welcomed by the Chinese court, offered full royal honours and showered with priceless gifts. As Valdez likes to point out, his nation was a major maritime power with close links to China more than a century before Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was said to have “discovered” the Philippines, in 1521.
The visit of the Sultan is a perfect time to reestablish good trading relations with the Chinese. In exchange for silk, porcelain, and exquisite products from the Chinese, the Sulu Sultanate gave extravagant tribute of spices, pearls, and other exotic tropical products.
I know, the US like to trade war and death to nations that defy them.
Don't use your vulgar and depraved ways of the US to describe what the powerful ancient Chinese did.
As examples above show, China used diplomacy to pacify warring factions in Sri Lanka.
Only after diplomacy failed did the Chinese used their powerful navy to enforce peace on the island.
Tributes from South East Asia were actually peaceful trade where they took silk, porcelain and others in exchange for the tributes they brought.
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