Lecture 17 Tradition and Change in East Asia in the early modern period

Thursday last lecture

Islamic Gunpowder Empires Reading for Thursday

 Please read the whole thing: Chapter 2: The Ottoman Empire from its Origins Until 1685

 Missing pages Shi'i Rituals and Power: Pages 139 - 156  Shi'i Rituals and Power: Pages 157 - 177 What is “being modern”?

 Experimental  Empirical  Technological perception

 Efficient  Precise  Rational/rationalization

Europe and the “rest”

 Capitalist modernity

 Republic modernity

 Scientific and Technological modernity

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 Colonial modernity From 16th to 18th centuries

 Colonial Latin America

 Colonial North America

 Colonial Pacific Islands

 Colonial Africa

 Colonial India East Asia China (1839) Japan Islamicate empires

 (Not colonized)

Colonial Latin America African and Creole languages (cultures)

 African slaves: speaking their own language, though mixed with European languages.

 Combined different cultures and created syncretic faith, though hardly these traditions became established religions (popular religion).

 South Carolina and Georgia. Capoeira

Plantation Societies

 Tropical and subtropical regions.  1516 island of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic).  Brazil and the Caribbean. Products: a) Sugar; (b) tobacco; (c) cotton; (d) coffee. Plantations: a distinct culture. Atlantic Zone Rise of African Slavery as a source of labor

Not the natives: disease and not sedentary cultivators.

● Portuguese plantation managers imported slaves as early as 1530s.

● 1580s height of Portuguese slavery.

● Average age of a slave at a planet: 5 to 6 years.

Trans-Atlantic Slavery: “The Middle-Passage”  Enslaved passengers Travelled below Decks in the worst conditions Imaginable.

● Sick slaves: thrown off the vessel. Colonial North America Slavery in North America

 1619 Virginia.

 1661 Virginia law recognized all blacks as slaves.

 1680s slaves worked on tobacco and cotton plantations.

 Northern states benefited from building slave vessels.

Slave markets

Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)

 The most prominent of the Roman Catholic

Jesuit missionaries

--Ambitious goads: converts China to Christianity

--Introduced European technology and sciences to

the Chinese

Maps  “Self-ringing bells” Why was Ricci and others unable to convert China to Christianity? Why China did not develop

 Technological and scientific modernity?

 Capitalistic modernity?

 Or political modernity? A highly conservative state and policies Inwardness for the sake of stability The shadow of the Mongols State and society formation

A way to of “retreat” back to an imagined authentic Chinese culture

Get rid of the Mongol experience China under the shadows of Colonial Europe

 Under the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644- 1912) Qing dynasties (1644-1912)

 Founded by Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Northeastern China, known as Manchuria  1644 peasant rebellion; Beijing is conquered  An alliance between Ming and Manchus defeats the rebellion, but Qing took control  Kangxi Emperor or Kang-shee (r1661-1722) : suppressed revolts, Subdued Taiwan, prevented the Tsarist Russian invasion STABILITY and Wealth

State structure

 Adopted the bureaucratic structures and institutions from the preceding Ming dynasty

 Tightly centralized states

 Qing emperors were outstanding rulers: “SON OF HEAVEN”

 Held heavenly powers to maintain order on earth

Hyper Emperor

 “Giving life to the people –these are the powers that an emperor has. He knows that administrative errors in government bureaus can be rectified, but that a criminal who is executed cannot be brought back to life any more than a chopped string can be joined together again.” Kangxi or Kang-shee

Qianlong (r.1735-1795)

A scholar emperor Composed thousands of poems Gave responsibility to eunuchs Yet China well-organized society Forbidden City 紫禁城 1406 Revival of the Great Wall under the Ming Increasing influence of eunuch (under the Ming) Civil Service Examination institution  One of the most important institutions based on honor, power and rewards (for men only)

Though ultimately class played a major role

1 million degree holders, competed for 20,000 positions

Served as a way to separate civil from military rule

Stabilized the state Social Structure

 Gentry: landed aristocracy

 Scholar-bureaucrats

 Peasants: honest class

 Artisans

 “Mean people”: slaves, entertainers, prostitutes, begers

soldiers as evil and yet necessary

 Merchants “social parasites”

Women under the Qing

 Had a complex status in patriarchal Qing society

 Some debated and encouraged the education of women, as women from the gentry and merchant classes were informally educated.

 Elite women had limited physical mobility because of… Foot binding: spread during the Ming Peasant women

 Played a key economic role

 They promoted and improved spinning and weaving tolls. Zhang Han (1511-1593) writing on merchants

 “Money and profit are of great importance to men. They seek profit, then suffer by it, yet they cannot forget it. They exhaust their bodies and spirits, run day and night, yet they still regard what they have gained as insufficient. Those who become merchants eat fine food and wear elegant clothes… Opportunistic persons attracted by their wealth offer to serve them. Pretty girls in beautiful long- sleeved dresses and delicate slippers play stringed and wind instruments for them and compete to entertain them.” Limited global commerce

 While China had flourishing industrial production and the world’s best-integrated commercial economy, it never gained the commercial or trade dynamism of full-scale capitalism in Europe.

 Tang and Song technological revolutions helped feudal Europe (indirectly) but never enabled China to become capitalistic

 Why?

Ming and Qing Trade policy

 Only permitted Chinese merchants to engage in small- scale commerce.

 Merchants did not have legal protection, nor prestige

 And foreigners could only trade in Guangzohu Britain at Sea 1793 British rule (18th century) Qianlong Page. 581  “Yesterday your ambassador petitioned my ministers to memorialize me regarding your trade with China, but his proposal is not consistent with our dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto, all European nations, including your own country’s barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade with our Celestial Empire at Guangzhou. Such has been the procedure for years, although our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.”  “But your ambassador has now put forward new requests which completely fail to recognize our throne’s principle to “treat strangers from afar with indulgence,” and to exercise a pacifying control over barbarian tribes the world over… Your England is not the only nation trading at Guangzhou. If other nations, following your bad example, wrongfully importune my ear with further impossible requests, how will it be possible for me to treat them with easy indulgences?” Tokugawa Japan Japan and Europe Remember: the Mongols were not able to conquer Japan Society

 Japan remained more isolated than China from the rest of the world.  By 1500, Japan under Ashikaga Shogunate (1338-1568) experienced rapid economic change and population growth.  Between 1500 and 1750: population doubled from 16 million to 30 million  Increased productivity stimulated trade and expansion of cities

Japanese merchants

 Urban merchants and craftsmen organized guilds, and obtained monopoly rights to sell or make a project, thus earning higher status and more power.

 Japanese Merchants traded with Vietnam, Siam, Cambodia, Philippines

 Japan became a major supplier of rice wine, copper, swords and other goods across Asia. Europeans in Japan  1542, the Portuguese reached Japan, causing a sensation.

A Japanese observe writes:

 “There came a merchant ship a creature on couldn’t put a name to, that appeared to have human form at first glance, but might as well be a long-nosed goblin. Careful inquiry revealed that the create was called a “Padre”. The first thing one noticed was how long the nose was! It was like a wartless conch-shell.” Tokugawa Shogunate

 Ruled Japan from 1603-1868, during which they

ended civil war and expelled European missionaries and

traders.

 The Tokugawa created a government that mixed authoritarian rule with a hierarchical social order

 The Samurai, the warrior class that resembled the feudal knights, led the social hierarchy.

 Honorific code

 Samurai “is one who does not cultivate, manufacture, engage in trade. The business of the samurai consists in reflecting on his own station in life, in discharging loyal service to his master, in devoting himself to duty above all.” Economy & the West

 Under the Tokugawa, Japanese economy grew rapidly and Japan’s urban culture flourished in new theatrical and literary forms.

 Tokugawa Japan however was rigid in social structure and this made it vulnerable when Western powers returned in the 19th century.

 Japan, unlike China, responded creatively to the Western incursion, as they began to synthesize Western technology, especially military, and customs to Japanese traditions.