Chapter 1 China's Development: Great Conception of History

A large number of problems need to be considered carefully in face of the great process of national rejuvenation. Will the great rejuvenation of Chinese nation be a decisive return to splendor in the history or a transient rebound after poverty and backwardness in the recent two centuries? As a time-honored country keeping pace with western civilization over thousands of years, what properties take on in terms of the creation of China's material and spiritual civilization and the relation between both? And, what advantages and disadvantages are provided wherein? Is China's current development in the process from learning and pursuing western civilization to transcendence and demonstration? What is the significance of rapid economic rise in this process? It is obvious that these questions must be analyzed on the basis of global changes in all ages, namely, to observe the current China's development throughout the period of rise and fall in the history of five thousand years and predict China's future according to international comparison of national power among more than two hundred countries. Such Great Conception of History contrasts the power of China and other civilizations and countries in different periods. Thus, another reference system, apart from time factor, is introduced to elaborate prosperity and decline of China's dynasties, which also paves the ways for analyzing the impact of external world on Chinese prosperity and decline. Moreover, such Great Conception of History comprehensively analyzes such dimensions as politics, military affairs, economy, culture and others, which contains both exploration for historical facts and reflection on rules and laws.

Interaction of Politics & Economy and Rise & Decline of Dynasties

During more than two thousand years from Ying Zheng, the first emperor, to Henry Puyi, the last emperor, China's history, covering more than two thousand years, always maintained a grand unification as a whole. However, all dynasties are almost hindered by a “periodic law” of alternative prosperity and depression. Rise and decline of dynasties conspicuously embodies the periodic law that the history evolution of all dynasties can be divided into the three stages of birth, prosperity and decline; or the five stages of birth,continuation, prosperity, decline (which might include the occurrence of resurgence wherein) and annihilation. Reviewing the “Genealogy of 24 Family Names”, it is of paramount importance for us in modern times to probe the cause of national turmoil, variation of ups and downs and law of rise and fall. The importance of political institutions, academic ideas and social economy are self-explanatory. In terms of economy, such factors as land, agriculture, technology, industry, commerce, trade, taxation, monopoly, currency issuance and other factors, to a large extent, affect the relations between the above-mentioned three aspects. Population, geography, climate and other factors are invariably the key factors affecting economy, society and political evolution of ancient China. As a whole, land and agriculture are fundamental of economic governance throughout dynasties, and interaction between politics and economy dominates the vicissitude accordingly. To expound law of vicissitude, efforts must be paid to the following relations: firstly, the relation between economy and politics; secondly, that between internal affairs and diplomacy; thirdly, that between country and people.

Firstly, the relation between economy and politics. The heydays in China's history were based on economic prosperity and development. However, the latter is just a necessary condition rather than an inevitable one of the former. The dialectical relation between “affluence” and “mightiness” of a country is similar to the difference between the “fat” and the “robustness” of a person. The Northern Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty developed the largest economic scale around the world. However, both were not powerful as they were affluent. The Northern Song Dynasty is one of the most economically developed periods in China's history. Owing to the land policy of “not restraining merger and acquisition” and the commerce policy of “not being limit to certain streets”, commodity economy became increasingly advanced, with the occurrence of tendency of industrialization, commercialization and urbanization. Largely relying on tax base from industry and commerce, the government had commercial tax, salt tax, liquor tax and cloth tax, which was obligatorily collected by the government, dominate the majority of fiscal revenue of the government. In the late Ming Dynasty, economic development is promising. As the ban on silver dollar and maritime trade were lifted in succession, monetary expansion drive and prosperous international trade greatly boomed economic growth and wealth accumulation. Throughout the world, it happened to be a great trade development between the East and the West and the rudiment of “globalization” after the Age of Discovery. The creation and accumulation of tremendous wealth in the Northern Song Dynasty and the late Ming dynasty also made great contribution to the prosperity of society and civilization, especially in the Northern Song Dynasty when significant cultural and technical achievements were obtained, which was described as “cultural and historical development of the Chinese nation evolved over the past thousand years and reached its limit in the Song Dynasty. ” However, as political corruption was insidiously behind economic prosperity, the whole country was faced with internal and external problems.

Overviewing China's history, the predicament caused by popular discontent and formidable enemy led common people into trouble of frequent civil strife, invasion of different races and change of dynasty. In the age when Song, Liao and Jin strove for dominant position, it was not occasional for the Song Dynasty to lose partial territory. Political corruption and weakened leadership resulted in economic advantages overtaking inferior position in wars. Similarly, the Ming Dynasty was finally eliminated by the Qing Dynasty though the former had a hundred times of population and ten times of troop than the latter. However, the Ming's decline was not occasional. Official and social corruptions were the primary cause leading to its extinction. As a matter of fact, policies of the early Ming Dynasty obviously preferred national monopoly and encouraged agriculture rather than commerce; in its middle time, the Ming Dynasty experienced transformation from strong national strength to affluent nation. Unfortunately, economic prosperity tended to be unbalanced after its middle time. On the contrary, folk economy further boomed with the decline of national strength, which was the root of trouble that cause the Ming Dynasty to perish.

On the contrary, if wise emperor was assisted by virtuous officials, it was possible to enhance comprehensive national strength under honest and enlightened politics, which often happened at the time of initiation and inheritance of splendid dynasties. In the early Han Dynasty, the wars for several years got common people into trouble of survival; subsequently, during the several decades when the Emperor Wen (BC180 BC157) and the Emperor Jing (BC157 BC141) of the Han Dynasty took power and implemented policies of rehabilitation, the country greatly flourished with social stability, production development and engorged national treasury. The old saying that “coins legally collected by governments are innumerable and grains are in exhaustible” fully reflected the situation at that time. In the early Tang Dynasty, the whole society suffered from social instability in the late Sui Dynasty, which led to scarcity of population and depression of economy. Upon the efforts of the Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, the country realized social stability and prosperity within a short time. Logical administration and harmonious society during the flourishing age of the Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty were rare throughout China's history over thousands of years. Its political and military achievements laid a solid foundation for the Heyday of Kaiyuan. Depending on sagacious monarch and virtuous officials, perfect system, fewer burden of taxation and cost, and making people recuperate and multiply, the book The Political Program of Zhen Guan Period certainly set a good example for later governors.

Secondly, the relation between internal affairs and diplomacy. This question involved in traditional cultural and military achievements, which could be taken as territory and national security among modern national relations. Concerning foreign relations, dynasties throughout China's history included conservative and opening ones. The Song and Ming Dynasties tended to be conservative, while the Han, Tang, Yuan and Qing Dynasties that were not governed by the Han people were apt to be open. Conservative dynasties were often good at “cultural development” rather than military affairs. When fighting against foreign countries, they preferred to take recessive and concessive measures, as a whole, no matter whether active or passive attitudes were taken on and off. In consideration of foreign disturbance on national security and people's daily life, conservative dynasties finally missed “flourishing age” even if they thrived in terms of economy and culture.

Take the Song Dynasty for example. In the long time of national peace, “common people know little about troops and troops are arrogant and lazy” . Besides, the government encouraged cultural development and restrained military. Improper military system also gave rise to redundant troop and military expenditure. As ethnic groups in the north thrived, armament of the Song Dynasty seemed inadequate. As the Yanyun 16 States were not recovered, the government of the Song Dynasty was compelled to sign the Chanyuan Treaty with Liao and traded annual tribute for peace. If the Song Dynasty was considered lucky to remove bad fortune with wealth in terms of its relation with Liao, such luck was not extended to its relation with Jin. The government of the Northern Song Dynasty mistakenly allied to Jin to fight against Liao, which broke political balance and laid hidden danger. Although Song had transferred all previous annual tribute to Jin, Song's fate to be conquered remained unavoidable. In 1127, Kaifeng, the capital of Song was occupied by Jin. The Emperor Huizong and the Emperor Qinzong of the Song Dynasty were captured and the Northern Song Dynasty was eliminated. Histories are always similar. In the 14th year of the reign of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, 322 years after the Jingkang Incident, the Battle of Tumu Fortress broke out. The Emperor Yingzong of the Ming was captured when he personally sent armed forces to suppress the Mongolian Wala Army, which was more than 20 years after the Yongle Period. About 200 years later, confronted with domestic strife and foreign aggression, the Emperor Sizong of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself in the Meishan Mountain (now named as Jingshan Park), which symbolized the destruction of the Ming Dynasty.

In contrast with conservative dynasties, pioneering dynasties took pos-i tive and offensive measures to fight against invasions of alien races, in the hope of permanently solving problems of territory and safety and laying solid foundation for long-term peace. The Han Empire, with its territory spanning across agricultural areas in the East Asia and nomadic areas in the Central Asia, realized economic prosperity. The Han Empire and the Roman Empire, at another end of Eurasia, became the two poles for the splendor of the East and West civilizations. The foundation of Han nation and its culture were accordingly tamped. After the transit period of consolidating the internal power and developing economy, the Emperor Wu of Han started a large-scale war. On the one hand, the Han Empire greatly consumed national assets, which raised great wrath among the people. On the other hand, the war to a large extent safeguarded national security caused by border disturbance, such as Xiongnu's escaping northward, and the Han conquered Liangyue southward. Subsequently, during the reign of the Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, Chanyu, the head of Xiongnu, paid visits to the capital of Han and governmental institutions of Han were set up in the western regions. Similarly, the Tang Dynasty decidedly took military measures in the transit time of Zhenguan Period to exclude military disturbance from the east and west Turkic Khanates and lay a solid foundation for national security. In the flourishing period of the Tang Dynasty, the territory of Tang was expanded to more than 1,000 square kilometers, which made Tang the country with the largest size. Meanwhile, the Tang Empire also boomed as never before in politics, military and economy, and developed into a unique “superpower” in the 8th century. The “flourishing age” of the Tang Dynasty also established a cultural peak unapproachable by descendants. In the 18th century, China ushered in an afterglow of the flourishing age. The political and military achievements of emperors of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong were presented in the unprecedented scale of China's territory, which laid a solid foundation for modern China's territory, population and the grand unification of a multinational country.

Thirdly, the relation between the country and people. “Rise and fall of a country is not decided by national wealth but by the well-being of common people since the ancient times.” This depicted the relation between the country and people, which might be the most important. In terms of political economy, it heavily depended on production output of the “common people” and expenditure of the “governor”. In the age of agricultural economy, what was crucial was the allocation of production factors and production results based on land system and revenues respectively, which had close relation with demand of national expenditure (royal expenditure, government expenditures and war consumption). Apart from agriculture, national monopoly for operation of special production industries (for example, salt, iron, liquor and others) and circulation domains was also the important factors to decide distribution of economic interest between the country and the people. In terms of financing, mintage right was monopolized by the nation or open to private organizations while the stability of currency value mattered most for people's livelihood, economy, society and political stability. Major reforms in the above-mentioned fields were usually related to distribution of economic benefit and political power, with corresponding planning and implementation often accompanying with interaction of politics and economy.

The Qin and Sui Dynasties were the pioneering ones in China's history. The Qin Dynasty eliminated six states and set counties for governance. Meanwhile, being the inaugurator of imperial China, Qin also unified road and characters. The Sui Dynasty ended separation, consolidated centralism, built canals and ancient drive ways. What's more, Sui established ancient laws and regulations which had far-reaching influence on later time, such as the system of Three Councils and Six Boards for setup of governmental departments, imperial examination and supervisory system for talent selection and official management, equal-field and Zuyongdiao systems in agricultural aspect, etc. However, these two pioneering dynasties became the shortest ones. The Qin Dynasty perished after the reign of its second emperor. After 15-year governance, the Qin Dynasty was replaced by the Han Dynasty. The Sui Dynasty only lasted 38 years before it was replaced by the Tang Dynasty. Both the Qin and Sui Dynasties developed the foundation for the grand unification and warned later monarchs that “one who shares profit with all the people of the world will gain the world, while one who loves his people will manage to govern his country”; and that “if the governor fails to restrain him and make contribution to the world, his governance is bound to be transient”. The mistakes of the Qin and Sui Dynasties were trading the well-being of common people for the unification and convening troops of the world into the wrong battles.

Another problem was official management which decided the composition and quality of officials between the country and people. The key of the official management was appointment of talents. Chinese traditional imperial examination system provided fundamental system guarantee for selection and appointment of talents. What the imperial examination system examined reflected mainstream ideology and moral norms, which was the “ideological education” and “work training” of officials. How the imperial examination system examined fully represented the degree of equality, justice and transparency. The equality of the imperial examination system was primarily reflected from the ignorance of blood relationship and family status, which was conducive to avoiding class solidification of political status, increasing social mobility between different stratums. Its advancement was far superior to the west for a long time. The importance of supervisory system was only secondary to official management. Without effective supervision, the official circle must be filled with “latent rules”, rather than “obvious rules”. In this regard, loyal officials were expelled and even persecuted, while treacherous officials were valued and put in important positions. The doctrine of managing officials was to rein in them instead of indulge them. Specifically speaking, it is vital both to investigate corrupt officials and to prevent sloth administration. In the autocratic system, official management to a large extent rests with the king. Led by a wise emperor, officials must be virtuous. Just as the old saying put it, “as long as the king is upright, the whole country would be stable.”

Another noteworthy issue was related to the distribution of interests within the ruling group. The process of winning the world by fighting on horses created a military benefit group in the initial phase of each dynasty. The evolution of political and economic rights in the group was an important factor that caused the “imperial China's problems”. Feudalism and county, the two basic models of relations between the central and local determined the basic relationship between the benefit class with military achievements and the imperial family. For the former, “providing divided land for common people and granting rewards to descendants of meritorious statesmen” created the governance model of “state inside country” and a real aristocracy with its own land and people. As for the latter, the centralized and hierarchical administrative system was established, while the military benefit class had far lower status than the former in the power structure. In the early Han Dynasty, enfeoffment for officials with different surnames and same surnames, rebellion of seven principalities and reward popularization, transition of these political governance structures reflected advantages and disadvantages of enfeoffment, and inevitability to set up counties. As shown in the Rebellion of Seven Principalities in the Western Han Dynasty, Rebellion of Eight Principalities in the Western Jin Dynasty, An Lushan Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, Jingnan Campaign in the early Ming Dynasty and Suppression of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories in the early Qing Dynasty, historical events proved that restricting political privilege of the “beneficial group of military exploit” was crucial to political stability, while restricting its economic privilege was related to benefit distribution between the country and the people.

Rise and Fall of Dynasties from Global Vision

“Civilization” is an important concept of the contemporary history. Taking civilization as basic analytic target, the view of history will be wider, covering all fields of social development and comparing historical evolution of different countries, communities and ethnic groups. What is more important, “cross-culture” view is conducive to breaking through the Eurocentric and Sinocentric conceptions of history. An important conclusion can be drawn when comparing historical evolution of the east and west civilizations according to the conception of history of culture type: Europe had the grand unification in the Roman and China was confronted with separation in the Three Kingdoms Period and the Five Dynasties. However, both historical evolutions, as a whole, were fundamentally different, for one was the “horizontal competition” of kings and the other the “vertical alternation” of dynasties. Reflecting on the rise and fall of the east and the west, three questions are to be analyzed: relativity of rise and decline of dynasties; mutual relations between China and the outside world and the matter of diplomatic relations and policy.

Above all, relativity of rise and decline and determinants. The rise and fall of dynasty rests with both the absolute situation and the comparison with previous dynasties. Besides, the comparison with other countries and civilizations at the same period is also necessary. In other words, the rise and fall shall refer to human progress, while politics, economy, population, science, technology and other factors decide the comparison of the strength of the relations between China and other countries and civilizations at the same period. The “dynasty” and “national state” are totally different forms. The transformation from the former to the latter symbolizes the transition of a country from “classical” to “modern”. The laws of rise and fall are different but essentially interconnected.

If the Roman Empire and the Han Empire, respectively as the representatives of the eastern and western civilizations, were equally matched in science and economy, China was more superior to Europe during the “mediaeval times” from the 5th to the 15th centuries, which was reflected in population, economy, technology and other aspects. The year of 1500 was regarded as the boundary of the “mediaeval times” and the “modern times” according to the historical research made by western scholars. Looking back to this historical turning point, major world civilizations such as Europe, the Ming Dynasty of China, the Ottoman Empire and others have their own advantages, with little difference in developmental in the entirety. However, with the rapid rise of Europe in science, commerce and military in the 16th century, the east civilization represented by China and Muslim civilization between the east and west were left far behind. Subsequently, the development tendency of China and Europe deviated in the 18th century, which was comprehensively accelerated in the 19 th century. Accordingly, their status in the international community was totally reversed, which gave rise to the fundamental change of global pattern in politics, economy and national strength (see Figure 1.1). With regard to industrial output, proportion of China and Europe was 35% and 25% respectively in 1800, which has become less than 5% and 55% one century later. Meanwhile, the U. S. accounted for about 25%.

From the perspective of the Great Conception of History, two questions are vital to analyze China's decline. The first question is: why did China play a world leading role in scientific and technical in the Tang and Song Dynasties but fall behind the west in the Ming and Qing Dynasties? Why did modern science occur to Europe, rather than China (the so-called Needham Thesis)? As a matter of fact, in the age when scientific and technical progress were centered on producers, technical progress based on trial-and-error and correction mechanism primarily depended on the scale of production. In such context, the vast territory and large population of China decided that China had inevitably become the leader of scientific and technical progress. Nevertheless, in the age centered on inventors, scientific and technical progress heavily depended on experiment and academia. In this regard, Europe, with advantages in humanistic and institutional environment, excelled. Since the 15th century when the Renaissance emerged in Europe, its influence was gradually expanded from art and literature to science and technology, which was the starting point when Europe was superior to China in science and technology.

The second question was as follows: since China witnessed the expansion of commodity economy and prosperity of industry and commerce from the Song Dynasty to Ming Dynasty, why did the Industrial Revolution based on capitalist production relations happen in Europe instead of China (the socalled Weber Question)? 19 The evolution of productive relations and progress of industrial technology interacted as both cause and effect. In the Industrial Revolution, great technical progress accelerated transformation from individual workshop to large factory and generated new industrial production pattern and corresponding productive relations. Why did the Industrial Revolution firstly happen in Britain, rather than Spain which obtained advantages of thalassocracy and trade earlier? Obviously, institutional factors, such as restrictions of kingship, protection for private property and innovation incentive policy and others, were decisive. However, ideological basis for design and practice of specific systems should not be underestimated. In addition, religious revolutions in the 16th and 17th centuries, also paved the way for capitalist production relations in all directions, including belief and culture. It was inevitable that the Industrial Revolution did not appear in China because ideological revolution caused by the renaissance and the enlightenment did not occur to China. Traditionally speaking, ideology focusing on agriculture, conservativeness and arrogance restricted innovation and entrepreneurship and blocked the way to learn from developed countries. In terms of institution, the policy of maritime and mineral prohibitions by the rulers also significantly confined the growth of modern industry and commerce.

It's worth noting that the “great deviation” of China and Europe happened to be the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age. Depending on vast territory, large population, advanced farming technology and water conservancy facilities, China possessed the largest scale of agriculture in the age of agricultural economy. As for other industries such as ceramics and textile, China also took the lead for a long time. Apart from meeting the demand of domestic market, China's handmade products were also sold to foreign countries through trade along land and sea route. With great development of agriculture and handicraft, commercial civilization also flourished in China. Huizhou and Shanxi merchants made great commercial achievements. However, in the process of transformation to industrial civilization of the western countries, China declined rapidly after it sealed off from the world. Apart from China, India and other countries except Europe also suffered from the same trouble. Confronted with industrial strength and low-cost dumping of the western countries, these countries with “increasing population but never experiencing the Industrial Revolution” became as poor as a church. Being unable to resist advanced weapons of the west, most countries became the colonies of the western countries accordingly.

The comparison for history evolvement between the east and west revealed that technology and institution were two key elements behind economic phenomenon and its evolvement, while thought intangibly controlled the history evolvement. If the eastern and western civilizations were compared in the three stages of classical age, mediaeval times and modern times (after the year of 1500), it could be found that both experienced together the classical age, which was represented by though diversification and freedom, and the classical age, which was symbolized by mental singularity and slavery, with the actual dividing line in the mediaeval times. The real divergence started in the “modern times”. In the 17th and 18th centuries when kingship dominated, huge difference of ideology to a large extent decided historical direction of the east and the west, and further influenced development course of the world history. In the meantime of the Age of Enlightenment when a large number of ideologists were cultivated, the Qing Dynasty carried out the literary inquisition. In terms of ideology, there was a striking contrast between China's harsh and slavery and western countries'tolerance and liberation. China's rulers suppressed the thoughts of people, and meanwhile confined creative spirit, knowledge dissemination, technical progress, productive forces and economic development.

For western countries, the 19th century was a one-hundred-year rapid rise and high prosperity. In fact, its ideological basis was established in the Enlightenment in the 18th century. In other words, ideological progress starting from the Renaissance and flourishing in the Enlightenment paved the way for modern western civilization. With regard to politics, modern democratic system based on personal political liberty was established, such as constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, “separation of the three powers”, vote by ballot and other systems. In terms of economy, modern economic systems based on personal economic freedom and centered on free markets were founded, which covered many aspects, with two of them worthy of mention. Upon the burgeoning of Venice's P atent Law in 1473 and Britain's Monopoly Law in 1623, optimization and development of modern patent systems greatly pushed forward science and technology. Taking relevant legislations in New York in 1811 and in Britain in 1854 as symbol, the establishment of limited liability systems laid the institutional foundation for modern market economy and enterprises and boost industry and commerce. Reforms of political and economic systems were based on lawful governance. The former provided legal protection for civil rights, while the latter provided legal protection for private property rights.

Civilizations of the east and the west exhibited distinctive features in both pr-i mary development. In other words, their “cultural genes” were remarkably different. Regardless of science or democracy, the ancient Greece showed tendency of prematurity. However, the symbol of actual maturity was after the European enlightenment, with diversified thoughts as the solid foundation. In contrast, the first grand unification starting from the Qin and Han Dynasties in China's history involved political, ideological and cultural factors. The Enlightenment covering all walks of life never happened before the 20th century. Similar enlightenments appeared in China when the New Culture Movement around the May 4th Movement, centered on democracy and science, broke out.

Secondly, opening up outside and international trade. Although civilization of the east and the west evolved in their own ways at both ends of the Eurasia, mutual trade and cultural exchange remained available. International trade not only promoted commodity exchange and wealth accumulation, but also pushed forward personnel contact and cultural exchange. Early trade between the east and the west was limited to land trade along the Silk Road. China's silk and other commodities delivered to Europe by camels brought forth the charm of Made-in-China in the Roman Times. With the advancement of sea transportation technology, the Maritime Silk Road thrived in the Tang and Song Dynasties, with a large quantity of ceramics sold to foreign countries. As a whole, exchange between China and Europe was relatively indirect and lenitive in the initial time of mutual trade. The Arabian world located between the east and west was the interface for exchange between China and Europe. With the advent of the Age of Discovery, the development of seaway connecting the east and the west cross the Cape of Good Hope greatly thrived the direct trade between China and Europe, especially the spice trade over hundreds of years. In the 16th and 17th centuries when Eurasian seaborne trade sprung up, China also became an active participant and impeller of initial globalization. During the period from the Ming Dynasty to early Qing Dynasty, the development of seaborne trade significantly increased export of Chinese commodities and wealth accumulation. In terms of trade and cultural exchange, the Land and Maritime Silk Roads happened to correspond to the two semilunar transmission belts of the western regions of China and the South China Sea, both of which reflected China's civilization in the history.

In terms of opening up and communication with the outside world, all dynasties can be classified into open and closed ones. Take China, a continental country with vast territory, for example. it was confronted with openness of the land westward and the maritime transportation southeastward in all ages. The former was closely related to China's territory and governance model of border areas, while the latter mainly included the policy orientation of folk seaborne trade. In the Han and Tang Dynasties which were apt to be opening and pioneering, the culture tended to be more inclusive and open. In the reign of the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the envoy Zhang Qian paid a national visit to the western regions was for the consideration of safeguarding the nation by vertically and horizontally allying states with the state of Qin as the pivot and resisting Xiongnu. However, objectively speaking, it imposed positive influence on the connection of land transportation and the promotion of economic and cultural exchange between the east and the west. Before the seaway was connected, the “silk road” connecting China and Europe, with the Central Asia as the pivot, was almost the only approach of communication between the east and the west. Inland migration of northern ethnic groups in the 2nd and 3rd century initially laid the solid foundation for a multinational country, which also made the openness of the Sui and Tang Dynasties later become inevitable. Unprecedented openness and cultural exchange between the east and the west unprecedentedly boost culture. The “prosperity of the Tang Dynasty” became a transient but splendid chapter of China's history.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the government set up the Bureau for Foreign Shipping, which started the flourishing period of seaborne trade. Although the Southern Song Dynasty was content to exercise sovereignty over a part of the country, it had favorable geographical advantage in the southeast and boosted seaborne trade. Subsequently, the Yuan Dynasty had vast territory and land transportation network of all directions. Seaborne trade was prosperous for a time, but maritime prohibition was frequently implemented for the sake of overseas expedition, official monopoly of foreign trade, ban of prohibited goods export and other reasons, which finally led to the shrinkage of nongovernmental foreign trade. In the early Ming Dynasty, the government conserved the old system and set up the Bureau for Foreign Shipping, but included international trade into diplomatic affairs. Tribute ships were given preferential treatment and exempted from taxation. Tribute trade became the only legal seaborne trade and private trade was banned. In addition, out of consideration of political reasons and safety, maritime prohibition was frequently implemented and development of international trade was heavily blocked. Until the first year of the reign of Emperor Longqing (1567), maritime prohibition was terminated and the ban against private seaborne trade was lifted, which was called as “Longqing opening up”. In the early Qing Dynasty when maritime prohibition was launched or lifted on and off, the government always put navigation and trade under strict regulation. Only a few of ports are designated to do business. Over two hundred years, the basic system pattern and its scientific and technical level were hardly affected by the rapid rise of western civilization until the westernization movement sprung up in the second half of the 19th century.

The monopoly of technology in the fields of silk, ceramic and other key industries decided China's long-lasting leading role in production and export of industry (handicraft industry) and long-term trade surplus in international trade. However, since the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution of western countries completely reversed China's advantages in production and export of handcraft articles. First of all, western countries'technical superiority of modern industry broke through the monopoly of China's traditional handcraft industry in terms of technology and material; secondly, as products of industry and trade ever-increasingly accounted for greater proportion, traditional agricultural and handcraft products were heavily shrunk in terms of their proportion of industry and international trade; thirdly, industrial production of western countries rapidly provided them with unparalleled advantages in textile and other important manufactured goods. Consequently, China became a dumping market of modern industrial products from its leading role of traditional handcraft industry. Meanwhile, expanding market also became the main economic purpose for western countries to annex China.

Concerning the diversified origin of eastern and western civilizations, their substantive characteristics cannot be simply generalized. The brief comparison between China and Europe revealed that Chinese civilization tended to be more closed than western civilization. In terms of cultural trait, cultural birthplace determined the “inland” and “agricultural” features of Chinese civilization, while western civilization, which can date back to the Mediterranean coastal areas, had “maritime” and “commercial” features. In addition, the growing intensified conservatism of mainstream culture, to a certain extent, explained the different attitudes towards ocean and thalassocracy held by China and European countries, and their preference of closure and openness. Just over the past several decades, the rejuvenated Chinese civilization started huge transformation from inland to maritime civilization.

Thirdly, international relations and diplomacy. The systems of international relations between the east and the west were different in the history. Exemplified by the “Jifu system” (arranging the affinity between the peripheral regions and the center according to geographical distance) in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, “titleconferring system” in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the “Jimisystem” (controlling in military and politics while comforting in economic interests) in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the ancient history of the East Asia had a stable structure maintained by the international relation system centered by “central empire”, of which the recognition about Chinese traditional kingcraft thoughts and Yixia relations(relations between Chinese inland and the regions inhabited by ethnic groups) were the logic basis. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was clearly stipulated that “countries not to be conquered” almost contained most of the countries surrounding China and “tribute system” was officially established. The rise of western countries was also accompanied by upsurge and expansion of “national states”. Since the middle of the 17th Century, relations among European powers was led by treaty system, while great powers and other countries was dominated by colonial system. Against the backdrop of the rise of western countries and global expansion, international relation system between the east and the west clashed. Since the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the “tribute system” was collapsed by the invasion of western powers into Asia. China was not the leader of East Asian order any more, while the collapse of previous order also implied that its members and the leader China were gradually invaded and colonized by great powers. Since the middle of the 19th century, China was forced to succumb to unequal treaty and open to the outside world. Meanwhile, China's modern diplomatic conception and system were also constructed with the establishment of the general office of foreign affairs.

As the world history started its journey from mediaeval times to modern times, time-honored civilization of non-western countries, in contrast with scientific and technical progress and industrial civilization in Europe, was gradually overshadowed. Overviewing with a longer historical vision, a large number of ancient civilizations went through a process of prosperity, declination and extinction. The process might be long or short, while the reasons were diversified, including politics, economy, military affairs, population, natural environment, climate and other factors. The discrepancy of progress of different civilizations was an important factor, which might make a relatively backward civilization head toward a relative decline, while the interaction between internal factors of political economy might lead a civilization to absolutely decline. Relative and absolute decline might happen simultaneously and promote each other, especially when competition and even wars occurred to different civilizations. Confronted with relative and absolute decline, whether a backward civilization could turn the tables and avoid inevitable decline rest with its strain capacity to address external change as well as its rehabilitation ability. Politics and economy remained to be the decisive factors, while the “cultural power” determined the vitality of a civilization at a deeper level.

Chinese civilization and Muslim civilization gradually declined due to their clash with western civilization since the 16th century, with obviously different internal determinants. China actively took reserved policies in the Ming Dynasty, but the Turkish Ottoman Empire was compelled to focus onto domestic affairs due to external overexpansion and internal religious division. As a matter of fact, during the flourishing time of Yongxuan (1403-1435), the Ming Dynasty had possessed the most advanced marine technology and powerful fleet around the world, which were prior to the Great Discovery launched by Portuguese and Spanish navigators. Nevertheless, the voyage of Zheng He's fleet suddenly stopped in 1430 after the previous seven times. Both treasure ships and technical data of navigation were destroyed by fire. Weighing cost and benefit might be the primary cause, but undoubtedly strategically erroneous judgment was the key reason, namely the importance of seaborne trade, coastal defense and thalassocracy were seriously underestimated. In the 16th century when the world history was confronted with a critical moment, the “withdrawing strategy” taken by the Ming Dynasty and the “expansive strategy” of western countries at the same time constituted strong contrast. As the Qing Dynasty took proactive and aggressive measures after it occupied the central plain of China, China's land safety was significantly improved. However, maritime safety remained alarming. Emperor Kangxi realized the significance of coastal defense in his later years and predicted that “although numerous seaports now seem safe, China is inevitably encumbered after thousands of years.” 20 Actually, the ever-increasing gap in navigation and military technology between China and great power simplied that voracious aggression and occupation around coastal waters of China made by western countries afar are around the corner.

Since the 15th century, great powers such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain and others successively dominated the world. There were both the splendor of science and technology, industry and trade, and the crime of foreign invasion, colonial plunderage and slave trade. History revealed that economic strength laid a solid foundation for the rise of great powers. In terms of international relation, the conflicts between great powers mainly focused on diplomacy and military affairs, among which the fight for thalassocracy was valued. With regard to the relations between major countries, the rise of world power was hardly separated from conflicts. Particularly, the relation between traditional “elder brother” and newly-developed “younger brother” was often intense, and the resorting to arms appeared to be the most common means. It seemed that the Thucydides's Trap was inevitable. The competition between countries was conducive to promoting social progress, but wars caused by such competition were cruel and even destructive.