为什么西欧人接管了世界，而不是中国人？ [美国媒体]

Why did Western Europeans take over the world and not the Chinese?

为什么西欧人接管了世界，而不是中国人？



Emmanuel-Francis Nwaolisa Ogomegbunam, I'dprobably still speak English, but it wouldn't be my first language.
Answered Oct 15
The Luxembourgers didn’t do nothing!
That was a joke. A bad one, true, but witha point to it. Western Europeans did not take over the world, the Iberians,Dutch, English, French and the Americans did. There is a difference.
Although the Chinese lacked the mostimportant tool—Modern Finance— of the most imperialistic of the group— Dutch,British and Americans, that was not the main factor that led to theirterritorial expansion. In a word, it was geography, literally their place inthe world. The Chinese, mind you, did expand, but their expansion always hadsomeplace else in the way: Asia, Indonesia, Taiwan, The Philippines and so on.At their furthest, they ran smack dab into East Africa.

卢森堡人什么事都没干！这是个笑话。一个糟糕的笑话，但是有一定的道理。西欧人并没有接管世界，是伊比利亚人，荷兰人，英国人，法国人以及美国人接管了世界。这是有差异的。
虽然当时的中国人缺乏最重要的工具——现代金融，而帝国主义国家如荷兰，英国和美国人是具备的，但这并不是中国进行领土扩张的主要因素。总之，是地理因素，即他们在世界上的位置。不过中国人确实扩张了，而且他们知道自己要去到哪些地方，包括亚洲，印尼，台湾，菲律宾等等。他们最远抵达了非洲东海岸。



Second, the vast grainlands of the Americasprevented a Malthusian collapse in Europe. The soldiers that were mostlyunbeaten across continents were simply better fed than those they conqueredwith all the advantages that brought.
Finally, America would be a source of manyof the martial tools used by their Europeans in future wars. Hiram Maxim, it isoften overlooked, was American!
In conclusion, blame the island chains andthe Americas matter!

第二，美洲的巨大耕地使得欧洲避免了马尔萨斯式的崩溃。那些大体上战无不胜的士兵在食物供给上比那些被征服的来得好。
最后，美洲给未来战争中的欧洲人提供了很多的战争装备。经常被忽视的马克沁就是一个美国人！
总之，都是岛链的错，而美洲是很重要的！

Basil Theophanes
Oct 15 · 14 upvotes includingEmmanuel-Francis Nwaolisa Ogomegbunam
I never understand why Ming Chinasupposedly had wooden ships that were far bigger than anything the Europeanscould ever build, yet they didn’t discover Australia, never mind the New World.
Something something about pacifism and soon.

我不明白的是明朝中国可以建造出比当时欧洲人能建造出来的船只都更大，可是他们却没有发现澳洲，更别提新世界了。这可能和中国人的和平主义心态有关吧。



John Curran
Oct 28 · 9 upvotes
The Chinese sent seven huge fleets off toexplore the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433. Theymade it to the east coast of Africa in 1419. They did not sail around the Capeof Good Hope and explore the west side of Africa. Our history in the West wouldbe very different if the Chinese had either sailed north or crossed theAtlantic to find South America.
The emperor who sponsored all theseexpeditions died in 1433 and so did the Chinese exploration. The differencewith Europe was the number of kings competing with other kings willing to fundexpeditions to find places, people, and goods. China was huge and had one boss.When the boss decided he didn’t need fleets of 500 ships, the navy disappearedand so did the possibilities of this type of exploring.

在1405到1433年间，中国七次派出巨大舰队探索南海和印度洋。他们在1419年来到了非洲东海岸。他们没有开过好望角来到非洲西海岸。如果中国人继续向北航行或者穿越大西洋找到南美洲，那么西方历史可能会大不一样。支持这些探险的皇帝在1433年去世，中国的探险也就此结束。区别在于欧洲有很多国王相互竞争着要去资助探险活动以寻找土地，人口和商品。而中国巨大，而且只有一个大老板（皇帝）。当皇帝觉得不再需要500艘船只的大舰队时，海军就消失了，那么探险的可能性也就不存在了。

Norman Tan
Oct 15 · 15 upvotes
The Ming fleet didn't set out to discovernew lands. They were interested in establishing tributary relationships withknown trading centers.

明朝舰队并不是为了寻找新土地。他们是想和已知的贸易中心建立朝贡关系。

Basil Theophanes
Oct 15 · 1 upvote
They could have easily used it for otherpurposes. It sounds to me like an apocryphal cock-measuring story. Not tomention there’s no proof such a thing actually existed.

他们也可以有其他目的啊。在我看来这是一个可疑的故事。更别提根本没有证据表明这种事情存在过。

Norman Tan
Oct 15 · 7 upvotes
I didn't say anything about the size of theships. Only the purpose of the expeditions.
We can speculate all we want on why theydidn't “discover” Australia. Imo, they were just not interested. They had amission and were not on some joy cruise.
And I don't think it's fair to characterisethe claim of the ships’ size as merely some “apocryphal cock measuring”. Thereare contemporary and near contemporary sources, both Chinese and non Chinese,that attest to the dimensions of the fleet ships. I'm not claiming they areright, but they do show that the claims have some historical basis.

我并没有谈论这些船只的大小。只谈到了这些探险的目的。
我们可以随意猜测为什么他们没有发现澳洲。在我看来，他们就是不感兴趣。他们有任务在身，而不是去快乐巡游。、
我认为将船只大小的说法定义为可疑故事是不公平的。有很多资料包括中国的和非中国的证明了这些船只的大小。我不说这些资料都是对的，但是至少表明了这种说法有一定的历史依据。

Clifford Nelson, MS Electrical Engineering(1982)
Answered Sat
Charles C Mann in his books hits itperfectly. What allowed the Europeans to become the world powers as opposed toChina is the discovery of the New World. For China to have gone to the NewWorld would have required a much long voyage than from Europe, and you willnotice that the initial world powers were the ones that were furthest West:Spain and Portugal, and that is probably not an accident.

欧洲人成为世界强权而不是中国，是因为欧洲发现了新世界。而中国要想发现新世界的话，那距离可比欧洲远多了。而且你会发现最先的世界强权都是最西边的那几个国家：西班牙和葡萄牙，这可能不是巧合。

Then, once the Europeans reached Americathey brought malaria and other diseases (apparently it was the Spanish pigsthat were the big carriers of disease). In fact the initial Americans had aproblem with genetic diversity, and so if a disease killed one person in atribe it was likely to kill almost the entire tribe whereas Africans have thegreatest diversity, followed by the Eurasians. This disease devastated thepopulations of the Americas, leaving room for the Europeans to defeat thesignificantly weaken locals.

在欧洲人抵达美洲后，他们带去了疟疾和其他疾病（显然西班牙的猪是主要的疾病携带者）。实际上土着美国人在基因多样化上存在问题，所以如果一种疾病致死了一个人，很可能整个部落都会死亡，而非洲人拥有最强大的基因多样性，随后是欧亚人。这种疾病摧毁了美国土着，所以让欧洲人有机会击败剩余的当地人。

Then the big thing happened that that wasthe discovery of the silver mines, which suddenly made the Europeans rich.Before this it was the Asians that were much better off.

然后发生了一件大事，那就是银矿的发现，这使得欧洲人一夜暴富。在此之前，亚洲人更加富有。

Anonymous
Answered Sep 14, 2014
You should read the book 'Guns, Germ andSteel' by Jared Diamond. I read it this week, it is brilliant!
In that he has tried to answer that exactsame question.
Here's my take on it:
Back in the 16th century, China and Indiawere the 2 most richest countries. They were like the modernUS+UK+Germany+Japan of those days.

你应该去看看《枪炮、病菌与钢铁:人类社会的命运》这本书。非常棒的一半书。书中也回答了你这个问题。
我的看法是：16世纪时期，中国和印度是两个最富有的国家。他们相当于今天的美国，英国，德国和日本之和。



China remained united under an emperor butIndia always had internal conflicts. Even though Moghuls who ruled India from1500s till 1800s, they could never unite the country. They grew weak trying tounite and eventually succumbed and split the country into many kingdoms. So itbecame very easy for British to colonize India because they had to fight small,less powerful, corrupt, disorganized kingdoms. They could not conquer Chinalike they did with India because China remained united albeit under a weakemperor. But European powers extracted lot of concessions that were ashumiliating as being colonized. Japan, on other hand, though small, held backthe colonial powers because they were united and quickly organized theirsociety from what they saw was happening in China.

中国在一个皇帝的统治下保持统一，但印度总有内部冲突。虽然莫卧儿人从16世纪到19世纪一直统治着印度，但是他们从未统一印度这个国家。他们在统一的过程中把自己削弱了，最终屈服，将这个国家分裂成了很多王国。所以英国人很容易殖民印度，因为对手都是腐败无力无组织的小王国。征服中国就没那么容易了，因为一直都是统一的，虽然皇帝较弱。但是欧洲强国还是从中国那里获得了很多让步，等同于殖民了中国。而日本虽然很小，还是克制了殖民强国，因为他们团结统一，看到中国的遭遇后，他们快速的组织自己。