The West vs. the Rest. When and why?

[Maq]

In short, your assumption that the Europeans "brought" trade to Asia is a bunch of dogswopple. It was a vast flourishing commercial area, they shut that trade down by naval power. What they replaced it with was an inferior network, tied up in idiotic Medieval restrictions. This gave them dominance, but not much else. They became the only ones who traded in the Indian Ocean because they deliberately forced out the competition violently, not because they were any better at it.

I find your description of the Portuguese 'contribution' to Indian Ocean trade quite correct. Their trading methods were actually 'anti-trading' methods. No wonder they failed, in the end, and other nations took over. And only then, the trade net became more effective than the one before arrival of the Portuguese.
I never said it did not exist.

 

[Maq]

You're missing the most important difference: slave labor. It was never a part of the economy. Slaves were destined for the army or for domestic service.

Not always so. There were large slave plantations in Iraq and elsewhere during the Caliphate period.
As for the rest, I agree. Work on sugarcane plantations is routinely described as extremely hard. But if you try to suggest that the Muslims did not pursue this goal out of humane concerns, you'll be wrong.

 

[Henry IX]

There remains a strong tendency for our history to remain warped by 18th and 19th century prejudices as concerns non-Europeans. A good example of this is the Australian Aborigines. Although their technology was very primitive in may ways they also managed some quite impressive feats and surprising discoveries.

Some example:

1. Many Aboriginal groups systematically harvested and replanted grasses for their grains which were ground up to make bread (called 'cake' by some of the early Europeans to encounter it). Archaeological evidence of grindstones suggests this practice has been going on for over 10000 years (some historians have argued for significantly longer periods). Many Australian grasses with plentiful, accessible seed heads show clear evidence of breeding (such as simultaneous seed production). It is possible that agriculture has a longer history in Australia than in the Middle East.

2. Trade networks were long and extensive with central Australian ochres being traded as far away as the coasts (over 2000km) and shells being traded back into the centre. In addition there were groups on some major rivers such as the Murray that traded as a major part of their livelihood. Over 1/3rd of the population of South Australia died of European diseases before Europeans arrived there.

3. Large and complex modifications to rivers and streams were made to allow harvesting of fish. Some of these were built in rock and show evidence of ongoing use and maintenance for thousands of years.

4. There is a large body of ecological and documentary evidence that the Australian environment was systematically manipulated and maintained to produce a wide range of foodstuffs and tools within close proximity. That is to allow easy gathering of plentiful food year round and in virtually all climatic conditions. The testimony of early settlers suggests that the Aboriginal people spent as little as 4-6 hours of their day getting food and most of the rest was spent on ceremonies and recreation.

Although this is all testified to in accounts written by Europeans, the narrative of 'a primitive, stone aged people practicing a simple hunter-gather lifestyle' has been so dominant for the last 200 years that the mass of evidence that indicates a more complex and nuanced reality has been simply ignored. When assessing the achievements of Europeans it is important to realise that the narrative of European superiority is a self reinforcing meme which has had an extremely distorting impact on our understanding of history, which is only just beginning to be challenged by academic historians. To roughly paraphrase Mark Twain: It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, but what you do know that just ain't true.

 

[Maq]

World history is not Paradox history, where what the king says happens. Or even notices, or cares.

I agree wholeheartedly. (I hate one-click-solutions of complex problems in EUIV.)
But I think my point stands. Europeans - more of a private enterprises than public ones - tried, struggled, and finally found their ways.
Chinese did not. To a large part because - unlike in Europe - it was in Emperor's powers to BAN such ventures.

 

[icedt729]

If I should hesitate a guess based on my (limited) knowledge of those to states history, I would say it was them being in a state of almost perpetual civil war, either openly or within the halls of the emperor(s) involving both the aristocracy and the bureaucracy. I know this is probably an extremely limited and poor understanding, but my impression of both Chinese and Japanese history is that they were a lot more fragmented than contemporary states.

"Perpetual" is an exaggeration. Line up wars and social disturbances in East Asia against the same era in Europe or the Middle East and you wouldn't get the impression that China or Japan were particularly unstable. But, we learn about China through the Three Kingdoms and Japan through the Warring States, so the idea that they were lands of constant civil war catches on.

"Fragmented" also depends on what exactly you mean by that. For one, China and Japan were very distinct, socially and culturally. China's political system was very top-down and while its sheer size meant a fair bit of leeway for provincial authorities, I wouldn't call China "fragmented" except in a few specific time periods. Other posters have mostly criticized the Chinese system for being too centralized, too uniform, and too hierarchical, and while I think this is also an oversimplification it's definitely more accurate than the belief that China was plagued by constant disorder, plague and war. Keep in mind that Chinese provinces are on the scale of nations in other parts of the world so even in disunity China was made up of fairly large, internally-coherent chunks. Japan, meanwhile, was fragmented in the sense that the Imperial house's efforts to create a Chinese-style unitary, monarchic state were not successful and the landed aristocracy militarized, becoming something like European nobility. But again, the idea of Japan in constant turmoil is false. This perception comes almost entirely from the Warring States period which ran from the 1450's until around 1600- before and after that period Japan was a reasonably peaceful place. For scale, Japan's population was about as large as France's throughout medieval and early-modern times.

My thinking is mostly based on how China through its history keeps disintegrating into huge cataclysmic civil wars until emerging with a new ruling family and then the cycle continues. Regarding Japan, my thinking is based on how all the clans keep fighting each other, while the emperor sits as a powerless figurehead at the top. Basically I view these states as two other "Europes" - meaning lots of nations/entities competing with each other for more power over their neighbors.

This isn't really accurate. For all the struggles in keeping political unity over the subcontinent that is China or the mountainous archipelago that is Japan, both Chinese and Japanese had a strong sense of nationhood born out of religion, culture, language, and founding myths. In periods of disunity, it was taken for granted that somebody was going to reunify it. It was unthinkable that there would be more than one China (see: PRC-ROC relations). Japanese daimyo jockeyed for power and influence but never thought of seceding from Japan. There was nothing comparable in Europe. Frankish kingdoms were seen as sovereign and legitimate, not some kind of transitory stage between Rome and the next European empire.

Also, I believe the Chinese were very aware of what they considered China and therefore of interest and not China and therefore meaningless. I'm less sure about Japanese territorial ambitions, but if they all fight each other on the home islands then it doesn't leave much wealth for exploration - Maybe they did explore different parts of the pacific but those in power couldn't be bothered to "waste" precious resources that could be used to beat up their neighbor instead.

If my "theory"(maybe idea is a better word) above holds up to any scrutiny it would make sense why they didn't attempt to colonize anything. Everything was focused on preserving internal stability or attain more power.

Another possibility is that they didn't have any wants they couldn't produce or easily trade for themselves. That seems to make exploration and colonization quite pointless and an actual waste of money.

There was a great deal of emigration out of China in medieval and early modern times, especially from Southern provinces, but they were merchants who moved to foreign ports along the existing commercial network. So there were large Chinese populations in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia long before there was a serious effort to colonize Taiwan. There were fewer Japanese emigres but they also had settlements in the Philippines and Thailand prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate. So, the people who chose to leave China or Japan were not in search of virgin land or natural resources, they were pursuing business opportunities, and they went where the harbors were. Chinese went to Taiwan to fish but very rarely to settle. Also, Taiwanese aborigines were not affected by Eurasian diseases like Amerindians or Australian aborigines were and posed a serious danger to humble farmers looking for lands to settle.

To compare Europeans colonizing the Americas to Asians not colonizing Taiwan, we need to look at how and why Europeans chose to immigrate. European explorers moved in small expeditions, funded by investors (private or royal) who were interested in discovering new routes to the ports of the Indies. In Central and South America, they found gold and silver, which drew further settlers looking to strike it rich. In the Caribbean and Southeastern US, they found climates suitable for sugar, cotton, tobacco, rice, and other crops that couldn't be grown in much of Europe- investors shipped indentured or enslaved laborers to these plantations as human capital. It wasn't until the mix of mines, plantations, fur-trapping, slave-trading, and the towns, ports and shipping to support them had developed for a few centuries that large-scale, voluntary immigration to the Americas took place in the 18th and especially 19th centuries.

So, in contrast- European investors would fund exploration of, and emigration to, the Americas because there were scarce resources there and they could get a return on those labor and shipping costs (the age of a common person just buying a ticket and hopping on a transatlantic voyage was still far away). In contrast, if you're a merchant house in China, Korea or Japan you're going to send people to the commercial hubs of Southeast Asia, exactly the ports which Europeans were seeking access to, rather than send them to Taiwan to fight aborigines and dig irrigation ditches. European colonization was not about individual people sailing halfway across the world to grow wheat, it was about governments, joint-stock ventures and merchants pursuing serious commercial opportunity.

 

[Maq]

rather than send them to Taiwan to fight aborigines and dig irrigation ditches

To that we should add that agriculture-driven colonization of Han people into today's southern China lasted for many centuries and continues until recently.
There's another side-point I'd like to mention: It seems that Chinese who emigrated regularly did better than those who lived under Imperial rule. As if Imperial government was an obstacle against development in industry and trade. Here, Confucian contempt for merchants likely played its role.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I find your description of the Portuguese 'contribution' to Indian Ocean trade quite correct. Their trading methods were actually 'anti-trading' methods. No wonder they failed, in the end, and other nations took over. And only then, the trade net became more effective than the one before arrival of the Portuguese.
I never said it did not exist.

They didn't "fail". They were just outnumbered by Dutch. The Voorcompagnie had more cash capital and thus could send larger fleets per annum. e.g. in 1598-1601, when the Portuguese sent one fleet of per year, the Dutch sent fifteen fleets. Dutch pumped more money, ships and men in a few short years than anyone else had ever done. Indeed, if the literature of the time is to be believed, it was the "scandal" of the century. Contemporary writers were convinced the Dutch companies were driving their entire country into ruin by sinking so much treasure into these ridiculously large fleets, that they were sure there was no money left in Holland anymore.

But that upfront investment paid off. The Dutch wave of ships was too numerous for the Portuguese patrols to track down and stop, and in very short time period, they had seized forts and ports all around. And they made the return on their investment by piracy, not trade. The VOC doubled its capital by seizing the cargo of just one Portuguese ship returning from China, anchored off Singapore.

(FWIW, in that same time period, the poor English managed to sent only one measly fleet, which accomplished nothing. It was only years later that the EIC eventually earned access to Indian markets, not by trading skills but by mercenary service, putting their ships at the disposal of the Moghul Emperor as his virtual navy.)

17th C. Dutch operated no differently than the 16th C. Portuguese had. Exact same system, indeed they copied the Portuguese playbook, quite literally (Linschoten published it). The Dutch used piracy, bombardment and a policy of terror, seizing cargoes, attacking and massacring not only the locals, but also their Portuguese and English competitors, imposing treaties, forcing ports to close at gunpoint, and enforcing a monopoly by force with the same dumb restrictions.

 

[Dewirix]

See my update

But my point is that housework has economic consequences and aspects. It's not a bubble of inactivity. ("domestic" slaves were also involved a whole lot in other reas, like assisting craftsmen and so forth, at least by the time of the Ottomans, but yes, usually not in the actual "productive" role, but rather doing peripheral stuff, though the ottoman tendency to have temporary work contracts that were formally enslavement muddles things up a bit)

As Paul Samuelson said, GDP falls when a man marries his maid. Of course, this is because GDP is a flawed measure of economic activity that only counts waged labour as being productive. This gives rise to a situation where caring for children and the elderly is counted as unproductive activity if family members do it, but being third substitute goalkeeper for a Premiership team is seen a highly productive.

For those interested, there's this paper, Accounting for Household Production in the National Accounts, 1965–2010, which estimates that nominal GDP in the US would have been 26 per cent higher if nonmarket household production was included (and would have been 39 per cent higher in 1965).

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I agree wholeheartedly. (I hate one-click-solutions of complex problems in EUIV.)
But I think my point stands. Europeans - more of a private enterprises than public ones - tried, struggled, and finally found their ways.
Chinese did not. To a large part because - unlike in Europe - it was in Emperor's powers to BAN such ventures.

It is in the power of any monarch to ban such ventures. And, in a sense, every European monarch did so, didn't you know? They banned all such ventures, save for those licensed by the owner of a royal charter.

The French couldn't send ships to Canada. Only the Prince Henri de Conde could. And if the prince didn't feel like sending a ship, or didn't have enough money to do so, then nobody could. And as it happened, he didn't feel like it. And neither did previous and successive holders, with the result that no Frenchman went to Canada in the half-century after Cartier.

But we could go on, with the Portuguese banning all trade in the Indian Ocean, the Spanish banning trade with Latin America, the English banning trade with the American colonies, etc.

If the inane absurdities of monarchical bans on trade intrigue you, I have a very, very long list.

I love starting with the 1304 decree of Philip IV banning all exports of goods from France altogether.

If you have a hard time understanding the logic of the Chinese emperor, read up on the Capetian kings, or the Tudors now that we're at it.

Blanket trade bans are usually opening gambits to controlling and selling "exemptions", a tidy bit of revenue that every blue-blood resorts to, when they've run out of Jews or Templars to expropriate. If the Chinese merchant classes didn't have the wherewithal to raise enough cash to bribe the Emperor for an exemption, license or charter, that's the merchants' fault, not the Emperor's.

 

[Jos de trol]

You seem to have some very naive ideas about how exploration happened.

Let's take a parallel example. There is gold in West Africa. Plenty of it. Known since at least the 11th Century, and certainly by the 14th, to all Europeans. Just how many kings in Europe - just ten minutes away from West Africa - "ordered" their people to sail to Africa?

All those streams of gold coming up to Morocco didn't persuade a single King of England to send a single measly ship to take a ten minute trip to Africa? For centuries?

And after the Portuguese showed the way in 1430, and were hitting those gold mines like no tomorrow, why did it take until the 1550s for the first Englishman to finally try to sail there?

So we can excuse the King of England for not sailing to Morocco for centuries, where he knows there's gold, but somehow the Emperor of China is supposed to do something or other about a Pacific Crossing to a hoary unknown continent?

Or let's try another example. The Portuguese hit the the motherload in Asia in the 1490s. It had no technological or geographic differences from England, France, or Germany or whomever. They were hauling back loads of spices and valuable goods. And they were unloading them in Antwerp for all northern Europeans to see.

Just how many expeditions did the kings of England, France or whatever order to go to Asia? That's right. None. For an entire century, the Portuguese were the only ones there, hauling back riches beyond belief, quite on their lonesome. Nobody else even tried to go there.

Or another example. After the Dutch and English finally entered the Indian Ocean in the early 17th, how long did the French take? Now that all the cool kids are going, surely France should too? They sent two ships, both sank. They didn't send another ship for the next twenty years. Why did they not go? Not for lack of trying this time, because the King of France this time offered anyone who went all the privileges and monopolies in the world they could ask for. Nobody took him up. They didn't go. Couldn't raise the money to pay for it. And the English barely did too - they were ready to quit trying, like the French, if not for "one more go" to recover the capital they had lost on their first run.

World history is not Paradox history, where what the king says happens. Or even notices, or cares.

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the Chinese emperor, undisputed head of a wealthy superpower with a divine mandate, with the English king.

The Chinese navy could and did put up a strong fight against the Portugese, and surely they had the infrastructure, competence and resources available to send out exploratory expeditions had they chosen to do so.

 

[Maq]

17th C. Dutch operated no differently than the 16th C. Portuguese had. Exact same system, indeed they copied the Portuguese playbook, quite literally (Linschoten published it). The Dutch used piracy, bombardment and a policy of terror, seizing cargoes, attacking and massacring not only the locals, but also their Portuguese and English competitors, imposing treaties, forcing ports to close at gunpoint, and enforcing a monopoly by force with the same dumb restrictions.

The Dutch used force to back their interests, that's true. But their approach was much different from that of the Portuguese. They realized 90% of their turnover in Asian/African ports. That means, they moved cargoes from one place to another in Indian and Pacific oceans. If they acted like you suggested - by brute force applied without distinction - nobody would trade with them, and they would only bring the spoils back to Holland. That was not the prevailing practice.

 

[Maq]

It is in the power of any monarch to ban such ventures. And, in a sense, every European monarch did so, didn't you know? They banned all such ventures, save for those licensed by the owner of a royal charter.

The French couldn't send ships to Canada. Only the Prince Henri de Conde could. And if the prince didn't feel like sending a ship, or didn't have enough money to do so, then nobody could. And as it happened, he didn't feel like it. And neither did previous and successive holders, with the result that no Frenchman went to Canada in the half-century after Cartier.

But we could go on, with the Portuguese banning all trade in the Indian Ocean, the Spanish banning trade with Latin America, the English banning trade with the American colonies, etc.

If the inane absurdities of monarchical bans on trade intrigue you, I have a very, very long list.

I love starting with the 1304 decree of Philip IV banning all exports of goods from France altogether.

If you have a hard time understanding the logic of the Chinese emperor, read up on the Capetian kings, or the Tudors now that we're at it.

Blanket trade bans are usually opening gambits to controlling and selling "exemptions", a tidy bit of revenue that every blue-blood resorts to, when they've run out of Jews or Templars to expropriate. If the Chinese merchant classes didn't have the wherewithal to raise enough cash to bribe the Emperor for an exemption, license or charter, that's the merchants' fault, not the Emperor's.

Your list of 'trade bans' is exactly as long as the list of 'trade ban failures'.
I believe charters were necessary primarily to protect the crew from accusation of piracy in times of almost permanent wars among European powers.
Restrictions existed, of course. The big difference between them and the Chinese policies was that that they were aimed at supporting domestic merchants against foreign competition, while the latter were not. The Confucian Emperors basically hated merchants, and ther goal was to turn foreign trade into Imperial domain restricted to minimum level.
There's really immense difference in approaches towards international trade between Europeans and Ming/Qing Empires.

 

[Wektor]

There remains a strong tendency for our history to remain warped by 18th and 19th century prejudices as concerns non-Europeans. A good example of this is the Australian Aborigines. Although their technology was very primitive in may ways they also managed some quite impressive feats and surprising discoveries.

Some example:

1. Many Aboriginal groups systematically harvested and replanted grasses for their grains which were ground up to make bread (called 'cake' by some of the early Europeans to encounter it). Archaeological evidence of grindstones suggests this practice has been going on for over 10000 years (some historians have argued for significantly longer periods). Many Australian grasses with plentiful, accessible seed heads show clear evidence of breeding (such as simultaneous seed production). It is possible that agriculture has a longer history in Australia than in the Middle East.

2. Trade networks were long and extensive with central Australian ochres being traded as far away as the coasts (over 2000km) and shells being traded back into the centre. In addition there were groups on some major rivers such as the Murray that traded as a major part of their livelihood. Over 1/3rd of the population of South Australia died of European diseases before Europeans arrived there.

3. Large and complex modifications to rivers and streams were made to allow harvesting of fish. Some of these were built in rock and show evidence of ongoing use and maintenance for thousands of years.

4. There is a large body of ecological and documentary evidence that the Australian environment was systematically manipulated and maintained to produce a wide range of foodstuffs and tools within close proximity. That is to allow easy gathering of plentiful food year round and in virtually all climatic conditions. The testimony of early settlers suggests that the Aboriginal people spent as little as 4-6 hours of their day getting food and most of the rest was spent on ceremonies and recreation.

Although this is all testified to in accounts written by Europeans, the narrative of 'a primitive, stone aged people practicing a simple hunter-gather lifestyle' has been so dominant for the last 200 years that the mass of evidence that indicates a more complex and nuanced reality has been simply ignored. When assessing the achievements of Europeans it is important to realise that the narrative of European superiority is a self reinforcing meme which has had an extremely distorting impact on our understanding of history, which is only just beginning to be challenged by academic historians. To roughly paraphrase Mark Twain: It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, but what you do know that just ain't true.

I couldn't agree more with that posts - and it reinforces what I firmly believe and what I stated in one of my previous posts - human cultures, in general, tend to progress and strive to optimise their technology in areas which are critical to them. If one carefully studies various cultures across trhe globe, one finds out that in most cases they progressed as far as it was possible in their situation. In fact, human ability to seek rational means to better their lives is astounding. Of course, there are instances when taboos, prejudices (religious or cultural) or lack on interest in some areas, or lack of competition with other cultures, hinders the progress. Some cultures even regressed, mostly in cases of isolation, when some of technologies or ideas they had before became unnecessary. Bu, overally - the ancient concept that some "Savage" peoples live in a continuous "state of nature" has been falsified so many times, it's strange it's still around. For obvious environmnetal reasons, pace of progress varies across the globe. And also, some cultures reach the point, where without outside influence they are unable to breakthrough (and achieve, for example, agriculture or urbanisation) - becuase of lack of surplus of food or suitable crops - and that's a problem that Australians, Inuits or Patagonian natives faced.

And, btw, thanks for some insights in Australian aboriginal culture - it is totally unique and fascinating, being probably the one that evolved (more or less) independently of others for a longest period of time of all human cultures. They are also a good example of how there is no strict boundary between hunter-gatherer culture and early agricultural (or horticultural) subsistence - some of their ways of dealing with the bush were, as you stated, quite resembling agriculture, as their actions were rationally aimed towards ensuring gathering more food in the future.

 

[Tufto]

Many people on these forums noted that Europeans had little to offer to Asian societies, while they imported many goods unavailable in Europe. That is not entirely correct. What Europeans offered vere service - the trade itself. They created trading net ranging from Basra to Japan, effective on the level which has not been achieved ever before. (It is during this period when Silk Road definitely lost in importance, and Central Asia became impoverished.) Europeans realized 90% of their turnover in Asian seas alone. Imports to Europe were marginal in volumes.

While @Abdul Goatherd has pointed out a lot of the flaws in this statement already, I think some other glaring problems should also be mentioned:

1) While the land routes to China did decline, land trade in general remained very profitable. While shipping between India and Iran was largely done via the sea-routes into Hormuz and later Bandar Abbas, most of the shipping which came into Iran via India was sold on through the Ottoman and Muscovite land routes, not via the trading companies. The Safavids afforded little importance to Europe because their economy depended so little on them; if the India-Iran sea route was disrupted for any reason, then more merchants simply went via Qandahar or Central Asia.

2) The Europeans did not dominate Asian trade; for example, the Armenians (especially the New Julfan Armenians) continually outcompeted the Europeans. They were largely responsible for trade between Iran and the Ottomans, dominated the Iranian silk trade and had commercial colonies stretching from Amsterdam to Siam. It got so bad for the European companies that the EIC allowed Armenians to become full members, while the VOC largely gave up attempting to export Iranian silk. In addition to the Armenians, there were still large numbers of Iranian merchants in the eastern Indian Ocean operating out of the Deccan and Hindu merchants handling the Iran-India trade who were perfectly capable of turning a strong profit.

3) Central Asia did not really become impoverished- they made quite a killing on the horse-trade with India.

Getting into the 18th and the 19th centuries, things rapidly change, but such outdated generalisations are not really applicable in the 16th-17th centuries (especially the 17th centuries). The Dutch made a killing, to be sure, but that didn't mean that the Asian merchants lost out.

 

[Yakman]

I took the pain reading original documents reagarding Congo State. I disagree. It was a ruthless exploitation, but not a genocide. The population declined due to rapid spread of sleeping sickness and other diseases. There was no concerted action targeted on extermination of any part of indigenous population.

The tens of thousands of men and women whose hands and feet were amputated as examples for others to gather more rubber might disagree with you.

As E.D. Morel discovered, the cargoes bound for Congo were comprised mostly of chains and weapons.

 

[Maq]

The tens of thousands of men and women whose hands and feet were amputated

Believe me, that was a lie. Well-documented cases numbered in tens, not tens of thousands.
The story behind the Congo scandal was that according to Berlin agreement of 1884, Congo basin and Central Africa as a whole ought to have remained a free trade zone. At the beginning, few were interested in Congo, with the exception of Belgian king, of course. Once he overcame the worst obstacles, i.e. built a railway from Boma to Leopoldville (=Kinshasa) and established steamship traffic on Congo river, he and his company strived hard to pay off their debts. Natural rubber was the first choice since it's been ready to collect (while plantations of coffee etc. took time before yielding any crop).
In several years - thanks to ruthless pressure on native rubber collectors, incl. physical punishments - the rubber industry proved quite profittable, and at that moment foreign investors, esp. British, suddenly showed interest to participate in it. However, they learned that in the meantime Leopold created various barriers against foreign competition. At that moment these investors initiated campaign targeted against... not protective trade policies, because the public would not get interested, but against natives' rights abuse in Congo. They gained international attention thanks to massive exaggeration of what actually happened in Congo.
That is why public believe until now that there was a genocide in Congo, but that's far from true. Population declined due to epidemics (which outbursted due to increased traffic among remote areas), but people still believe that the Belgians killed everything that moved. That's a nonsense.
The truth is that things were not worse than in Angola and Mozambique, that is, unacceptable but far from mass killings, but since the Portuguese kept their colonies open to foreign investors, nobody cared. (And to criticize openly the German ruthless exploitation in Tanganyika was too sensitive.)
So, to make things absolutely clear, Leopold actually attempted to turn his colony into a kind of labour camp, forced labour was widespread, his company's employees pushed hard to make the Africans work, and physical punishment (whipping) was quite often in use. But mutilations and murders were excesses, made almost exclusively by Africans in company's service, and these excesses were prosecuted. All in all, forced labour - yes, genocide - no.
The positive sides of Leopoldian administration should not be overlooked. It outlawed slavery, repelled foreign (Muslim) slave traders, succesfully suppressed slave trade and freed many slaves (exact numbers are missing, but slavery was widespread among Congo natives). It also succesfully fought against cannibalism and reduced this practice significantly. Most importantly, Leopold's regime stopped permanent warfare among various tribes, and thus saved many people from death, slavery, rape, looting... and mutilations.
The fact that Leopoldian rule did not fit to humane standards should not hide the fact that before European occupation, the state of things was even much worse. Leopold's weakness was that he ran Congo State as a private person, so he could not afford deficit spending. That's why he was impatient and his employees ruthless to make the colony profittable as soon as possible, while the expenses to pacify the country were indeed enormous. Last but not least - it wasn't easy to recruit people to work in Congo, so that various people of low character slipped in. There was not much to choose from...

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

The Dutch used force to back their interests, that's true. But their approach was much different from that of the Portuguese. They realized 90% of their turnover in Asian/African ports. That means, they moved cargoes from one place to another in Indian and Pacific oceans. If they acted like you suggested - by brute force applied without distinction - nobody would trade with them, and they would only bring the spoils back to Holland. That was not the prevailing practice.

Go read the chronicles and company logs. It was exactly the same practice, only more brutal in many cases.

e..g. they exterminated the entire population the islands of Banda, the world's only source of nutmeg, because the inhabitants refused to accept a treaty that gave the Dutch an exclusive trade monopoly, and insisted that Banda was a free market with Portuguese, Malays, Chinese, etc.

The Dutch famously rounded up and massacred all Englishmen - white European protestants, not brown khaffirs - in the spice islands.

And piracy, blockades, attacks and assaults on the Portuguese are, of course, far too numerous to mention. And not only to break in and seize their positions at the beginning, but it continued to be routine long after.

Remember, they intrigued to ensure the expulsion of all Portuguese and suppression of Christians in Japan, order to gain an exclusive trade monopoly in Japan. You whine about the "closing of China". That may have been the idea of the Chinese Emperor. The "closing of Japan" was the idea of the Dutch.

 

[Maq]

While @Abdul Goatherd has pointed out a lot of the flaws in this statement already, I think some other glaring problems should also be mentioned:

1) While the land routes to China did decline, land trade in general remained very profitable. While shipping between India and Iran was largely done via the sea-routes into Hormuz and later Bandar Abbas, most of the shipping which came into Iran via India was sold on through the Ottoman and Muscovite land routes, not via the trading companies. The Safavids afforded little importance to Europe because their economy depended so little on them; if the India-Iran sea route was disrupted for any reason, then more merchants simply went via Qandahar or Central Asia.

2) The Europeans did not dominate Asian trade; for example, the Armenians (especially the New Julfan Armenians) continually outcompeted the Europeans. They were largely responsible for trade between Iran and the Ottomans, dominated the Iranian silk trade and had commercial colonies stretching from Amsterdam to Siam. It got so bad for the European companies that the EIC allowed Armenians to become full members, while the VOC largely gave up attempting to export Iranian silk. In addition to the Armenians, there were still large numbers of Iranian merchants in the eastern Indian Ocean operating out of the Deccan and Hindu merchants handling the Iran-India trade who were perfectly capable of turning a strong profit.

3) Central Asia did not really become impoverished- they made quite a killing on the horse-trade with India.

Getting into the 18th and the 19th centuries, things rapidly change, but such outdated generalisations are not really applicable in the 16th-17th centuries (especially the 17th centuries). The Dutch made a killing, to be sure, but that didn't mean that the Asian merchants lost out.

Well-informed and balanced. Thanks.

 

[Yakman]

The positive sides of Leopoldian administration should not be overlooked. It outlawed slavery, repelled foreign (Muslim) slave traders, succesfully suppressed slave trade and freed many slaves (exact numbers are missing, but slavery was widespread among Congo natives). It also succesfully fought against cannibalism and reduced this practice significantly. Most importantly, Leopold's regime stopped permanent warfare among various tribes, and thus saved many people from death, slavery, rape, looting... and mutilations.

if you outlaw slavery and then violently force people to work then you don't accomplish much.

The fact that Leopoldian rule did not fit to humane standards should not hide the fact that before European occupation, the state of things was even much worse.

utterly false. hundreds of thousands of people died under belgian rule who otherwise would have been alive and well. There was brutal forced labor, massacre, terror, and oppression. The Belgian Free State was an abomination and a horror so terrible that it made people think that Africans had *gasp* rights.

Leopold's weakness was that he ran Congo State as a private PRISON, so he could not afford deficit spending.

fixed.

 

[Herbert West]

Remember, they intrigued to ensure the expulsion of all Portuguese and suppression of Christians in Japan, order to gain an exclusive trade monopoly in Japan. You whine about the "closing of China". That may have been the idea of the Chinese Emperor. The "closing of Japan" was the idea of the Dutch.

Hmmm .I'm intrigued. Tell me more.