James A. Donald wrote:
-- ken wrote:
And when was this stagnation?
R.A. Hettinga wrote:
Two words: Ming Navy
For those who need more words, the Qing Dynasty forbade ownership or building of ocean going vessels, on pain of death - the early equivalent of the iron curtain.
Which was a couple of millenia *after* the distinctive Confucian philosophy became the official code of most Chinese governments.
So that can't be the reason for Chinese stagnation. QED.
(Which as TD pointed out better than I could have was short-lived and nowhere near as general as we used to paint it)
And it was the later Ming period - not Qing
