At that time 40 per cent of world silver was making its way to the Middle Kingdom. Since the 16th century Europeans were eager to obtain mostly silk, tea and porcelain and they paid with a large volume of silver because they had no other goods that China wanted. 1,000 years ago China was the biggest and most developed economy in the world. Among these goods and know-how were paper and the printing process, the compass and seismometer, gunpowder and firearms, the metal bell and banknotes. Through these routes, and typically intermediary traders, China provided other civilisations with original goods or technical inspiration. Maritime trade through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean has a long history.
The counterpart of the overland trading was the maritime Spice Route which extended from south China to the Indonesian islands, and via the Strait of Malacca to India, Sri Lanka and further to Persia, Arabia, east Africa, and via the Red Sea and Egypt to Turkey and southern Europe. Since the beginning of the Common Era silk and other goods were traded regularly, along the Silk Route, across the vast Asian continent to India, central and western Asia and the lands around the Mediterranean Basin. The prime example is Chinese silk – a highly refined fabric – that found its way to ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Partially because of this inward-looking attitude it failed to modernise sufficiently in the 19th century to confront the aggressive industrialising European powers, the United States and Japan from its position of strength.īut, although occasionally reclusive, the Middle Kingdom projected an astonishing influence on Old World cultures as far away as Europe and north and east Africa, as well as closer to home on Indonesian Islands and even Australia. With such self confidence and collective sentiment China was prone to isolation. At different times China was called the Middle or Central Kingdom, implying its superior role, the Centre of Civilisation or even the World.
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