Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 2, 2024

How Globalization Took Shape: Ming China and the World

(Abstract)

Wan Ming

Taking Ming China as the main actor requires that we re-examine the historical origin of globalization and its actual progress from the Ming onward from a global perspective. In the early 15th century, China’s great voyages, represented by Zheng He’s seven voyages to the Western Oceans, laid the foundation for the development of a transition from land-based to maritime exchanges, marking a significant turning point in the development of human civilization. It led to the rise of the Kingdom of Malacca at the jugular of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a rise that was an important symbol of the shift of the center of human exchanges from land to sea; this was the prerequisite and path to the realization of globalization. Globalization was not brought about by the great voyages of the West, but by the demand for silver in China during the Ming dynasty; this drove Asia, Europe and the Americas into the global trading system, playing an important role in the genesis of globalization and making a significant historical contribution.