Question

(98 pts!) Please Help! ASAP- How did European contact with China and Japan in the sixteenth century differ from European contact with the Americas and Africa?

Answer 1

Both the Chinese and the Japanese were initially averse to trade with European nations. The Chinese limited trade to one port and forced trading nations to pay tribute to them. The Japanese in the 16th century limited trade to trade with a few Dutch merchants. The Chinese considered themselves superior to the Europeans; the Japanese feared them.

Answer 2

The European contact with China and Japan was very different from the contact with the Americas and Africa in terms of transactional agreements. The discovery of the Americas impressed the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors due to the amount of profitable resources they found in these lands; gold, silver, coil and different types of woods. But soon enough the Europeans tried to force the inhabitants of these lands to provide their resources. The outcome was the colonial period in which the conquistadors and the maritime powers of the time such as England, Flandes, France, Spain and Portugal arrive to the Americas in order to acquire land by force and indoctrinate the local population, in such of way they assured the control of the Americas from the 15th century until 19th century. On the other hand Africa was used by the Europeans since its early exploration by the Portuguese explorers like Diogo Cao and Bartolome Díaz as a land were resources like gold, charcoal and essentially slaves for labor stayed handy. A great part of the population of the Americas had diminished by the labor imposed by the colonial control, in this way the portuguese provided slaves taken from Africa to the different colonial powers of the Americas and estimated of 100.000 slaves were brought to the Americas during the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries. So, the European contact with the Americas and Africa during the 15th and 16th centuries were given in terms of control and domination while with other realms from the east was a different story, the contact was produced in terms of trading. The Portuguese open wider maritime routes to the east once they achieved crossing by the Cape of Good Hope located in the southern edge of Africa.  The Portuguese usually exercised their control placing strategically coastal fortresses and ports rather than dominating hinterlands which was the case of Africa and the Americas. Trying to impose military control in these lands was way more difficult because they were long-term established kingdoms and empires with great military power, so colonization was not an option. Francisco Serrao opened maritime routes to Portuguese and Europeans to Chinese ports like Macau, Canton and Hong Kong in Chinese territory while in Japanese territory there was Kagoshima, Nagasaki, Kyushu and Tanega shima; routes opened for trading by the year 1522.