Many world history textbooks compare Zheng He’s early 15th century voyages to the slightly later voyages of European explorers. At the time of these early voyages of exploration, Europe was still peripheral to trade in Afroeurasia, not a major player in the commercial world. These early voyages were primarily state-supported commercial ventures.
Textbook descriptions of Zheng He’s voyages sometimes present them as China’s one great movement out into the wider world, followed by a closing and a turning away from all foreign engagement. This interpretation of events is misleading (the Ming did not turn away from all foreign engagement) and - more importantly - it takes the voyages out of their East Asian context. Rather than asking why the Ming government discontinued the voyages, a more interesting question might be why Zheng He’s voyages happened in the first place.
To interpret Zheng He’s voyages within the Ming context, consider these concepts:
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At the time of Zheng He’s voyages, China was arguably the most significant single node in the interconnected Afroeurasian trade networks, in terms of size, wealth, and what it produced. It was part of a deeply interconnected maritime world that extended from the Indian Ocean to India, to (what is now) Indonesia. It also had long-standing land-based interactions with polities to its west, north, east, and south.
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The Ming empire inherited many governing practices and policies from the preceding dynasty, the Mongols. Each Ming emperor - especially the early emperors - made decisions about what to retain and how to position the Ming vis a vis the Mongols. The Yongle (3rd Ming) emperor’s stance was to reclaim some of the Mongol empire’s extensive trans-regional influence and multi-ethnic character. Earlier and later emperors had different perspectives about how much to do that and in which direction(s).
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The emergence of the Ming dynasty coincided with a steep rise in piracy in maritime East Asia, which affected the Ming government’s approach to maritime trade. In this context, uncontrolled maritime trade was seen as a threat to national security and order in the region. Managing international trade under the umbrella of foreign relations was, in part, an attempt to manage the piracy problem.