Not surprisingly Menzies’ book appeals to Chinese pride. In 2003 Chinese President Hu Jintao, addressing a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, repeated the claim that the Chinese had discovered and settled Australia three centuries before Captain Cook.
Resources debunking 1421 are here and and here.
[Taiwan] [1421] [China]
12 comments:
See Hu's speech here:
http://www.australianpolitics.com/news/2003/10/03-10-24b.shtml
"Back in the 1420s, the expeditionary fleets of China's Ming Dynasty reached Australian shores."
Ha ha! Of course the Chinese came to Australia, they would have been totally incompetent seamen to have missed such a big lump of land! But they did not "discover" it. Aboriginals were here probably about 60,000 years ago which predates the Chinese somewhat.
There are bad taste stories from the "Top End" which indicate that Chinese was on the menu amongst aboriginals a long long time ago. Maybe that's why they didn't stay.....
LOL. Chinese were just too thin, I'll bet. Not like us pudgy Europeans...
Thanks, David.
I've always thought this was one of China's biggest mistakes, not establishing settlments on the AU continent. Today, they are desperate for clean land and resources. AU should have been Chinese, but they screwed up. Aussies today are lucky because the land would probably be a shithole if the Chinese ruled the land. In addition, kagaroos, kowalas, etc. would all be extinct since they would have been eaten.
Australian aboriginese first came to Australia, that is a well-known fact.
It was "who came after the aborigines?", that was debatable.
It used to be Captain Cook that was the first European (or non-Aboriginese) came to Australia, at least that was what I was told by my history teacher back in 1991.
Then he showed a video tape by ABC (or SBS? Australia's multicultural TV channel) in the history class that shows theories and evidence of other people came before Captain Cook. I think there were four others but I can only remember one being Portugese and one being the Cheng He.
I suppose who discovered what doesn't matter now, except to historians and people who want to use the history in their favour.
hmm...
he said "reached", he didn't say "discovered".
@taipeimarc,
chinese used to live comfortable lives at home (they were in affluent agricultural society, population was 1/10 of what it is today).
so colonization or exapnsion never came to their mind. they even restricted movement to hainan/taiwan, because more people in the mainland means more tax.
the war against the huns/mogolians were mainly self-defensive. the territory expansion has almost exclusively been done by the Manchurians.
yes, that is a mistake with hindsight. but that also have been used as evidence that china was never really aggressive.
While Sun Bin is right that the expansion was made by the Manchurians who conquered Tibet, Xinxiang etc after they conquered China. One can still ask why did then did these non-aggressive Chinese become aggressive in wanting to keep what had become part of the Manchurian kingdom.
so colonization or exapnsion never came to their mind.
That's the funniest thing I. have. ever. read. I think I'm going to laugh about it for a week.
Michael
Michael:
Though seems funny, that argument is actually used quite often for the Chinese to ''demonstrate'' their ''non-agressive'' nature. In a way, it could be plausible but to the extent I think ancient Chinese are too self-centered and once they think "Middle Kidom" is the whole world (or the best part of the world) there's no need (or they don't give a rat ass about) to consider "conquering" or even visit places outside China.
And that now I think is just being interpreted to their favour. But then again, isn't that what happened to many history events throughout the world? Of course, I am not going to say what's right and what's wrong...
Its REALLY obvious that the Aboriginals discovered Australia. they have been around for at least 50,000 years!! thats a long time b4 anyone else came to Australia!! aboriginals did discover Australia coz scientists say that they came here from asia during an ice age when the sea level was 150m below wat it is today. australia, tasmania and New Guinea were all joined by dry land.
xoxox
Aborginals came first....
As for the Pale face trash like Cook, he's nothing but a destroyer.
To all the whiteboy's objection to the Chinese "discovery" is nothing but a veiled racist buggers that that they are....lol
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