Social stability is one of the most important conditions for the development of travel and tourism worldwide and China is no exception to this (refer to Figure 2.3). The following examples in Chinese history demonstrate this point on two grounds.
Whenever China became strong and united, and experienced a long period of peace and order, travel and trade increased enormously. Travel and trade would suffer whenever the country became divided and weak.
Under the Mongol emperors of Yuan, the Chinese empire consisted of all China, Korea, Central Asia, India, Persia, and much of Asia Minor, and most of Russia.
Never before, and never since, has this vast land been under the control of a single government. During the Yuan Dynasty, China was strong, stable and open for travel.
Many Chinese were sent by their government to foreign countries. At the same time, many foreigners came to China to satisfy their curiosity, while the Yuan government in Beijing employed many foreigners in its administration. Marco Polo was one of them. During the Yuan Dynasty as never before, China was open to visitors from every country of the Old World. (FitzGerald, 1969)
During periods of social stability, the increasing popularity of travel not only helped to increase knowledge of the outer world, but also helped increase foreign understanding about China. For example, Marco Polo provided a full account of his travelling experiences in China. One of his stories told of his amazement at how local traders traded their goods for a bundle of paper (which of course was the first example of the use of money). This demonstrates that commercial development in China had attained a very high level in the period, both in concept and in practice. Largely due to Marco Polo, knowledge about China in the West increased. Consequently, the Yuan Dynasty has become the period of Chinese history best known to the West.
At the same time, Chinese knowledge about the outer world was also recorded by the court of China. One embassy official of Yuan named Chou Ta-kuan, recorded the best and fullest account of the kingdom of Cambodia and of the city of Angkor as it was in 1295. His account of Chinese settlement in southeast Asia is one of the earliest and the best-known so far. Chou mentioned a large number of Chinese from the southern provinces had traveled to Cambodia (FitzGerald, 1969).
After the death of Kublei Khan, The Yuan world-empire began to dissolve. Unsafe travelling conditions in the later days decreased the opportunities for trade and travel compared with the early period of Yuan. The Chinese Empire became divided and fell into the hands of rival forces often at war with each other. Unsafe road conditions made land travel dangerous and as a result, travel between China and the West declined. The decline of land travel contributed to the rising popularity of ocean travel across Asia. Subsequently, land routes were replaced by sea routes through the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea.
In the early Ming Dynasty, The Chinese were the most sophisticated sea voyagers.
The experience of sea travel obtained by Chenggong saw China establish stability and safety at sea. In the later centuries of the Ming, the Dynasty rulers took little interest in the foreign lands that Chenggong Zheng had visited and explored. The rise of Japanese piracy and the subsequent intrusion into the eastern waters by the Portuguese and the Dutch (who often attacked Chinese ships), discouraged sea travel and weakened Chinese contact with lands overseas. (FitzGerald, 1969)
After a long period of trade with the outer world, the economic strong and socially stable Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties saw a great number of Chinese travel to other countries, Some settled down in the new lands they visited and as a result, the Chinese population overseas increased rapidly. Fearing this population growth, many governments treated them badly. On the other hand, the weakened Ming government
took a position of discouraging travel to other countries, and if emigration to foreign countries occurred, the emigrates bore the consequences. (Nourse, 1944)
In sharp contrast to the attitude of the Tang and Song periods, a spirit of self-sufficiency and stay-at-home complacency began to dominate China in the later Ming period (sixteenth century). Foreign visitors to China were not encouraged. When newcomers arrived from the West, the Ming government’s response to them was conservative and aloof. Firstly, the Ming Government made no effort to make contact with the home countries of the visitors. Secondly, the government refused repeated requests from the visitors to establish diplomatic relations with the court of China.
The Ming government also tried to constrain contacts with foreign countries by trade.
Subsequently, trade was limited to a single port - Canton. This policy continued with the later Qing Dynasty. In the 19th century, an un-stable China became weaker and weaker and was almost powerless at sea. Given the unstable situation of sea travel and a policy by the weaker Chinese government discouraging overseas travel by capital punishment, overseas travel became very dangerous. China’s door was effectively closed. (FitzGerald, 1969)
Because of the British opium traders wanting to profit from their trade with China and also because of British capitalists being anxious to open China’s door to their manufactured goods and to take away industrial raw materials at low prices, the Opium Wars were fought in the 1860s. Partly because of British military superiority at sea and partly because of the internal dis-unity of the Qing government, China lost the war. As part of the Nanjing treaty for the ending of the war, the Manchu government was forced to permit emigration. A great number of Chinese from the southern provinces subsequently became overseas labourers as a result of this relaxation of travel to Nanyang - the southern sea countries as they were collectively called. Foreign trade once again opened the Chinese door to the outside world.
Emigration from China once again became legal (Pan, 1990).
In the middle of the 19th century, Britain sought Chinese “coolie” labourers to work in Southeast Asia, the Americas and Australia. The vast majority of Chinese who took advantage of these opportunities were from the southern coastal area of China (Guangdong and Fujian provinces today). During the 1850s goldrush era in Australia, a large group of Chinese workers ventured to the goldfields of Victoria. They lived in the major towns of Ballarat and Bendigo. Travelling Chinese in Australia peaked at 38,258 in 1861 (Garnaut, 1989). They were about one-quarter of the digger population on many gold fields (Bate, 1988). The majority of the Chinese goldseekers returned to China after the goldrush and about 2,000 stayed permanently.