cut off one 's country from the outside world(bì guān suǒ guó)

cut off one 's country from the outside world

The policy of closing the door to the outside world is a typical isolationism. China's overall national strength and development are lagging behind western countries because of strict restrictions on foreign economic, cultural and scientific exchanges.

After Zheng He's voyages to the West (1405-1433) from Chengzu to Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty imposed a sea ban and built the great wall of Ming Dynasty in the north, which was the symbol of locking the country.

In 1723 (the first year of Yongzheng), because of the etiquette dispute with the Vatican, Catholicism was banned, which was regarded as the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. By 1757 (the 22nd year of Qianlong), the policy of "one port trade" was implemented.

The "closed door" policy originated from the British businessmen who tried to sell their goods to China at that time. Marx accepted this view in his article, and later it was written into textbooks in the 1950s.

China

The origin of seclusion

The view that China implemented the policy of "closing the door to the outside world" or "closing the door to the outside world" in the early Qing Dynasty originated from the British businessmen who tried to sell their goods (especially opium) to China at that time. Marx accepted this view in his article "Chinese revolution and European Revolution" written for the New York Daily Tribune in 1853. Therefore, this view was incorporated into the mainstream ideology of China in the 1950s, and was pushed to the Ming Dynasty by "scholars" and written into textbooks. As a result, a "common sense" has formed in the minds of most mainland Chinese: in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China was "closed to the outside world", and "closed to the outside world" was an important reason for China's transformation from advanced to backward in history and even long-term beating in modern times. Even if some scholars disagree with this view, it is impossible to say, that is to say, they are immediately submerged by the mainstream ideology. "closing the door to the outside world" is reflected in various restrictive policies on overseas trade, among which the most serious one is "sea ban", the second is "one port trade", and the third is other restrictive policies. many articles equate "sea ban" with "Seclusion". But the definition of "sea ban" is not simple and clear. According to various documents, the criteria for judging the existence of maritime prohibition are quite different. Some people take whether there is a written prohibition as the standard, while others judge according to the opening and closing of the municipal shipping department or the customs. Moreover, there are comprehensive and partial maritime prohibitions, which include prohibitions on specific ports, sea areas, routes (such as the eastern and southern oceans) or countries (such as Japan), and only for certain subjects (such as domestic businessmen, "red Maoyi" and "Japanese") and objects (such as certain goods and vessels). It should be pointed out that the ban only on smuggling trade without the permission of the government should not be regarded as a maritime ban (under such a broad definition, almost all modern countries are implementing a maritime ban). In addition, the ban may not be able to be effectively implemented. The strength and effect of the ban are different in different periods. Whether the ban exists or not is not equal to whether it is "closed". Generally speaking, the Ming and Qing Dynasties were only in the early Ming Dynasty, the Jiajing Japanese rebellion period and the early Qing Dynasty, which were close to the total sea ban, and the time span was much shorter than that of the Kaihai or partial Kaihai period. Roughly speaking, about 75% of them were in the period of opening the sea in the Ming Dynasty, about 25% in the period of banning the sea, about 15% in the period of banning the sea in the Qing Dynasty before the Opium War, and about 85% in the period of opening the sea.

Ming Dynasty

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the feudal lords of Japan were divided and attacked each other. The feudal lords, who failed in the war, organized warriors, merchants and ronins (i.e. Japanese pirates) to carry out armed smuggling, looting and harassment in China's coastal areas. In this regard, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the implementation of the maritime prohibition policy since the Yuan Dynasty in order to prevent the interference of the remaining warlords and pirates. In order to prevent the coastal rebel forces from engaging in illegal activities with Japanese pirates, the Ming government "banned Taicang Huangdu shipyard" in the third year of Hongwu (1370); in December of the fourth year of Hongwu (1371), it issued a "ban on sea", which stipulated that " In the seventh year of Hongwu (1374), the Ming Dynasty abolished the three municipal shipping departments responsible for overseas trade that had existed since the Tang Dynasty, namely Quanzhou in Fujian, Mingzhou in Zhejiang (now Ningbo) and Guangzhou in Guangdong. During the period of maritime prohibition in the Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that the people were not allowed to enter the sea, and even it was illegal for the civilian ships to be made a little bigger. According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, "if a traitor or a powerful person wants to reach the army and the people, and is good at building a large illegal ship with three masts or more, he will take the prohibited goods to the sea, go to the kingdom of fan to buy and sell, sneak through the pirates, conspire to get together, and plunder the good people for the guide. The principal offender will be executed according to the law, and the whole family will be sent to the frontier guards. Those who built the former sea ships and sold them to foreigners for profit were compared with those who sent weapons into the sea to be banned. Therefore, they let go of military intelligence and law, beheaded those who led, and sent those who followed in the early days, the main object of maritime prohibition was Commerce (commercial prohibition), which prohibited Chinese people from doing business overseas and also restricted foreign businessmen from doing business in China (except paying tribute). During the Yongle period of Ming Dynasty, although Zheng He made a great expedition to the west, only tributary trade was liberalized, and private people were still not allowed to go to sea. Then, with the Japanese invasion, the maritime prohibition policy became more and more strict. Although it played a role of self-protection, it greatly hindered the development of knowledge exchange between Chinese and foreign people. At that time, the Chinese people's understanding of "knowledge" was still at the level of not listening to things outside the window and only reading Confucius and Mencius. They thought that "knowledge" was a kind of static, stable and accumulated, which could be summarized into a kind of secondary hierarchical structure. the real situation is that "knowledge", including the system that produces "knowledge", is dynamic, changing, self challenging and adjusting, and also needs timely feedback and reform. Therefore, if any social system fails to meet the requirements of rational discussion and freedom of speech, which hinders the free flow of information, then "knowledge" will begin to corrupt, degenerate and degenerate - that is to say, the stench of cancerous "knowledge" is far more than the nourishment. During the reign of Longqing, the Ming government adjusted its policy to allow people to go overseas for business, which is known as Longqing switch in history. The lifting of the sea ban has opened up a new situation for Sino foreign trade and exchange. In the first year of Longqing (1567), Tu Zemin, the governor of Fujian Province, wrote a Book saying, "please open a market ship, and it is easy for smugglers to be public traders" (smugglers refer to smugglers, while public traders refer to legal traders). In the same year, Emperor Longqing (emperor Mu Zong of the Ming Dynasty) announced the lifting of the sea ban and the adjustment of overseas trade policy, allowing private people to sell goods in the East and the West. The private overseas trade has gained a legal status, and the private overseas trade in southeast coastal areas has entered a new period. there was a relatively comprehensive situation of opening up in the Ming Dynasty. Not to open Fuyue port in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province (now Haicheng, Fujian Province), but to set up Haicheng county with Yuegang as its governing seat, and set up a governor's office to manage private overseas trade and levy taxes. The main contents of the management of private overseas trade by the ratepayer's office are as follows: vessels engaged in sea trade are not allowed to carry prohibited articles; vessels are mainly required to collect ship guides from the ratepayer's office and pay taxes. In addition, trade with Japan is still prohibited, and all ships going to sea are not allowed to go to Japan. If you go there without permission, you will be punished with the crime of "communicating with Japanese.". although there are still many management and restrictions, and the open Yuegang port is only a small port, private overseas trade has been recognized by the imperial court. As long as the government's management restrictions are observed, private overseas trade will be regarded as legal operation. This partial and limited adjustment of policies and systems is known as the "Longqing switch" in history. The opening up of Longqing made the private overseas trade get rid of the illegal situation of smuggling, began to carry on conditionally and develop normally, and quickly played a positive role. According to historical records, in the early years of Longqing period, only Yuegang was able to trade hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, depending on both public and private sectors. According to academic research, Ming Dynasty products such as silk, porcelain, tea, iron ware, etc. were popular all over the world. However, many countries lacked famous and high-quality goods to meet Ming Dynasty's domestic demand, so they had to pay for Ming Dynasty goods with silver, which led to a large influx of silver into Ming Dynasty. With the opening up of Longqing and the rapid development of overseas trade, the ban on maritime trade was abolished in the late Ming Dynasty. These policies had a profound impact on the historical development of Ming Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty

In the 18th century, due to the increasingly frequent trade between China and foreign countries and the continuous occurrence of people's anti Qing uprisings, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty worried that foreigners and Han people would unite to oppose the Qing Dynasty. In 1759, Li Shiyao, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, issued the "Regulations on the prevention of foreigners" and established the "public bank" organization according to this document. Gonghang is a monopolistic foreign trade organization composed of businessmen permitted by the government. Foreigners who come to Guangzhou to do business must go through the public bank, and their actions are also controlled by the businessmen of the public bank. Foreign businessmen are only allowed to come to Guangzhou for trade at the prescribed time, that is, from May to October of each year, and they must leave at the end of the period. During their stay in Guangzhou, they could only live in the "Yiguan" set up by the public bank. foreign businessmen in China can only employ translators and compradors, not people to deliver letters to the mainland. Chinese are not allowed to borrow capital from foreign investors. The regulations also provide for strengthening river defense and monitoring the activities of foreign ships. These regulations were repeated in the later Jiaqing and Daoguang years. The fundamental purpose of the closed door policy of the Qing government was to maintain the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty and guard against the Western colonialists. But this measure of self-defense is very passive. the psychological concept of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty to maintain the totalitarian rule is the fundamental reason for the "closed door". To protect the local economic development from the influence of external forces. During the feudal period of Qing Dynasty, the economy was self-sufficient, and it did not rely on foreign goods. From the perspective of national defense and security, we should prevent the combination of Chinese and foreign anti Qing forces and Western colonization

Chinese PinYin : bì guān suǒ guó