The What-If That Haunts History

Historians call it one of the great "what-ifs." If China had continued its maritime expansion, European ships arriving in the Indian Ocean would have found Chinese trading posts already there. The entire Age of Exploration might have been a contest rather than a European monopoly.

Zheng He's voyages prove that technology alone does not determine history. China had the ships, the navigation, and the manpower to dominate the seas. What it lacked was a sustained imperial reason to keep going.