World history courses tend to neglect or sometimes even ignore Chinese history. To a large extent this is because most world history programs are simple reinventions of the old Western Civilization courses, often taught by the same people, with a few token references to other regions, but with few changes. There is however one topic that always get a mention, and that is the story of the voyages of Zheng He. Zheng He was the admiral in charge of a number of major ocean going expeditions that reached as far as the Middle-east and the east coast of Africa. These voyages took place over the course of roughly the first three decades of the 15th Century (1405-1433AD). His fleets consisted of many ships (measured in the low hundreds, as opposed to the handle-full in contemporary Western "fleets"), and each ship would have considerably out-massed anything else on the high seas in the 1400s or even 1500s.

We need to put these Chinese voyages into context to appreciate just how advanced they were. Vasco da Gama, the great Portuguese navigator, was the first European to find a way around the southern tip of Africa, and undertook three voyages that reached India (he died in India during the third). These took place from 1497-1524. His first "fleet" consisted of four small ships, only two of which made it back to Portugal, and even his largest (second) fleet only had twenty ships. Columbus went the other direction, departing in 1492 with a "fleet" of three ships, and had completed four voyages by 1504.

To summarize: the Chinese launched major maritime expeditions that were earlier, much larger, more technically advanced, more frequent, and just as far reaching as the early great navigators of the West. (I won't dwell on nonsense conspiracy theories that have them going further and doing more ... what they did was more than enough to impress.) The great question that always gets asked is "why?" Why did the Chinese stop sending out these fleets? Why wasn't it the Chinese who colonized and ruled large parts of South and South-east Asia, the Middle-east, and Africa instead of the Europeans? Why weren't there Chinese fleets sailing up the Thames to London? Or entering the Mediterranean?

There are many and varied explanations for this, but in the end the only answer is "they chose not to." They had the technical ability and power to do it. They made the decision to concentrate on other matters. The fleets were hideously expensive and never came close to recouping the losses through trade goods etc. They were sponsored by one man (the Yongle Emperor), and when he died imperial priorities shifted, and that was the end of that. Factions who opposed the voyages won the debate. In the course of time the Chinese lost naval superiority and eventually it lead to western gunboats off the coast of China inflicting humiliating defeats on the Chinese during the notorious Opium Wars (etc.) during the 19th Century.

So, what is the lesson of history that we need to learn? Here it is: if we don't do it, then someone else will. When a great power makes the decision to turn away from a new frontier, it doesn't mean that that frontier has closed. The reason I thought of this today was when I read this story:

Chinese scientists are considering the feasibility of a manned lunar landing mission at an appropriate time between 2025 and 2030. China will be able to fetch samples collected by unmanned lunar probe by 2017... According to Ye, China will launch the second lunar probe Chang'e-2 in 2010 which will conduct research at a 100-kilometer-high moon orbit as the preparation for a soft landing by Chang'e-3. "By 2013, China will send the landing craft and rover vehicle to the moon," he said. For the third phase of the mission, China will recover a spacecraft carrying samples from the moon by 2017, and according to the current design of a sample collector, two kilograms of lunar samples can be brought back, Ye said.
The record of the United States and its space program is nothing short of pathetic. After showing great promise in its early days and launching a number of great expeditions, dominant factions in the US government have made the same mistake that major Chinese factions made: the expeditions are an extravagant waste of money, and not worth the trouble. It is not already too late for the west, but it's getting close: if we continue the historical parallel, then we might say that we are now in the age of Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394-1460), with the Chinese playing the part of the West, and USA playing the part of China. In the next few decades the Chinese will match the past achievements of western space programs, and if past performance is anything to go by, the American space program will continue to languish. As I said before: if the West chooses to turn away from this frontier (or gives it insufficient attention and resources) then someone else will get ahead, and that will be all she wrote.
See also Wisdom of Heinlein Part 11.