Describe how the Chinese felt about the Portuguese.
Answers
Most historians dealing with the history of maritime Asia, particularly of the Indian Ocean, from a Eurocentric viewpoint would still consider the Portuguese voyages of 'discovery' and the establishment of the Estado da Índia as the starting point of their investigations. The Sinocentric approach is different: traditionally orientated Chinese historians would be especially interested in giving a detailed description of the early Ming naval expeditions and Chinese private trade to Southeast Asia but probably would not assign too much weight to the early European voyages to Asia. It is at the 'intersection' of these different approaches or rather of two different aspects of accentuation that the present paper will take its starting point. In short, what I intend to do is to briefly compare the most important aspects of Chinese maritime trade with those of Portuguese maritime trade in and to Asia.