I'm using China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci as a source for a paper I'm working on. In it, Ricci makes the rather odd claim that in his study of 4,000 years of Chinese history, he had never seen any record of a war of conquest, or even them extending the boundaries of their empire. As an immediate counter, the Yongle Emperor's 21-year occupation of Vietnam a little over 150 years prior springs to mind, so I'm curious--has anyone seen any articles on Ricci that might explain this? Is this a technicality, a result of the dynastic history not having been written yet, Ricci being lied to?
I think that Ricci was himself infected by the Chinese art of quibble. The Chinese has always had a tendency to downplay their "agressiveness" toward "naive" foreigners.
"China's peaceful rise" (simplified Chinese: 中国和平崛起; traditional Chinese: 中國和平崛起; pinyin: Zhōngguó hépíng juéqǐ) or sometimes referred to as China’s “peaceful development” was an official policy in China under the leadership of Hu Jintao.[1] The term was implemented to rebut against the “China threat theory” As China emerged as a great political, economic and military power, China wanted to assure other countries that its rise will not be a threat to peace and security."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_peaceful_rise
Actually AT HIS TIME, the Ming dynasty had stopped expanding for more than 100 years, and look inward, to maintain "stability".
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_voyages#Aftermath