Agricultural science during the Song Dynasty fertilized land that was not suitable for growing crops.
Then two or three annual harvests were possible leading to a green revolution, which supported the population of China to exceed one-hundred million—at that time the largest population in the world.
One scientist discovered that petroleum made better ink for writing and predicted that petroleum would be used greatly in the future.
Although China’s four greatest inventions came long before then, it wasn’t until the Song Dynasty that papermaking, the large-scale application of printing, the compass and gunpowder made their mark.
In fact, the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg wouldn’t invent his printing press until 1440 AD.
Before the Song Dynasty, the primitive compass invented centuries earlier was not accurate.
However, the compass was improved for navigation making it less likely for ships get lost at sea and allowed ships to travel farther from China.
To preserve these innovations, Shen Kuo published his Dream Pool Essays in 1088 AD, a huge encyclopedic book that covered a wide range of subjects, including literature, art, military strategy, mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geology, geography, metallurgy, engineering, hydraulics, architecture, zoology, botany, agronomy, medicine, anthropology, archeology, etc.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
I’ve read many criticisms that the Chinese today cannot innovate without the level of freedom that exists in America and other Western republics and democracies.
If that were true, explain how the Chinese were so far ahead of the West for two thousand years while being ruled by autocratic, imperial governments where the law was often swift and harsh under legalism.
For example, during the Song Dynasty in 1092 AD, Su Song was the inventor of a hydraulic water powered astronomical clock tower. He was also known as a statesman, calligrapher and botanist.
In addition, fifteen hundred years ago, famous mathematician Zu Chongzhi calculated that the approximate value of pie was 3.1415926.
It would take a thousand years for a foreigner to break that record. In fact, China led the world in astronomy for more than a thousand years.
The world’s largest and earliest star chart is carved on a stele in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. Today’s astronomers find it incredible because it is so accurate and detailed.
During the Song Dynasty, a calendar was created that was as accurate as the Gregorian calendar used today—four centuries before the Gregorian calendar.
During the Song Dynasty, a new type of canal lock was invented. Four hundred years later in 1373 AD, a similar lock was invented in Europe.
Astronomical observations were used to help agriculture. Due to this, the Song Dynasty grain yield was ten to twenty times that of Medieval Europe.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
Chen Guangcheng was the blind lawyer. In 2006, he was sent to jail after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses in his rural east China community.
Morillo wrote that Guangcheng was an “inspirational figure to others in China”.
According to the AP reporter, Guangcheng is under house arrest and, along with his family, is watched closely. The piece points out how horrible he was treated by Chinese authorities.
One fact stood out, “He expanded his activism after hearing complaints from people living in nearby villages that family planning officials were forcing women to have late-term abortions and sterilizations to enforce the government’s one-child policy.”
I’m sure there will be people who will see me supporting China’s government when I do not condemn China for how Guangcheng was treated.
With more than 1.3 billion people and only 16% of the land capable of growing food crops and a looming shortage of fresh water, China is facing a possible melt down in a few decades that could dismantle all the progress made since the 1982 Constitution.
To understand China better, it would help to learn that China’s legal system is reinventing itself.
Up until 1911 when the Qing Dynasty collapsed, Chinese law leaned heavily toward Legalism influenced by Confucianism.
Near the end of the Qing Dynasty, efforts were made to reform the law by mainly importing German codes with slight modifications.
After 1911, the Nationalists continued this effort. When Mao and the Communists came to power in 1949, the ranks of intellectuals and legal professionals was devastated during the purges. A Soviet-style legal system was then adopted but that system suffered due to political turmoil that ended with the Cultural Revolution.
It wouldn’t be until 1982, that the idea of individual rights would reemerge as a signify influence on Chinese Law. Even then, business law developed much faster than civil law, which is the laws of a state or nation that deals with the rights of private citizens.
In an interview with James Zimmerman, about China’s Changing Legal System, Megan Rhodes wrote, “China is transforming its legal system at an amazing rate.”
When Rhodes asked Zimmerman if foreign law has influenced Chinese law, he answered “Yes, absolutely.”
At the end of the interview, Zimmerman says, “China is going through remarkable times, and should be proud of its ongoing judicial and legislative reforms. It has developed—and continues to develop—a legal system from scratch in just over 30 years.”
In 1783, America signed a peace treaty with the British Empire and the U.S. officially became a nation state. However, slavery wouldn’t be abolished for eighty-two years in 1865, after the bloody American Civil War.
In addition, women in America even after the Civil War, were still second-class citizens. Source: Women’s history in America
Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American History. In fact, it wasn’t until 1938 that the US had, for the first time, Federal regulations for minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children. Source:Child Labor in U.S. History
Then Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
China has had about thirty years to change since 1982 while America took 182 years to cover the same ground. However, there may be another reason why the American media and so many Americans condemn China so often, and that can be explained by the history of Discrimination Against the Chinese in America. Maybe that discrimination is not dead yet.
______________
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
Enough said about The Economist, Christianity and differences between democracies and republics.
Back to the long history between China and Burma/Myanmar, which starts during the Han Dynasty.
Due to deposits of jade in Burma/Myanmar and that region, Chinese merchants have been involved in mining and trade there for more than two thousand years.
Then during the Qing Dynasty, there were four major invasions (1765-1769) of Burma. In 1784, the long struggle between Burma and China ended and regular trade began again.
In November 1885, Sir Robert Hart favored a proposal that China, as Burma’s overlord, stand aside and allow the British Empire to pursue her own course there provided that Britain allow Burma to continue her decennial tribute (once every ten years) missions to China. Source: The I. G. In Peking, Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868-1907, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, page 614, 1975.
Then the British Empire made Burma a province of India in 1886.
Since independence from the British Empire, Burma has generally been impartial to world affairs but was one of the first countries to recognize Israel and the People’s Republic of China.
Territories such as the autonomous regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and countries like North Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Burma, Vietnam and others along China’s long borders were considered vassal states, which often sent lavish gifts and delegations to China’s Emperors as Sir Robert Hart wrote that Burma did every ten years.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
Fifty-three years after the Tang Dynasty collapsed, Zhao Kuangyin, a general in the latter Zhou Dynasty (951-960) led a mutiny resulting in the Song Dynasty being established in Kaifeng City, Henan Province that would survive for 319 years.
During the Song Dynasty, China experienced developments in science and technology.
For example, the four great inventions of China were developed during the Song Dynasty—paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder
The Song Dynasty is considered a great period in ancient China and a continuation of what took place during the Tang Dynasty.
A striking feature of Song politics was the way greater importance was attached to civil administration than to military arts.
Under such circumstances, education, merit, and talent were encouraged and the imperial examination system was improved.
Astronomy was also an area where advances were made.
In July 1054, an unknown nova appeared in the sky. The sudden appearance of this nova alarmed the bureau of astronomy. A year later, the star vanished.
The nova was important because astronomers discovered the Crab Nebula near Taurus and careful records were kept during the Song Dynasty that benefits science today.
By the year 1072, Shen Kuo had been appointed head of the bureau of astronomy, and he took charge of the design of astronomical instruments leading to further scientific advances in this field
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
iLook China 