The Differences and the Cause Analysis between Chinese and Western Trade Systems in the 15th-16th Century

Abstract

The paper aims to compare Western capitalist colonial trading system in the 15th-16th century with the tributary trade system and maritime commerce system in Ming dynasty in Chinese history. Due to different geopolitical and socio-economic factors, the schools of thoughts underlying the two trade systems differed, so did the ways in which the two systems were built and sustained. As a result, the capitalist Western Europe was on its way to rise while the China was losing the opportunity to merge into globalization, followed by a greater divergence between the two.