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The Chinese could have settled the western hemisphere but instead withdrew unto themselves.

I know the true story of this but the details escape me. The Dynasty tha ruled China did send out huge junks to many parts of the world to gather information and bring back samples and impress the barbarians. Once those huge junks returned the Emperor decided that the Chinese had nothing to learn from the outside world and burned the fleet, banned contact with outsiders and closed itself from the outside world. China was centuroes ahead of any civilization in terms of technology then but the isolation doomed China by the time the Europeans caught up with the Chinese during the industrial revolution.

Did the Vikings visit America? Yes and we have their uncovered Canadian settlements as proof. Did Polynesians visit South America? Probably. Did any Europeans and West Africans? Maybe. There is the enigma of Cocaine and tabacco traces found among mummies. Greek charts used by Columbus did declare that there was a land mass in the Atlantic but they were vague as to what it was or where.

Visist may have occured but they may have had only superficial impacts on those of the old and new worlds. Even Columbus did not know it was the New World so it is doubtful other explorers or shipwrecked castaways knew what they found when they got to the Americas.

"I know the true story of this but the details escape me. The Dynasty tha ruled China did send out huge junks to many parts of the world to gather information and bring back samples and impress the barbarians. Once those huge junks returned the Emperor decided that the Chinese had nothing to learn from the outside world and burned the fleet, banned contact with outsiders and closed itself from the outside world."

Kinda, sorta, what happened.

The Ming emperors (yep, them of Ming vase fame) were the outward-looking emperors. They were the ones that commissioned the voyages. Then a bunch of horse barbarians from the north, the Manchu, started moving into China. The Ming defunded the great voyages of exploration -- at least in part because they needed to repell the Manchus. In the end, the Manchu won, kicked the Ming off the mainland, and took over as the ruling dynasty -- the last emporers, as it turned out.

The heart of the Ming regions included the maritime provinces, and the rump of the Ming military fought on from the islands, including Taiwan. However, they were cut off from the mainland, and withered away, finally degenerating in the Chinese pirates so prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Manchu, having started as plains horsemen, were uncomfortable around seagoing vessels, anyway. They helped the "withering" process by banning seagoing boats, and closing off contact with the outside world. It was the easiest way to weaken what was left of the Ming supporters.

Unfortunately for China, which historically *had* been a powereful maritime nation, this atypical "hermit" policy went into place in the middle 1600s, to be enforced through most of the 18th and 19th century. Since this coincided with the European Age of Exploration, it resulted in the Chinese getting caught in a historical back-current, just when they could least afford to have done so.

Thus western opinion of China has been taken from a limited and atypical period. Win some, lose some.

Frankly, I think the author's contention that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe 60 years before Magellan to be dingo's kidneys, because this would have placed it in the period when China had been retreating from exploration. If he had claimed 100 or 120 years earlier, it would seem more plausible. Oh well, I will have to get the book.

There is very little doubt that the Chinese were around America at least 70 years before Columbus. One has to wonder if the change in leadership back in China....mandating no travel and closing off the country...had kept the course instead....China would have been the most dominate country on Earth by the 1600s. The use and further development of new technology is obvious. The world today would be a much different place had the no closure occurred.

As for the Chinese who landed in America. One must wonder if they brought disease...as did the Spaniards...and if the Indians eventually decided the only good Chinese were dead Chinese. There is little written about gold-obcessed Chinese explorers...unlike the Spaniards.

As for how history changes once this is proven....and I think we are talking about just six months of research to prove DNA on this item...history is a ever-changing thing. The Vikings and their travel have been a constant argument for years....and most people are finally willing to accept that Vikings did come to America. We will likely see other developments which challenge our high school text books.