The Chinese Non-Discovery of Australia

Recently New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs of and formerly Minister of Maori Affairs, Winston Peters, announced that the first New Zealanders were descendants of the Chinese, that DNA evidence suggested Maori originated from China.

Modern Chinese scholars have long suspected—virtually accepted—that the Maoris are descendants of ancient Chinese by virtue of their cultural tradition of tattooing their bodies. Ancient Chinese text wrote of people of Southeast China (the Wu, 吳, and the Yueh, 越, located opposite the island of Taiwan) who cut their hair short and tattooed their bodies. That was because these people derived their economy from the sea. Theoretically, by cutting their hair short and tattooing their bodies they could increase their swimming efficiency and more readily mingle with sea creatures. This was at least twenty five hundred years ago, when that part of China was technically not yet a part of the empire proper. These people also spoke a language that was alien to the ancient Chinese, perhaps a form of Austrasian or even Austronesian. It is conceivable that such seafaring people would have contacts with the other cultures of Southern Asia and the Pacific. Of course, such conjectures do not constitute proof. Researcher Geoffrey Chambers’ DNA evidence, however, does.

Still, while that may establish a link between the Maoris and ancient Chinese, it falls a bit short in inferring that six hundred years ago the Chinese discovered Australia. Yet that is precisely what some "Chinese As Discovers of All Thing in the World" adherents are claiming.

That said, it is also true that neither does it disprove that the Chinese discovered Australia six hundred years ago before the great European explorer. Keep in mind that Captain Cook only reached Australia and New Zealand in 1770, and he had Admiralty maps depicting Australia before he set off on his trip. In addition, the British convict exiles came still much later. Nevertheless, historical evidence and analyses do indicate that the great Chinese explorers had visited Australia more than six hundred years ago before the European navigators.

That the Chinese had surveyed the major landmasses of the world some six to one thousand years ago has been thoroughly argued in the book The 1421 Heresy, and evidentiary European maps attesting to it can be found in the book and elsewhere on this Web site. A brief account of the reasoning of the proof is reiterated herein.

The Chinese are a great seafaring people of long standing. By the tenth century they already had reached the east coast of Africa. This is documented and supported by recent archeological discoveries of ancient Chinese maritime wreckages. Ancient Chinese text described local Australian colors such as the kangaroo and the koala bear. They call Australia the Great Ocean Continent, 大洋洲. We know the Chinese regularly traded with South Sea countries from the Philippines and Borneo to Vietnam, Java, Sumatra, Malysia, Thailand, Burma, India, and beyond. These sailors crossed the Equator so regularly that they even had star maps of the southern Hemisphere. (One draws star maps of a Hemisphere only after regular visits. One does not reach the Equator, go past it by an inch, stick the toe in the water once, and proclaim that he crossed the Equator.)

Ancient Documented Chinese Maritime Activities

During the Yuan Dynasty Kublai Khan twice dispatched huge fleets to invade Japan and Java. This is even related in western literature, such as René Grousset’s widely acclaimed The Empire of the Steppes, a History of Central Asia. This is not to say that this is the only book mentioning such Asian events. There are plenty that do, but as we know, Western literature on world history rarely has much to say about the Chinese, thus greatly fostering a general European ignorance of world history.

The map markings above are the geographical renditions of these events.

Based on these maps, where do you think the Chinese crossed the Equator? The detractors would like you to think that somehow there is a barrier that guarded against the Chinese from sailing beyond he Philippines, Borneo, and Java to reach New Zealand and Australia, despite the well-documented massive Kublai Khan invasion of East Java, which is right next door to Australia. Perhaps as some western authors would like to think that the waters near Australia were so treacherous that only superior navigators such as Europeans could get to, as the case reported in The 1421 Heresy in which it was stated that ancient Chinese were ill-equipped to sail into the Atlantic despite extensive naval experience in the Indian Ocean.

In fact, that the Chinese had reached Australia in ancient times, and specifically before the Europeans is clear, and is amply documented in the book The 1421 Heresy. The only way the Europeans could have done it before the Chinese is if they had a time machine allowing them to rearrange the chronology of historical events.

One of the arguments often presented by the detractors is that there is scant archeological evidence of ancient Chinese visits. This also has been amply explained. Traditionally Chinese did not like to visit places that were devoid of civilization, people that they could interact and do business with. Once they found out that Australia and New Zealand were not inhabited by people of comparable culture to themselves, they shied away from such places. Why should they expend great amounts of investments to go to a place where no great benefit could be derived? That is one Chinese characteristic that differs significantly from European ones. Then, there are scant archeological relics of ancient European contacts with Australia as well, unless, as stated, they could somehow rearrange the timeline of history.

Well, perhaps I may be wrong. Come to think of it, did not Hollywood produce two films about the time machine, one starring Rod Taylor, and the other Guy Pearce, both Australian actors? Perhaps the Australians know something we do not know after all.