“Two men saw a beautiful rose: one noticed the beautiful petals, and the other the thorns.“Two emperors and a shipThe Thorns of IsolationIn 1371, the Chinese Hongwu Emperor was alarmed by a foreign ship approaching the shore much larger than any Chinese ship he had seen before. He feared that foreign invaders would invade or aid the remnants of the previous Yuan dynasty and threaten China’s security and sovereignty. So he enacted the “Haijin Policy”, which prohibited private maritime trading ...