make China part of Spain

Some of the greatest historical ambitions began with ideas that, on paper, seemed surprisingly simple. During European expansion into Asia, it was not uncommon what reports and letters described distant territories as rich and accessible places, ready to be influenced with relative ease. On more than one occasion, these optimistic descriptions ended up marking strategic decisions that later collided head-on with a reality much more complex than expected.

It happened to Spain… with China.

When you think you’re unstoppable. The story began at the end of the 16th century, when Philip II ruled an empire that spanned several continents and was coming to chain conquests fast and spectacular in America. In that context, he fueled an idea that today seems like many things, but, at the very least, unthinkable: if it had been possible to overthrow empires like the Aztec or the Inca, it could also be done. the same with China.

In that climate of almost absolute trust, the court began to seriously contemplate a project that was not a simple expedition, but a definitive leap into the void towards global hegemony.

Conquer the unconquerable. The plan took shape in what became known as the “China Company”in essence, a structure organized by the monarchy itself to study, plan and eventually execute the conquest of the Asian giant.

It was not an isolated occurrence or a joke in bad taste: the work included detailed reports, diplomatic missions, missionary presence and intelligence gathering from the Philippines and Macau. The idea was a mix where trade, evangelization and military force were combined, replicating the model that had worked in America, with the ambition to subdue the territory, reorganize it and make it part of the Spanish imperial system, who knows if in a future autonomous Iberian community.

Detailed… and deeply unreal. Documents from the time even described how the invasion would be carried out, with tens of thousands of soldiers entering along the southern coast of chinaadvancing towards Beijing and replacing the emperor with a like-minded power in the blink of an eye.

Not only that. A complete integration based on evangelization, the creation of loyal local elites and, attention, miscegenation, following the American pattern, was then proposed. What’s more, some councilors went so far as to affirm that a few few hundred soldiers to achieve this, reflecting the extent to which the real complexity of the territory and its capacity for resistance was underestimated.

China is not America, even if it is believed to be so. Indeed, the great underlying error was assuming that China would function little less than the American empires. Interested reports described her like rich but weakopen to internal alliances and susceptible to being transformed with relative ease.

However, it was an organized statewith very advanced military, administrative and technological structures. That distance between perception and reality made the project more hyperbolic of Philip II in a mixture of imperial ambition, incomplete information and a certain strategic illusion that is difficult to sustain.

The blow of reality: logistics, politics and defeats. The truth is that the “China Company” It was not executed due to a combination of factors. The distances, logistics and cost made the operation extremely difficult. complex and prolonged in time.

Added to this were internal tensions between those who defended a military conquest and those who bet through the missionary waydiametrically opposite options. However, the final blow came in 1588 with the failure of the Invincible Armadawhich forced other fronts to be prioritized and made it clear that even the largest empire of the moment had very specific limits.

More than a military plan, a window. Although it never materialized, that “China Company” clearly reveals how far he went Spanish ambition at its time of greatest expansion. It was not just a military project, but a way of thinking the world: a system in which trade, religion, diplomacy and war were part of a same global strategy.

Be that as it may, in the end the plan remained an exercise in imperial imagination that collided with harsh reality, but which reflects better than anything to what extent Spain came to consider something as extreme and surreal as integrating China into its own empire.

Image | Nagihuin, CC0 1.0 – Ruland Kolen, Sofonisba Anguissola

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