Editing Zheng He (section)

===Western scholarship===
In the 1950s, historians such as [[John King Fairbank|John Fairbank]] and [[Joseph Needham]] popularized the idea that after Zheng He's voyages China turned away from the seas due to the ''[[Haijin]]'' edict and was isolated from European technological advancements. Modern historians point out that Chinese maritime commerce did not totally stop after Zheng He, that Chinese ships continued to participate in Southeast Asian commerce until the 19th century, and that active Chinese trading with India and East Africa continued long after the time of Zheng. Moreover, [[historical revisionism|revisionist historians]] such as [[Jack Goldstone]] argue that the Zheng He voyages ended for practical reasons that did not reflect the technological level of China.<ref>{{cite web| last=Goldstone| first=Jack| title=The Rise of the West – or Not? A Revision to Socio-economic History| url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/10/114.html}}</ref> Although the Ming dynasty prohibited shipping with the ''Haijin'' edict, it was a policy of the [[Hongwu Emperor]] that long preceded Zheng He and the ban, so obviously disregarded by the [[Yongle Emperor]], was eventually lifted entirely. However, the ban on maritime shipping forced countless numbers of people into smuggling and [[wokou|piracy]]. Neglect of the imperial navy and Nanjing dockyards after Zheng He's voyages left the coast highly vulnerable to Japanese [[wokou]] during the 16th century.<ref name="Wang2013">{{cite book|author=Yuan-Kang Wang|title=Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxVfTuKsaJQC&pg=PT286|year=2013|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-52240-3|page=286}}</ref><ref name="Grygiel2006">{{cite book|author=Jakub J. Grygiel|title=Great Powers and Geopolitical Change|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZjpcHnxH2QC&pg=PA153|year=2006|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-8480-1|page=153}}</ref>

Richard von Glahn, a [[UCLA]] professor of Chinese history, commented that most treatments of Zheng He present him wrongly, "offer counterfactual arguments," and "emphasize China's missed opportunity" by focusing on failures, instead of accomplishments. In contrast, Glahn asserts that "Zheng He reshaped Asia" because maritime history in the 15th century was essentially the Zheng He story and the effects of his voyages.<ref name="glaan">{{cite web|url=http://www.international.ucla.edu/china/article.asp?parentid=10387|title=Zheng He's Voyages of Discovery&nbsp;– UCLA center for Chinese Study|publisher=International.ucla.edu|date=20 April 2004|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref>