Guest Post: China Reconsidered on WTO Accession

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

July 1, 1998 - U.S. Senate Confirms VP Gephardt

Following the resignation of Bill Clinton, the United States Senate voted to confirm House Minority leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., as vice-president under the 25th Amendment. This emergency constitutional instrument had only been used once before with Congressman Gerald R. Ford when a vice-presidential vacancy had arisen after the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew. After the subsequent resignation of Richard M. Nixon, Ford immediately assumed the presidency.

Echoes of the Nixon presidency rebounded with both men resigning over abuses of power, though the circumstances of this appointment were a little different, especially given the turn of subsequent events. Clinton's timing gave his successor Al Gore a golden opportunity to change course on key policies that might not affect the midterm elections but certainly turn the forthcoming presidential election upside down. Gephardt, a protectionist, strongly urged him to reconsider China's Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). This was mid-negotiation; General Secretary Jiang Zemin had visited the United States the previous fall, and Clinton had planned to pay a return trip this summer.

Global trade with China increased sevenfold since the 37th President's historic visit to Beijing. WTO accession was certainly a huge photo opportunity for the glory-hound Clinton, one the more camera-shy Gore failed to capitalize on. As with many of the hottest political topics, Clinton had been equivocal in the sense of being highly vocal on the positive spin and yet reluctant to own the full consequential effects for the American people. His presidency had started with an executive order (128590) that linked the renewal of China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) status with seven human rights conditions, including "preservation of Tibetan indigenous religion and culture" and "access to prisons for international human rights organizations." One year later, he reversed this position. Clinton subsequently determined that China should join the WTO as a non-market economy, allowing its trading partners, including the United States, to use a special framework to determine whether China's exports were being sold at unfairly low prices and, if that was found to be the case, to apply additional anti-dumping duties.

Gephardt strongly disagreed with Clinton's policy, demanding that annual trade reviews continue. The technical issue was China's shallow integration with the global economy. Certain sectors of the economy, such as distribution, telecommunications, and financial services, remained entirely or largely closed to foreign direct investment. High tariffs and an array of non-tariff barriers meant that some critical sectors of the Chinese economy remained relatively insulated from international competition. It was unclear whether Zemin could agree to Gore-Gephardt's tougher terms of China's protocol of accession to the WTO.

Lacking Clinton's charisma, Gore needed to build a substantive domestic policy platform, which was of course why he had chosen Gephardt. Gore had played a secondary role in the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade bloc. This was originally proposed during the Reagan era, but in the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton-Gore had to confront Ross Perot's populist warning of the "giant sucking sound [of US jobs] going south." Gore would famously appeared with Perot one year later for NAFTA discussions on Larry King Live. Feeling that he came across strongest on technical policy issues, Gore could play on legitimate fears that China's WTO Accession would have the same negative effect despite the opportunity for consumers to enjoy low-cost technology products that were becoming increasingly popular.

Five years after the Larry King show, Gore stole a trick from Perot by announcing that the U.S. government would enter regional trade negotiations to protect U.S. jobs but also help to develop technological and other manufacturing plants in Mexico and Brazil. As an environmentalist, he firmly believed that if more jobs were created for people to move to in the cities, less of the Amazon rainforest would be bulldozed by farmers. In so doing, he hoped to build a blue-collar/green alliance for his re-election campaign in 2000.

Even before then, Sino-American relations took a sour turn with the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade coming only months ahead of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle.

Author's Note:

In reality, Clinton paid the return trip, the United States and China reached agreement on terms for China's entry into WTO after talks in Beijing in November 1999, subject to approval by Congress.

Provine's Addendum:

Gore's efforts to unite blue-collar workers and green initiatives had an economic side-effect of propping up the famed bubble of Dot-Com tech companies that had begun to struggle by the end of the '90s. With federal funds encouraging international relations in the Western Hemisphere, the companies found new avenues to promote themselves. Ultimately, however, the tech overreach could not be sustained, and, though Gore won in 2000 against George Bush, son of 41st President George Bush, the dire economic situation afterward blamed on Democrats made it clear that the 2004 presidency would go to a Republican.

Gore's position on international security also led to significant critique. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, Gore demanded that Afghanistan give up Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda. Afghanistan's slow actions to do so under Taliban rule became an embarrassment, but Gore refused to mount a full-scale invasion, instead leaning on international policing and diplomacy. China became a crucial player in the issue, having already established relations with Lu Shulin, Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, becoming the first senior representative of a non-Muslim country to meet with Mullah Omar. After extensive international and internal cooperation, bin Laden was arrested in a isolated strike seizing his hidden camp on the Pakistani border in 2007.

The victory would be counted by President John McCain, who won a sweeping vote in 2004 but would lose in 2008 as another financial crisis struck, this time brought on by subprime mortgages and liberalized banking issues. As the US headed into the second decade of the new millennium, the world economic scope looked much different with China's New Silk Road initiative found new markets in Central Asia while the US continued to focus on developing trade partners in the Western Hemisphere, setting the stage for a new era of spheres of influence.

Guest Post: Proclamation of German Kaiser's Realm

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

Point of divergence:

Bismarck's expansionist strategy isolated Prussia's enemies by attacking them separately. This prevented confrontation with the coalition of forces that had defeated Napoleon, notably with the late arrival of Prussian troops winning the Battle of Waterloo. However, in this alternate history scenario the strategy is flawed, backfiring when capitulation goes too far. We imagine that the Habsburgs, similar to the Bonapartes, lose their throne, resulting in the unintended collapse of the Austrian state.

Jan 18, 1871 -

Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" of Prussia, paid the ultimate price for his disastrous political miscalculations in attempting to unify Germany. Dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern, he was not even present when the German Kaiser's realm was proclaimed at the Royal Palace in Berlin.

The supreme irony of this humiliating exclusion was that the formation of an all-German supranational state was an over-achievement that he would not have welcomed. Nonetheless, it was Bismarck, rather than Wilhelm, that was the real architect who had brought the Reich into being. After all, he had led the formation of the North German Constitution for a loosely organized confederation in which sovereignty rested with the individual states as a whole. This political re-arrangement was only made possible by the successful outcome of the Austro-Prussian War, which dissolved the German Confederation and allowed Prussia to annex many of the smaller German states. The unforeseen consequence was that the crushing victory at Sadowa caused the collapse of majority-Catholic Austria from a great power. A series of revolutionary events inexorably led to not only the dissolution of the Austrian-led German Confederation states but also the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy that had ruled Central Europe for centuries and in its current form since Napoleon dismantled the Holy Roman Empire.

Even worse was the unfortunate timing with the dissolution occurring during the latter stages of the Franco-Prussian War. The failed devolution attempt at power-sharing with Hungary had necessitated a reorganization of the sweeping Hapsburg territories. This political initiative had created a crown land of Cisleithania with Vienna as the capital. But now after the break-up of the Hapsburg Empire the nascent Republic of Cisleithania desperately needed protection from a vengeful neighboring Hungary.

The defenseless Austrian state was forced to take the fateful step of joining the Empire on the sole condition that the hated Bismarck was replaced. After all, in Vienna he was seen as the architect of the Austrian downfall, as evidenced by the assassination attempt by Ferdinand Cohen-Blind.

It was not just the Austrians who believed there was a straight line to be drawn between the carnage of the crushing victories at Sadowa and Sedan, and perhaps it would have been for the best for all concerned if Bismarck had indeed died. These unforeseen developments following the assassination attempt meant that he was alive but out, replaced by Otto Graf zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, and unexpectedly the Austrians were in.

Delicate negotiations between Berlin and Vienna successfully averted religious tension between the Lutheran North and the majority Catholic South (including Bavaria, albeit there were some Lutherans in the South). They also prevented a revanchist future Hapsburg attempt to usurp a rump kingdom in Cisleithania. Based upon the reconsideration of these unification factors, it was determined that the original location of the proclamation in Paris smacked of Hohenzollern adventurism. To bring the focus back to confederation, the ceremony was moved to Berlin to respect the odd composition of the Reich into a realm of kingdoms and republics. In hindsight, Prague, Hanover, or Magdeburg might have been more humble choices.

By preventing internal strife these fateful decisions did unite a German Empire under Hohenzollern leadership, but the flawed strategy of subduing neighboring states had unforeseen consequences. Overreach was surely the biggest mistake, and the unnecessary acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine with the subsequent Germanization of the French became a flashpoint. Hungary allied with the Third Republic, leading to a wider continuation war in which the victorious Germans gained even more French territory.

Of course this repeat humiliation made matters worse as not even Bismarck had been in favor of colonies. Had he become Reich Chancellor instead of zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, then he certainly would never have agreed to Denmark's offer to join the Empire in return for the territories it lost in the Second Schleswig War. With events racing out of control at this dangerous moment, it became apparent that the Reich's ultimate ambition was to unite all Europeans into a loose multinational confederation ruled by Berlin. This of course was nothing less than a supersized Hohenzollern version of the Hapsburg rule in central Europe, and a growing realization set the stage for the outbreak of general war. A bitter and regretful Bismarck would famously make a note of Proverbs 16:7 in his diary, "When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him."

Author's Note:

In reality, the proclamation occurred in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles with Bismarck center stage and the Hapsburgs not even present. Napoleon III would be exiled to London, where he would die in 1873 with his last words, "We were not cowards at Sedan, were we?" This compares with "We were not cowards at Sadowa, were we?", the final worlds of ATL Austro-Hungarian general (Feldzeugmeister) Ludwig Benedek speaking to Prince Albert of the Kingdom of Saxony.

Provine's Addendum:

The German acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine proved to be the ongoing cause of French-German enmity that Bismarck warned. Commentators of the time such as Karl Marx and later commentators like Winston Churchill felt much the same, although Heinrich von Treitschke wrote, "We Germans who know Germany and France know better what suits the Alsatians than the unfortunates themselves." The dismissive attitude prevailed with most of German attention focused on the Austrian lands, particularly the Austrian Littoral where German railroads could reach the Gulf of Trieste as a Mediterranean port, opening whole new markets. The economic surge chided Italy, mirroring the displeasure of Hungarians and Russians sharing the large border with Germany in the east, especially with the former Austrian lands with large Polish and Ukrainian populations scooped up by Germany as they seized Cisleithania.

France worked its diplomacy to build up an Entente against predicted future German expansion. Germany, meanwhile, sought to break the ring around itself with allies in the Ottoman Empire, carefully balancing the independence of Serbia in the Congress of Berlin and the establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria. In the Balkans, the Bosnian Question lingered as Hungary wished to hold onto its reaches of the former empire or grant the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence. Even Britain joined in the Entente, suspicious of German interests overseas with its expanded naval operations past Denmark into the North Sea.

The Great War broke out early in the twentieth century with the assassination of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, while touring the empire (ironically to promote peace). Italy ultimately remained neutral, although Romania was pulled into the chaotic war in the Balkans between Russian-Bulgarian and German-Ottoman influences. The war in the west quickly became a stalemate with long trench lines in France and naval harassments across the North Sea. The east saw intensive bloodshed and starvation as the front moved across hundreds of thousands of square miles. As the dust settled without a clear winner though many losers, self-determination became the topic of the redrawn maps. A new line was drawn between France and Germany, though neither party rested easily upon it. New nations were born in the east, granting sovereignty to the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Albanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns; even the Ottoman Empire collapsed into Turkey with its further lands being claimed largely by Britain. The British hoped to add the Middle East to a great chain ensuring connection with India, but these states, too, would all see their own efforts toward independence. France turned its attention more toward its colonies overseas, but Germany remained focused on Europe, building up an impressive congress through diplomacy and economics, arguably "conquering" everything east of the Rhine through new means of banking and legal authority instead of calculated military might

Guest Post: Austria collapses after losing the Seven Weeks War

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History exploring related ideas in Why didn't Switzerland and Austria join the German Confederation?, Why didn't Bismarck want to absorb Austria into the new Germany as well? and If Kaiser Frederick III of Germany and Prince Rudolf of Austria had not died, what would have happened to Europe (WWI)?.

November 7, 1866 -

The Habsburg's vast multinational empire was drawing its final breath. The family had ruled as monarchs since 1282, dominating Central Europe for centuries. Six hundred years later, Austrian, Sudeten, and Siebenbürger Saxons accounted for just a quarter of the population of the ten different ethnic groups living in the huge territory that covered much of Central Europe. Nationalist pressures within her borders plus German and Italian aspirations triggered the Habsburg downfall.

In better days, the Austrian emperor led the German-speaking peoples through the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire and then later as the president of the Rhine Confederation. But the rising influence of Prussia dominated the successor Deutscher Bund (the German Confederation), causing tension. Consequently, the spirit of the Holy German Empire had long-since disappeared. It was to be replaced by sectarian struggles between the Protestant "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck and the Catholic Habsburgs. As the architect of a German customs union under the Zollverein policy, Bismarck sought no political interference of Catholic Austria; however, scientific, cultural and economic ties remained strong. The final blow to Habsburg rule came from Deutscher Dualismus, the intensifying rivalry between Austria and Prussia for the domination of the German states. The climax to this struggle was the Seven Weeks War that pitted Austria against the largest alliance since the fall of Napoleon: the Kingdom of Prussia, various allies within the German Confederation, and the recently unified Kingdom of Italy.

The decisive Prussian victory occurred at the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3. Sadowa, as it was commonly known, was a calamitous setback for the authority of Austrian Chancellor Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust. With the result no longer in doubt, the conflict petered out weeks later with the Prussian occupation of northern Württemberg. Military capitulation triggered a political collapse caused by a general uprising across the Habsburg lands. This unexpected outcome was an unwelcome surprise in Berlin as there was no realistic prospect that the Germans could absorb Slav territories into the German Empire. However, the German-speakers in the former Habsburg lands soon realized that only the Prussians could provide the necessary military protection from the new Slav nations arising from the conflict.

Although Italy gained territory in the south, the key result was that the majority German-speaking region, including a chunk of Bohemia and pro-Imperial Slovenia, were brought under Prussian hegemony as the German Kingdom of Austria. This was ruled by the Prince Rudolf Habsburg, a much weaker figure than his father, the recently deposed Emperor Franz Joseph. Lichtenstein, which had been under Austrian protection, also joined with the Germans. After the defeat of France, these territories would merge to form the Second German Reich that was proclaimed at the Palace of Versailles. This ethnically unified polity only excluded Swiss Germans who had been independent from the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire after the Swabian war and formalized by the Treaty of Westphalia.

The creation of the new powerful German state was a major challenge for the British whose primary foreign policy goal was to prevent continental domination by one Great Power. Had the late Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha survived, then perhaps Great Britain would have been more directly involved much earlier. Fortunately, the immense difficulties in consolidating the new territories with the states of the former German Confederation, and the tiny size of the Austrian Navy, were a constraint upon further expansion. Certainly they prevented the Reich from investing resources in colonial empire-building. Britain and Germany watched each other warily from the sides of their eyes and yet without clashing points or disputed areas there was no immediate threat of war breaking out.

The royal architect of German unification, Kaiser Wilhelm I, passed in 1888. His death ushered in the steady rule of Kaiser Frederick III, husband of Victoria, Princess Royal. Bismarck stepped down as Iron Chancellor, opening the way to democratic and social reforms. Intense diplomatic efforts were made to build a friendlier relationship, based upon neutrality, around agreed spheres of influence with Great Britain. The wise decision to return the province of Lorraine to France further reduced the tension in Europe.

Many royal heads attended the funeral of "Good Emperor Fritz" when he passed in 1905, but storm clouds were already gathering. He was to be replaced by his eldest son, Wilhelm II, an unstable individual who entertained dreams of a bellicose "New Course" to cement German status as a leading world power.

Author's Note:

In reality, the major result of the Seven Weeks War was a shift in power among the German states away from Austrian and towards Prussian hegemony. It resulted in the abolition of the German Confederation and its partial replacement by the unification of all of the northern German states in the North German Confederation that excluded Austria and the other Southern German states, a Kleindeutsches Reich. The war also resulted in the Italian annexation of the Austrian province of Venetia.

A further OTL consequence of von Beust's desire for revenge, was The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 which established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

Provine's Addendum:

With Europe finding a new balance of power, the twentieth century began with a general sense of good feelings diplomatically. Britain, France, and other nations with long-standing overseas empires kept their eyes abroad with passion for colonialism, yet the recently unified nations of Germany and Italy served as seeming proof of the effectiveness of nationalism for unity. The same was seemingly being revealed in the east as the collapse of the Austrians meant independent nations for the Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Slovenes, Slovaks, and more. The Ottoman Empire retreated from the Balkans with independence for Greece in 1830 and Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria in 1878 overseen at the Congress of Berlin. Russia had been a major player in the Ottoman decline, supporting each of the rebelling nations, but it soon came into its own bitter inward struggle with antiquated serf laws and a sprawling territory that would be difficult to industrialize quickly. It was all the more agitated by the experimental republics established for Poles and Ukrainians spun off from former Austrian lands that Germany knew better than to attempt to absorb. Germans imagined that Russia might be the next empire to give way to nationalism, and they made ready to benefit.

The Russian Civil War was born out of the Balkan Wars where the new nations attempted to find mutually agreed borders. Parallel to military altercations was rampant genocide and huge numbers of refugees attempting to find a peaceful home. While Germany profited from industrial and agricultural sales, Russia became embroiled in the tensions and met demands for reform with unpopular crackdowns that only worsened the situation. The assassination of Nicholas II and attempted repression turned to open warfare and rebellions in Polish and Ukrainian lands as well as the Baltic states. This situation turned even more desperate with the death of the tsarevich in 1918. Wilhelm II stepped in to aid with another Congress of Berlin reinforced by German military authority that redrew borders and saw even more new countries added to the European map. The rump Russian Kingdom had only a fraction of its population and became, like much of the rest of Eastern Europe, economically dependent on German banking and industrialization.

Germany grew wealthy exploiting natural resources of its neighbors, creating a new system of economic colonialism rather than the more literal political states held by other empires. Following the Pacific War between Japan and an alliance of British, French, Dutch, and American forces, this German model became the norm for empires disintegrating from the map but still maintaining spheres of authority through commonwealths.

Guest Post: Gan Ying changes course for Great Qin

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Tom Bornholdt author of the Greater Alodia thread and also Philip Ebbrell and Mike McIlvain.

Background:

There are speculations that the Parthian sailors intentionally frightened Gan Ying with false travel information. If so, they likely acted out of self-interest, seeking to prevent the Chinese and Romans from reaching a direct trade agreement that could threaten their profitable status as a major trade hub between the Roman and Chinese civilizations. It has been argued that the breaking of the Parthian monopoly over the Silk Road was at the forefront of Emperor Trajan's mind when he invaded their empire in the 2nd century AD.

In AD 97, as the Protector General of the Western Regions, Chinese general Ban Chao was fascinated by a military report describing his illustrious predecessor Ban Gu's unorthodox fight with approximately one hundred men. These Romans had used what he termed a "fish scale" formation, interlocking their shields for protection in the testudo formation. He acted impulsively upon this intriguing discovery by dispatching his subordinate, a Han diplomat named Gan Ying. This entailed a long and dangerous mission to establish direct contact with the Roman Empire known to the Chinese as "Great Qin." But fatefully his role was not as extensive as ambassador; apart from being authorized to establish diplomatic relations, he had no authority to open negotiations.

A hardy and intrepid explorer, Gan Ying endured tremendous hardships to reach the Middle East, but then his luck turned. Thanks to the envoy's chance encounter with a Roman merchant on the coast of Parthia, the over-ambitious travel plan to sail around Arabia to Roman Egypt was abandoned in favor of a much safer inland alternative. This re-route only took a few weeks following the Euphrates north to the Roman border in Syria. Ultimately the successful mission of the Chinese delegation would lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two most powerful empires in the world.

Gan Ying's second piece of luck was the timing of favorable circumstances due to the recent death from natural causes of the aging Nerva. Despite being considered the first of the Five Good Emperors, his reign had been marred by financial difficulties and his inability to assert his authority over the Roman army. He was succeeded by his adopted heir, Trajan, a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier-emperor who presided over one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history.

To the incalculable advantage of Gan Ying, Trajan was the good trading partner that Nerva could never be. Prior to their fateful meeting, the empires had only conducted the indirect exchange of goods on land along the Silk Road and sea routes. This included Chinese silk, Roman glassware, and high-quality cloth.

Standing in the way of their direct trading plans were other powerful empires that separated the two on opposite ends of the Eurasian continent. In the case of the Parthians, they regularly made a profit by obtaining Chinese silk, unraveling it, and making fine hu ("Western") silk damasks. Wishing to leapfrog this constraint, Trajan startled them with a second impulsive act: he provided Gan Ying with an offer of a military alliance for presentation to Ban Chao.

Unfortunately, matters then took a sour turn when Gan Ying's luck ran out on the hazardous return journey. His chosen route was to go around Arabia, forcing him into the Kingdom of Axum located in East Africa. By this stage, he was running very low on provisions, making it necessary to sell his cargo to the Axumites. But all was not lost for Gan Ying, who achieved the notable distinction of establishing trade relations with Axum, which would prosper as an intermediary between China and Rome. He would also be the author of a fascinating travelogue detailing the Han Chinese view of the Roman Empire. While a full Sino-Roman military alliance would prove to be impossible, a limited partnership was established. To Ban Chao's delight, Roman soldiers trained imperial soldiers on tactics such as the testudo formation. He would inspect these troops wearing a short Romanesque toga which would be come a fad among the elites of Han China. Needless to say, many of these military maneuvers would later be recounted in updated editions of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Author's Note:

In reality, the first group of people claiming to be an ambassadorial mission of Romans to China was recorded as having arrived in 166 AD by the Book of the Later Han. Gan Ying actually did not reach Rome, only traveling to as far as the "western sea," which could refer to either the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, or the Parthian coast of the Persian Gulf. Writing in his commentaries Vernacular Mandarin version of Zizhi Tonjian, Bo Yang famously said that Gan Ying was a coward who was horrified by the sailors' tales.

Provine's Addendum:

Gan Ying's mission turning into two-fold contacts with western powers changed the scope of the world. Axum, which had already established trade relations with many of the Indian states, found itself in the key position of maritime trade between China and Roman Egypt. Capitalizing on the wealth, Axum eclipsed the nearby Cush kingdom already in decline due to conflict with the Romans. With control of the Nile headwaters, Axum brought valuable African materials into the growing global trade network.

The Parthians found themselves in a difficult position as an alternative route to the Silk Road threatened their monopoly. With Axum as a Roman ally, attempting to cut off the maritime trade with a naval war would be costly as well as potentially disastrous with a three-front war if the Han in China decided to invade from the east. Instead, the Parthians dedicated themselves to economic warfare by improving the Silk Road to attract overland merchants and drive down transportation costs so that they could still enjoy a healthy profit as middlemen. They also worked to attract maritime trade up the Persian Gulf and Euphrates, drawing traders from the Indian Ocean northward rather than going through Axumite ports. With northern Syria as the confluence of both land and sea trade heading west, cities like Dura-Europos and Antioch became some of the most metropolitan and wealthiest in the world, establishing a secure border between Rome and Parthia ensured by economic forces that would collapse if war erupted in the region.

This Parthian investment in Mesopotamia while Trajan was distracted with the Dacian Wars discouraged him from invading in the Middle East. Instead, he improved relations with Axum to counterbalance Parthian economic power and undertook massive engineering projects to ease the difficulty of maritime trade being interrupted by merchandise needing to switch from ships in the Red Sea to land travel in eastern Egypt and then back to ships in the Mediterranean Sea. After years of surveying and documenting silt flow, smaller canal projects were abandoned to focus on a Great Canal through the Isthmus of Suez. In centuries to come as the Roman Empire faded due to northern incursion, emperors would move the capital to Alexandria.

Han China, too, profited from the expanding trade. While the Silk Road continued to be an important route, Empress Dowager Deng ordered merchant fleets to trade more directly with Axum, encouraging economic growth in southeast China. Wealth from the sea trade balanced the power of local landowners in the west, maintaining imperial authority in the face of rebellions that encouraged reforms. With sea traffic rounding the peninsulas of Southeast Asia, a region of loosely connected states the Chinese collectively termed as "Funan," numerous ports sprang up to foster trade with local supplies. The Cham peoples of Austronesian background established a seafaring empire that rivaled the Khmer and expanded eastward through the archipelagos of the South Pacific, adding numerous spices and valuable woods to the global trade network. In India, the Kushan Empire attempted to gain a foothold in the trade coming up the western coast, but they were eventually replaced by the Tamil Empire stretching across the northern shores of the Indian Ocean.

Along with the material goods, ideas traded swiftly over the routes from east to west and readily intermixed. Christianity mixed with Confucian ideals in Axum, while Daoism attempted to find balance in the dichotomy of Zoroastrianism, and Hindu gods such as Ganesh gained followers in Rome. Roman engineering improved aqueducts in the Pacific bringing water from windward sides of islands to leeward fields, and Chinese inventions like paper and printing improved libraries as far as Timbuktu in the southern Sahara tracking the goods of overland African traders.