Ancient History

That's what the Romans did, and boy did that work out well. An Emperor first of all rules and usually wants to stay powerful as long as possible. With the communication of back then, managing an intercontinental empire would've been an absolute nightmare. Again, the Chinese had plenty of rest and space, no reason to mess that up for a fancy expedition.

Well, if we were to make a list of things that helped to the fall of the Roman Empire, we'd need to reserve about three pages for that on this topic...

Still, I don't see what barbarian invasions would have anything to do with the Chinese being unsuccessful colonisers at the time. If anything the problem would be internal. If the colonies would demand independence, they could easily take it and the Chinese, if not informed in time, would have no means of putting a revolt down for a very long time.

Where could they colonize in the first place? I doubt they could cross the Pacific, and even if they colonized Oceania it'd be an absolute nightmare of logistics and there were quite a lot of angry tribes. Not to mention that there's hardly any resources.

The emperor that planned the exploration sent his Junks all the way to the coast of Africa, then he died and the next emperor cancelled all future expeditions.

Ah, we were assuming the colonisers would've failed...my bad. But if they did manage to set up a successful colony, managing it from across the Pacific would be an administrative nightmare.

Not much in the way of advantages, but advantages nonetheless I guess. Don't forget the Viking attempts to found colonies in America probably only lasted a generation or two - perhaps they are a better comparison with China?

Huh, I missed that sentence earlier on, strange...still, I don't know exactly how long ago the Chinese were capable of colonisation, or how different their ships were (weren't these those very slow floating fortresses?), but I do think the Europeans had an easier time reaching their colonies than the Chines would have, at least ship design wise (if I'm thinking of the right Chinese ships).

Chinese ships were clunky, but there was a huge amount of them. Some of them were even allocated to grow crops at sea atop their decks, if I recall correctly. They were definitely a lot slower and less advanced than European ships, but they were quite good at adapting to long sea voyages. Even then, I doubt they could ever cross the Pacific.

That's what I was thinking about earlier on, kinda like what the Açores were for the Portuguese.

Just how long would it take to maneuver building materials from China to Hawaii to build a large enough port there to sustain that amount of ships? Plus, the ships didn't really have a clue of where they were going and so they weren't very accurate, especially not in a huge sea with no landmarks. Even if the Chinese did manage to colonize the east coast, do you know how long it would take to deliver a simple message from China to California?

Chinese history is too repetetive. It's lame and doesn't spark any intrest in my mind at all.

It's not just about colonies, my mind the possibility of the continuation of chinese explorations was more about trade and not becoming isolated. China wouldn't have needed far away colonies (just yet) to be super power of those times.
And also the chinese ships were superior those days, only flaw really was that you couldn't tack beat against the wind with them.

I also think that had the chinese continued their explorations (/had expanded them), they wouldn't have founded colonies but instead done what they had done, for example in Indonesia, on their historical journies: vassalised people (by diplomatic means).

As opposed to European history? All history is repeated, it's an undeniable fact. From the collapse of the Romans to the collapse of the Hapsburgs. The causes are all similar. With China the effects that it had are much less clear, where as the effects European history are clear. Anyway, it's more 5000BC to 1400 that interests me about China. And Japanese history has always fascinated me.