Ancient Chinese explorer Xuanzang
Credit: © Almazoff/Shutterstock

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Zhang Qian, Gan Ying, and Xuanzang were Chinese explorers who made an impact on education, international relations, religion, and trade by traveling throughout Asia. Zhang Qian and Gan Ying set out as diplomats and Xuanzang traveled illegally to learn more about Buddhism. Both explorers left a lasting legacy felt throughout Asia.

Zhang Qian was an ancient Chinese explorer who traveled in the service of Emperor Wudi during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty was a series of emperors of the same family that ruled China for over 400 years. Zhang’s journeys expanded Chinese knowledge of the world and laid the foundation for later trade between China and the West. Zhang was born sometime before 150 B.C. in Hanzhong, in central China. He worked in the royal palace in Chang’an (now Xi’an), the capital. During the 100’s B.C., the Chinese wanted to destroy large nomadic tribes called the Xiongnu, who demanded tribute and raided towns and villages in northern China. The Xiongnu already had conquered Chinese nomads called the Yuezhi. Emperor Wudi hoped the Yuezhi would form an alliance with him to defeat the Xiongnu.

Ancient Chinese explorer Zhang Qian
Credit: © beibaoke/Shutterstock

Zhang set out about 138 B.C. with some 100 men. The Xiongnu captured Zhang’s party and took them to their chanyu (emperor) who held Zhang captive. Zhang escaped after more than 10 years and continued on his journey to find the Yuezhi. By then, the Yuezhi had moved west to the fertile lands of Bactria, a former Greek colony in central Asia. Zhang passed through the Ferghana Valley in what is now Uzbekistan. In Bactria, Zhang saw goods purchased from India and learned about the kingdom of Parthia.

Zhang failed to convince the Yuezhi king to join the Chinese against the Xiongnu. He took a different route back to China to avoid the Xiongnu, traveling south of the Taklimakan Desert and north of Tibet. But the Xiongnu again captured Zhang. Zhang escaped the Xiongnu during a civil war, returning to China around 126 or 125 B.C. Zhang gave Wudi a detailed report on his voyage. His accounts of Bactria, India, Parthia, and many other regions were the first accurate descriptions that China had received of these places. Wudi was fascinated with the opportunities Zhang presented for diplomatic, economic, and military expansion in Central Asia. The emperor promoted Zhang and sent him on more diplomatic and military missions. These missions increased the empire’s power and helped open the network of trade routes later known as the Silk Road. Zhang died in 114 B.C.

Gan Ying was a Chinese diplomat and explorer in ancient times. In A.D. 97, he set out to reach Da Qin, the Chinese name for the Roman Empire. Gan Ying traveled farther west than any Chinese person before him. Before Gan Ying set out, the Han Empire already had conquered the Taklimakan Desert and surrounding regions. They called this territory the Western Regions. For the first time in history, trade caravans could travel safely through the Western Regions to the rest of China. However, Parthia, farther west in what is now eastern Iran, controlled trade through its territory. The Chinese general Ban Chao, who had conquered the Western Regions, sent Gan Ying on a diplomatic mission to the Roman Empire. He hoped Gan could establish direct contact and find a way to avoid the high surcharges of Parthian merchants.

Gan Ying traveled west from the Western Regions across what are now Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and into Parthia. He reached a large body of water that most historians think was the Persian Gulf. From there, Gan tried to charter a vessel to sail to the Roman Empire, but Persian sailors would not take him. Gan Ying turned back. However, he collected all the information that he could, probably from sailors and traders gathered in Parthia. When Gan returned to China, he accurately reported that the Romans controlled the largest empire west of China.

Xuanzang was a Chinese Buddhist monk and explorer. Xuanzang traveled by foot and horse from China to India to collect Buddhist scriptures and learn more about Buddhism from other scholars. Chen Hui was born around 602, near Luoyang in the province of Henan. He was raised in the Confucian tradition but converted to Buddhism as a child. Chen was ordained in 622 and was given the monastic name Xuanzang. As a young monk, Xuanzang was troubled by the limited selection and poor quality of Buddhist texts available in China. He resolved to travel to India to bring more such texts back to China.

Xuanzang set off some time between 627 and 629 from the Chinese capital of Chang’an (now Xi’an). The government of the new Tang dynasty had greatly restricted emigration (travel out of the country) at the time. Xuanzang was denied permission to leave China, but he did so anyway, traveling in secret and at night while he crossed the border.

Through his journeys Xuanzang traveled through the Gobi Desert, Taklimakan Desert, Kucha and Turfan, Tian Shan mountains and visited Samarqand and Tashkent in present-day Uzbekistan, what is now northern Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush mountains to arrive in Gandhara, in what is now Pakistan. He also continued to the Kashmir region and the foothills of the Himalaya mountains to Mathura, India, near Delhi. Xuanzang followed the Ganges River east, visiting holy places associated with the life of Buddha.

Xuanzang began his return journey to China in 643 with the help of the Indian emperor Harsha. He arrived back in Chang’an in 645, 16 years or more after leaving China.  Xuanzang was given a hero’s welcome, despite having left Tang China illegally. He returned with more than 650 Buddhist manuscripts, having traveled more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers). Xuanzang wrote a book about his journeys and spent the rest of his life translating the manuscripts he had collected from Sanskrit, an Indian language, into Chinese. Xuanzang died in 664.

October 18, 2019

Recent excavations in central Thailand have led to the discovery of a new type of predatory dinosaur, Siamraptor suwati. The ancient creature belonged to a group of giant meat-eaters called carcharodontosaurs, which means shark-toothed reptiles. Siamraptor dates from the Cretaceous Period, a time in Earth’s history from about 145 million years ago to 66 million years ago. The Cretaceous was the last of the three periods that make up the Mesozoic Era, the time when the dinosaurs lived.

Fossils found in Thailand helped scientists reconstruct the skull of the newly identified Siamraptor suwati dinosaur. Credit: Duangsuda Chokchaloemwong, et al/Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University

Siamraptor (Siam is the previous name for Thailand; raptors were carnivorous, bipedal dinosaurs) is the first example of a carcharodontosaur to be found in Southeast Asia. Previous examples came from northern Africa and Europe, and close cousins have been found in Argentina (Giganotosaurus) and the United States (Acrocanthosaurus).

The fossilized bones of Siamraptor were found in 115-million-year-old rocks in the central Thai district of Ban Saphan between 2008 and 2013. Paleontologists from Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University found the fossils—22 in all—while working on a project with Japan’s Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. The announcement that the fossils belonged to a new type of carcharodontosaur came in October 2019 after years of study. Siamraptor was not the first find for the Japan-Thailand Dinosaur Project. The team earlier identified two new types of plant-eating dinosaurs and an ancient relative of the alligator and crocodile.

Twenty-two fossils aided in the skeletal reconstruction of Siamraptor suwati. Credit: Duangsuda Chokchaloemwong, et al/Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University

The Siamraptor fossils include parts of a single animal’s feet, hands, hips, spine, and skull. The animals’s bones were somewhat porous, containing air sacs that would have made the creature a lighter and more agile hunter. Nearby were also many Siamraptor teeth, suggesting that this animal had not been alone. Like sharks, dinosaurs shed teeth throughout their lives, particularly when they ate, and the Ban Saphan site (a floodplain during the Cretaceous Period) may have been a common feeding ground. Siamraptor probably preyed on plant-eating dinosaurs in the area, using its bladelike serrated teeth—measuring up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) long—to slice through tough dinosaur flesh.

Scientists classify Carcharodontosaurus with other meat-eating dinosaurs in a large group known as theropods. These animals make up one of two main groups of saurischian (lizard-hipped) dinosaurs. Saurischians include such famous dinosaurs as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. Although Carcharodontosaurus is classified in the same main group as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, it was not closely related to them.

Tyrannosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus shared such traits as big heads, long bodies, and short arms, but the animals’ snouts were quite different. Tyrannosaurus had a broad head and a wide mouth with teeth made for crushing bone and pulling away flesh. Carcharodontosaurus had a much narrower head and a more precise bite with sharper teeth meant for slicing flesh. The two apex predators (at the top of the food chain) appear to have coexisted in several areas, which probably made for some rather interesting confrontations.

June 12, 2019

A recent reexamination of an important fossil discovery shows that Denisovans, a mysterious group of prehistoric people in Asia, lived in the high-altitude environment of the Tibetan Plateau long before the ancestors of modern Tibetans and Nepalese arrived. The fossil, a Denisovan mandible (lower jawbone) fragment, proves that these ancient humans were the first hominids to settle in that harsh environment where altitude sickness is a constant danger. The scientists studying the fossil also believe that modern people living on the Tibetan Plateau owe their survival to these Denisovan ancestors.

This virtual reconstruction shows details of the Denisovan mandible found on the Tibetan Plateau in 1980. It is some 160,000 years old. Credit: © Jean-Jacques Hublin, MPI-EVA, Leipzig

Chinese scientists recently reexamined the mandible fossil, which was excavated in Tibet in 1980. The jawbone fragment containing a few teeth was unremarkable. However, the scientists were hoping to determine the age of the fossil and extract proteins and genetic material using techniques that were not yet invented in the early 1980′s. The scientists were surprised when dating methods showed the fossil was about 160,000 years old. Scientists had previously believed that the early human populations alive at the time could not survive the harsh environment of the Tibetan Plateau.

The Denisovan mandible was found in this Tibetan Plateau cave, a tourist site and Buddhist refuge, in 1980. Credit: © Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University

Analysis of proteins extracted from the jawbone fossil showed that it belonged to the mysterious Denisovans, a population previously known only from a few skeletal remains found in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Denisovan DNA has similarities to that of the modern indigenous (native) peoples of Australia, New Guinea, the southern Philippines, and other Pacific Islands. Denisovans contributed up to five percent of the genetic material of some people living in these regions today.

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Tibet
WORLD BOOK map

Analysis of the Tibet jawbone shows that the Denisovans were well-suited to a high-altitude environment. They possessed a genetic adaptation that enabled them to withstand the physical effects of hypoxia (insufficient levels of oxygen in the blood) caused by high altitudes. Today, the indigenous people of Nepal and Tibet also possess this genetic adaptation. Scientists now believe that the modern inhabitants of the Tibetan Plateau inherited this adaptation from Denisovan ancestors of the distant past.

October 22, 2018

In the early 1900′s, as millions of European immigrants arrived at Ellis Island in New York, people from Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Latin America were beginning their American experience at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants entered the United States through the Angel Island Immigration Station from 1910 to 1940. Many Americans today can trace their family roots to Angel Island, where people disembarked from ships crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Many thousands of immigrants entered the United States through Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. Credit: © Wayne Hsieh78/Shutterstock

Angel Island lies about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) north of San Francisco and 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) southeast of California’s Tiburon Peninsula. The 1.2-square mile (3.1-square kilometer) island is the largest natural body of land in the bay. The U. S. Army established Camp Reynolds on Angel Island in 1863, during the American Civil War. In the 1890’s, the U.S. Marine Health Service opened the Angel Island Quarantine Station. The station fumigated foreign ships and held in isolation sailors and immigrants who were suspected of carrying disease. In 1900, Camp Reynolds was renamed Fort McDowell. The army used the facility to quarantine U.S. soldiers returning from duty overseas.

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Angel Island, in California’s San Francisco Bay, is best known for its role as a United States immigration station. Thousands of immigrants—most of them from Asia—entered the country through facilities on the island from 1910 to 1940. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

About 1910, the island became the main processing center for immigrants arriving via the Pacific Ocean. Over the next 30 years, hundreds of thousands of immigrants—including at least 175,000 from China and tens of thousands from India, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, and elsewhere—passed through Angel Island. Because of laws that limited Chinese immigration, officials gave the newcomers’ applications added scrutiny. Most arrivals were held at the facility for periods ranging from a few days to a few months, and about 18 percent of prospective immigrants were deported. For its role in enforcing the nation’s immigration limits, Angel Island became known as the “Guardian of the Western Gate.” In 1940, a fire destroyed the station’s administration building, and immigrants were relocated to processing centers on the mainland.

In 1954, the California State Park Commission acquired a portion of the island. In 1962, the federal government turned over most of the remainder of the island to the state. Today, visitors to Angel Island State Park enjoy such recreational activities as hiking, boating, camping, and sightseeing. The park also offers tours of the historic immigration station and military barracks, as well as other noteworthy island sites.

November 4, 2015

Territorial disputes disrupted a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week. ASEAN is an organization of 10 Southeast Asian countries. It works for peace and stability in the region by promoting political, economic, cultural, and social cooperation among its members. Delegates from member nations meet each year to discuss policy and consider development projects. Officials from China and the United States, neither of which are ASEAN members, also attended this week’s meeting.

The China Sea is the name of two seas of the Pacific Ocean along the east coast of Asia. The East China Sea extends north from Taiwan to Japan and the Koreas. The South China Sea is connected to the East China Sea by the Taiwan Strait. The South China Sea includes the Gulf of Tonkin and Gulf of Thailand on the west and Manila Bay on the east. The ownership of several island groups in the area, including the Paracel, Senkaku, and Spratly islands, is disputed by neighboring countries. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

A major issue in recent years has been China’s increasing activity in the South China Sea. These efforts include land reclamation projects and the construction of runways and other structures on islands or coral reefs in regions over which China claims ownership. However, these ownership claims are disputed by Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Some of the disputed areas have rich fishing waters and lie along major shipping lanes. Some experts believe that deposits of oil and natural gas may lie under the seabed beneath several of the islands. In addition, some international security experts believe China’s actions in the South China Sea signal a military buildup. Chinese officials claim the developments are for civilian purposes.

Traditionally, at the end of an annual ASEAN summit, representatives agree on a closing statement addressing the issues discussed at the meeting. At this week’s meeting, held in Malaysia, representatives clashed over whether or not to mention China’s land reclamation activities in the closing statement. U.S. officials claimed that Chinese representatives strongly objected to mentioning Chinese developments in the statement. China, in turn, accused “certain countries” from outside the region of interfering and trying to include irrelevant information in the statement. Ultimately, no closing statement was issued because no agreement could be reached. U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter noted that “this was an ASEAN decision but in our view no statement is better than one that avoids the important issue of China’s reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea.”

October 6, 2015

If ratified by the countries party to it, the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement will cover goods as diverse as automobiles, drugs, and clothing. © Junko Kimura, Getty Images

On Monday, October 5, trade ministers from the United States, Australia, Japan, and nine other Pacific Rim nations reached a deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping trade liberalization pact that will cut trade barriers and set common standards. The deal paves the way for individual governments’ approvals—something much easier said than done, especially in the often-dysfunctional U.S. Congress. The other TPP countries are Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

If the TPP is approved, it will be the largest regional trade accord in history, representing two-fifths of the global economy. The major points of the TPP include the reduction of tariffs and import restrictions, protections for copyrights and other intellectual property, the enforcement of common labor and environmental rules, and the creation of a forum for international legal challenges.

The TPP is much more than a trade deal, as it creates a common and fair platform on which all member economies must agree to operate. Labor practices, for example—including working hours, wages, work environment, and pollution—would have to meet the same standards in each country. The deal also allows such American exports as agricultural products, cars and trucks, consumer goods, information technology, and machinery to enter countries that currently limit or ban such imports to protect their own industries. Crucially, the TPP also creates an alternative to the current Asia-Pacific economy dominated by China—an economy lacking in the fundamental protections and requirements of the TPP.

In June, the U.S. Senate gave U.S. President Barack Obama “fast-track” authority to negotiate the TPP, meaning the Congressional approval vote will be free of amendments or filibuster. Securing enough votes for approval, however, will require some wheeling and dealing. Many Democrats fear the deal’s impact on trade unions, as well as its Wall Street- and corporate-friendly details. Many Republicans oppose the deal because they fear the loss of American jobs and simply because it was Obama’s initiative. A vote on the TPP will most likely not occur until 2016—an election year, so anything can happen.

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