What If Spain Conquered China?

In the late 16th century, Spain had made significant inroads in Asia – but a new generation of conquistadors thought Philip II should take on the Ming dynasty

- Jonathan O' Callaghan

How did Spain come to consider invading China in the 16th century?

The Spanish were moving into Asia. After their conquest of the New World, they had established themselves in the Philippines. So in the 1560s, they were seriously looking to conquer China. You had these two forces – one from Japan, and the other from Europe – and they were both off the shores of China, looking to possibly conquer it.

Why did they want to conquer China?

They saw it as easy pickings. The Ming dynasty was huge and China was vastly wealthy but the Spanish felt that the Ming were not that strong. They looked big on paper but militarily they were really clumsy. If there was an external threat, it took them a long time to get their armies together and actually respond. So the Spanish saw this as something they could do, just like the Japanese felt they could conquer China. Two different entities saw China as weak and ripe for the picking.

What was there to gain by invading China?

There was so much wealth in China – it was the centre of the world. Spain would have been a huge player in Asia, the same as they were in the New World. But in Asia there would have been more forces to rise against them, whereas they completely dominated the New World. The Spanish would have been in for a long, hard fight to keep hold of what they had conquered.

So who were the main players on the Spanish side?

This was a next generation of conquistadors [like Martín de Rada and Diego de Artieda]. The Spanish had already swept up the New World. They went to Asia, because the Americas had been cut up into encomiendas [giving Spanish settlers the rights to an area, while forcing indigenous peoples to work for settlers]. They all wanted a big chunk of land entirely for themselves.