Early this month in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesians celebrated the 600th anniversary of the first visit of Admiral Zheng He, a devoted Muslim and China's most famous maritime explorer.

The international celebration brought together people from different walks of life, from all over Indonesia and abroad, who admire and share Zheng He's values and vision of preserving harmony through diversity.

Zheng He's presence is still very much alive in this city.

The historic Sanbao Temple, which has just been renovated, bears Zheng He's nickname San Bao - Three Treasures.

A commemorative statue of Zheng He has been erected to mark his visit to Semarang.

It is evident that Zheng He made a great impression on the Indonesian people and played a significant role in promoting tolerance among different faiths and cultures in Indonesia.

His first visit to Indonesia coincided with the beginning of Islamization in the country.

He instigated the idea of merging Islam, local and Chinese culture and encouraged his people to build and sustain amicable relationships with the locals.

Many of the first Chinese Muslim traders who came to Indonesia settled down in the country and adapted to the local cultures, customs and traditions.

Promoting friendly ties

This was in line with his objective of establishing friendly diplomatic relations between China and the rest of the world.

Zheng He promoted economic and cultural exchange between China and the countries of Asia and Africa, disseminating China's rich culture and spirit, and implementing mutually beneficial trade relations.

His peaceful methods won him a warm welcome from every country he visited, and greatly increased the prestige of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in those areas.

By assigning Zheng He to lead diplomatic missions to these countries, the Ming emperor established common religious ground for developing friendly relations.

As a Muslim, Zheng He had a strong desire and religious urge to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca having heard stories about it from his father and grandfather from a very young age.

Zheng He further improved relations between China and the Islamic world by making the pilgrimage to Islam's holy city.

Based on the nautical data acquired over the course of the western voyages, Zheng He selected a number of favourable ports, including Champa, Malacca, Jiugang (Palembang, Indonesia), Calicut and Hormuz, to serve as key centres for developing maritime traffic and trade.

Zheng He's western voyages enabled China to fully assert itself in the area of foreign relations, strengthening the Ming Dynasty's influence in Southeast Asia as never before.

These voyages were among the most momentous events of the 15th century, incomparably greater in scale than the geographical discoveries of the European explorers, making a huge contribution to both China and the entire world by establishing maritime routes between East and West, developing friendly Sino-foreign relations and promoting economic and cultural exchanges.

Nautical chart

Zheng He Hanghai Tu - Zheng He's Nautical Chart - provides comprehensive records of Zheng He's western voyages.

The chart indicates his fleets set forth from the imperial shipyards in Nanjing.

Following the Yangtze River to the Western Pacific, they sailed south and west along the coast of Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula and passed through the Straits of Malacca. From there they crossed the Bay of Bengal, passing Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) to reach the Kingdom of Liushan (the Maldives).

At this point the main route split into two branches. One continued west across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa, while the other crossed the Arabian Sea to the Strait of Hormuz.

The chart illustrates traditional Chinese landscape painting techniques portraying features such as mountains, islands, bridges, temples and cities in detailed perspective.

These graphic representations enabled the navigators to more easily identify important geographical features from onboard their ship.

The chart includes more than 530 place names, covering over 30 Asian and African countries and regions. More than 50 separate routes are delineated.

Navigational data inscribed along the routes, such as compass headings and time notations, further add to the practical value of the chart.

The chart fully reflects the high level of navigational expertise of the time, and indicates that China's maritime technology had essentially been perfected.

The Ming Dynasty saw an upsurge in China's foreign diplomatic activities. The government extended an open invitation to foreign countries to do business in China, exempting foreign goods from taxation and ensuring high profits for foreign traders. China's existing commercial structure was modified to better meet the requirements of foreign trade, and an extensive range of imported goods was made available to the populace at designated marketplaces.

More importantly, the Ming Government actively dispatched diplomatic missions to establish friendly relations with neighbouring countries.

The 15th century ushered in humanity's great age of maritime exploration.

One of the first great navigators and explorers of this age was Zheng He, whose seven western voyages predated Europe's maritime achievements by almost 100 years.

He was the pioneer of the great Age of Maritime Exploration. He accelerated humanity's exploration of the oceans, promoted advances in science and technology and solved many practical problems of maritime exploration.

He also made great contributions to the development of astronomy, mathematics, geography and marine studies.

(China Daily 08/30/2005 page1)