China-France shipbuilding history highlights longstanding friendship

The century-old shipbuilding history of Fuzhou in east China's Fujian Province highlights the long-standing friendship and exchanges between China and France.

Over 150 years ago, Fuzhou was a frontier in one of China's first major experiments to learn about maritime engineering, navigation, and other advanced Western technology.

Fuzhou, as the birthplace of China's first modern shipyard, stands as a testament to the friendly exchanges between China and France that took place over a century and a half ago. This historical connection is vividly showcased through the exhibits at the Museum of Foochow Arsenal.

"I am deeply impressed by the efforts made by China in modern times to become strong, with its extensive international exchanges and cooperation, particularly with France, which began more than 150 years ago," said Fu Lixin, one of the residents.

French naval officer Prosper Marie Giquel G-Gal played an important role in promoting cooperation and exchanges with his Chinese counterparts in the 1860s.

He was instrumental in the establishment of a modern shipyard and the first naval academy in China, the Chuanzheng School in Fuzhou.

"Giquel's plan focused on infrastructure, production, and education. He also brought engineers, teachers of maths, physics and charting, to China with him. In the naval school, students not only learned technology, but also the basic science behind it," said French historian Marianne Bastid-Bruguiere.

With the help of cutting-edge French technology, it took one year to build China's first kiloton-class steamer, Wannianqing.

In 1877, graduates from the Chuanzheng School, dubbed "China's first French university", went to study shipbuilding, mining and electrical engineering in France and Britain. Wei Hui's great grandfather was among them.

"This is my great grandfather Wei Han. During his time in France, he visited major arsenals and shipyards in France and Europe. He formed a deep friendship with his colleagues through working and living together," said Wei, descendant of Chuanzheng School student.

Wei said his descendants and Giquel's remain in contact to this day, with a hope to promote China-France relations, like their great grandfather.

China-France shipbuilding history highlights longstanding friendship

Ghana's Cape Coast Castle Museum, housed in one of the wings of Cape Coast Castle, commemorates centuries of the slave trade on the African continent.

Cape Coast Castle, located on the rocky coast of the Eastern Atlantic, is the most prominent of the 30 or so "slave castles" in the West African country. It served as an important trading port in the infamous transatlantic slave trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas before Ghana became independent.

In 1974, the government of Ghana converted the castle into a historical museum, and in 1979, Cape Coast Castle was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with other colonial castles in Ghana.

In the corners of the castle are sealed, dank dungeons known to the colonists as "slave caves," where Africans were confined before being forced onto slave ships bound for the Americas. There are about a dozen narrow dungeons in the castle, which are divided into "men's cells" and "women's cells," with each holding between 100 and 200 people,  and having only enough space for the people to stand or sit close together and small skylights for ventilation.  Very limited food and water were supplied there.

The castle once held over 1,000 Africans at a time while the colonists waited for the right monsoon to sail. The museum's narrator said the physical and mental torture of the internees sometimes lasted months, and many died of starvation and disease before boarding the slave ships.

By comparison, the occupants of the administrative offices above lived in relatively luxurious,  large and bright rooms.

Through the renowned "Door of No Return" at the end of the castle, the enslaved Africans ended their last time in their homeland and began their one-way journey to be shipped across the ocean.

During the Atlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th century, a total of 10 to 12 million enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, fueling global trade and the rapid accumulation of capital and leaving devastating effects in Africa, including the loss of young and able-bodied labor, drastic population reduction, disruption of production technology and tribal conflicts, escalation of violence, and decline of civilization.

Ghana's castle-based museum commemorates slavery history