Upvote:3
Β Β Chinese were technologically inferior but did drive Dutch back using superior numbers and acquired European technology
It could be said that main Chinese ship type at the time was junk, which could used both for trade and military purposes. Dutch had ships with much better sailing characteristics, and although gunpowder was Chinese invention at that point of time European firearms technology (i.e ship's cannons) surpassed Chinese by a long shot . Dutch also had much more experience with naval warfare .
Nevertheless, Chinese did quite successfully oppose Dutch encroachment using primarily their superior numbers witch Dutch could not successfully match. Later, Chinese adopted lot of new European technology and used some of their own genuine designs to close the gap.
As for Portuguese, they actually never tried to use much force against China in that period, relying mostly on trade deals. British become factor in dealing with China only latter when they successfully defeated their European opponents back home, so they don't belong to scope of this question.