Asia. China on the sea: How the maritime world shaped modern China. By Zheng Yangwen. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2012. Pp. x, 362. Figures, Tables, Illustrations, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

China on the sea: How the maritime world shaped modern China By ZHENG YANGWEN Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2012. Pp. x, 362. Figures, Tables, Illustrations, Bibliography, Index. The author's premise in this book is that the historiography of China, especially during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), has been dominated by two related assumptions: that China has been isolated from the rest of the world, partly by geography, partly by cultural preference; and that China's history can best be described by focusing on the interaction between the Chinese and the peoples living on China's northern and western frontiers. These assumptions have strong points in their favour: two of China's last three dynasties, the Yuan (1260-1367) and the Qing, were formed by invaders from the north, and China placed rigid restrictions on the freedom of Westerners to enter and travel within China. Zheng Yangwen's counter-argument is that China's frontiers which face the sea deserve at least equal attention as factors shaping China's historical development. Historians of Southeast Asia have paid considerable attention to periods when Chinese rulers implemented more liberal policies. During the mid-ninth through the mid-fourteenth centuries, China exported large quantities of metal objects, ceramics, and silk by ship in return for two hundred types of products from the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. Tang Chinese rulers allowed maritime commerce despite philosophical objections from bureaucrats due to the desire of nobles and Buddhists for foreign goods. These were brought by foreign merchants who lived in circumscribed areas in a few specially designated Chinese ports. The Tang justified this trade by a formula under which foreigners were admitted under guise of presenting tribute to the Son of Heaven, for which the Chinese reciprocated by giving tokens of political recognition, but by the late Song dynasty this was replaced by commercial alliances between Chinese noble families and traders. During the thirteenth century the Chinese began to build their own ships rather than relying on foreigners. Historians have generated an extensive body of data and theories regarding the effects of this relationship on Southeast Asia. Little archaeological or historical research has been conducted regarding the effects of this commercial activity on China's society. In the late fourteenth century the newly installed Ming dynasty reinstated ancient prohibitions against foreign trade. This attitude may well have been exacerbated by the fact that the first Ming emperor was attacked from the sea no fewer than 23 times by his rivals (Zheng, p. 50). China became almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. In the late sixteenth century Chinese rulers grudgingly began to allow European traders to live in some ports, but restrictions on foreigners continued until the infamous Opium Wars of the early 1800s. One of the book's principal strengths, and source of its original contributions to the historiography of China, is its prolific use of Chinese-language primary sources. …