Instrumentalization of “China” in Southeast Asia's Global Entrepôt: Ayutthaya in the Times of the Ming and the Early Qing Dynasties

Igor Iwo Chabrowski

doi:10.1017/jch.2021.37

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes the instrumentalization of “China” in contacts between the Ming and Qing dynasties and Siam-Ayutthaya. It focuses both on the state-to-state relations and those between various members of the Siamese and the imperial societies. “China” and “Chinese-ness” stood for forms of ascribed identity within the Sinocentric world, for a form of social distinction, and for one of many identities assumed in the games of political loyalty. For the Ming and Qing empires, inclusion of a foreign land within “China” was conducted through the ritual and administrative fictions that situated Ayutthaya within a hierarchy vis-à-vis the imperial capital. Beyond the state's discourses, participation in a vaguely defined Chinese culture were means of building social networks within the merchant and official communities in Ayutthaya. For the junkmen that connected Ayutthaya and South China, multiple Chinese identities were instrumentalized and inflected according to the needs and necessities of the moment.

Highlights

Chinese Ayutthaya? In Ayutthaya, a city that was ruined and robbed, and its population slaughtered in 1767 by the armies of the Burmese Konbuang dynasty (1752–1885), the Temple of the Buddha of Three Treasures (Sanbaofo 三寳佛, in Thai: Wat Phanan Choeng) still stands as one of the very few untouched, expanded, and richly embellished monuments of the splendid past
“China” and “Chinese-ness” stood for forms of ascribed identity within the Sinocentric world, for a form of social distinction, and for one of many identities assumed in the games of political loyalty
Gijsbert Heeck (1619–1669), a doctor on the Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship bound for Siam in 1654–55 described the Buddha statue shrined at Wat Phanan Choeng as “a frightfully high, large and heavy image, some twenty times larger than the largest image we had seen anywhere .... [It] was richly gilded from top to bottom, looking more a golden mountain than a human figure.”1 Interestingly, as far as the historical record can ascertain, this temple has always been considered a ritual and social center of the Chinese community of Ayutthaya

Summary

Introduction

Chinese Ayutthaya? In Ayutthaya, a city that was ruined and robbed, and its population slaughtered in 1767 by the armies of the Burmese Konbuang dynasty (1752–1885), the Temple of the Buddha of Three Treasures (Sanbaofo 三寳佛, in Thai: Wat Phanan Choeng) still stands as one of the very few untouched, expanded, and richly embellished monuments of the splendid past.

Results

Conclusion