Sailing from the China Coast to the Pescadores and Taiwan: A Comparative Study on the Resemblances in Chinese and Dutch Sailing Patterns

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The Dutch East India Company (VOC) controlled the southwestern coast of Taiwan for thirty-eight years as an entrepôt within its trans-Asian trading network. As a latecomer in East Asian waters, the VOC usually looted Portuguese nautical documents through piracy on the high seas. However, since Taiwan waters are located on the margin of Portuguese shipping routes, the Portuguese documents did not contain sufficient nautical knowledge about this area. The VOC mariners thus had to develop their sailing solutions with the assistance of Chinese mariners. These early sailing instructions along the China coast, the Pescadores and Taiwan recorded in the VOC archives and sea charts produced during the same period are comparable to Chinese sailing practices that were pieced together from later sailing directions, travelogues and chorographies. By examining such similar features, the author reveals the particular meteorological, oceanographic and topographical contexts that Chinese and Dutch mariners confronted. Further, the author uses those common sailing patterns to elucidate the spatial features of Chinese access to the Taiwan coast in the first two decades of the 17th century, long before the arrival of the Dutch.