Abstract
ABSTRACTThe important role of Chinese demand for silver in stimulating worldwide silver-mining and shaping the first truly global trading system has become commonly recognised in the world history scholarship. The commercial dynamism of China during the 16th-19th centuries was integrally related to the importation of foreign silver, initially from Japan but principally from Latin America. Yet the significance of imports of Latin American silver for the Chinese economy changed substantially over these three centuries in tandem with the rhythms of China's domestic economy as well as the global trading system. This article traces these changes, including the adoption of a new standard money of account—the yuan—derived from the Spanish silver peso coin.
Highlights
Silver played a major role in the economy of late imperial China, a role all the more remarkable given that Chinese governments never issued a silver currency before 1889
It has been argued that the drain of silver abroad in the LATIN AMERICAN SILVER IN THE CHINESE ECONOMY, 16TH–19TH CENTURIES
That body of scholarship considered the dynamics of the flow of silver into and out of China purely in aggregate terms, without distinguishing among the different types of silver, the commodity trades which they served, and the separate spheres of circulation for the various types of money employed by Chinese
Summary
Silver played a major role in the economy of late imperial China, a role all the more remarkable given that Chinese governments never issued a silver currency before 1889. Some scholars contend that a steep decline in the import of foreign silver beginning in the late 1630s directly resulted in the demise of the Ming dynasty The origins of this «crisis thesis» go back to the seminal studies of Spain’s Philippine trade by Pierre Chaunu, who asserted that China’s commercial ties to European trade networks drew it into orbit around a global economy «dominated by the powerful pulsations of the Atlantic zone» Based on the calculations of the value of Chinese exports (especially raw silk and silk cloth) and data on ship traffic, Li arrives at much higher figures for silver imports from Japan into China during the last years of the Ming.
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