Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century

by Derek Heng

Overview

China has been an important player in the international economy for two thousand years and has historically exerted enormous influence over the development and nature of political and economic affairs in the regions beyond its borders, especially its neighbors.

Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century examines how changes in foreign policy and economic perspectives of the Chinese court affected diplomatic intercourse as well as the fundamental nature of economic interaction between China and the Malay region, a subregion of Southeast Asia centered on the Strait of Malacca.

This study's uniqueness and value lie in its integration of archaeological, epigraphic, and textual data from both China and Southeast Asia to provide a rich, multilayered picture of Sino-Southeast Asian relations in the premodern era. Derek Heng approaches the topic from both the Southeast Asian and Chinese perspectives, affording a dual narrative otherwise unavailable in the current body of Southeast Asian and China studies literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780896802711
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2009
Series:	Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series , #121
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Derek Heng is an assistant professor of history at the Ohio State University at Marion. He is the editor of New Perspectives and Sources on the History of Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Approach.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

1 Sino-Malay Interaction in the First Millennium AD 19

2 China's Economic Relations with Maritime Asia in the Song and Yuan Periods 37

3 The Malay Region's Diplomatic and Economic Interactions with China 72

4 Malay and Chinese Foreign Representation and Commercial Practices Abroad 111

5 China as a Source of Manufactured Products for the Malay Region 149

6 China's Evolving Trade in Malay Products 191

Conclusion 211

Appendix A Chinese Imports to the Malay Region, Tenth through Fourteenth Century 218

Appendix B Ceramics Data from Temasik-Period Sites, Singapore (Empress Place and Old Parliament House) 222

Appendex C Malay Imports to China, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries 224

Abbreviations 227

Notes 229

Bibliography 261

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

"Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century is a welcome and important addition to the literature on the history of maritime trade during the first age of global trade. Using a remarkably broad array of sources, from Chinese and Southeast Asian written accounts through the archaeological record (of shipwrecks in particular) to economic sources which he skillfully mines, Professor Heng offers the first comprehensive history of Sino-Malay trade in the pre-European period. This is a notable achievement."--John W. Chaffee, author of Branches of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China

"For too long we have been dependent on inadequate translations of Chinese court records to understand the shifting fortunes of 'kingdoms' and trade centers in Southeast Asia before 1400. Archaeologists have been uncovering new data on the ground at Southeast Asian trade sites, at manufacturing and trade centers in southern China, and in the cargoes of shipwrecks from around the South China Sea. What was needed was to bring these dynamic but very separate fields of research together. Derek Heng has succeeded in turning a 'dark age' into a coherent overall picture of the changes that transformed the Southeast Asian hinge of world commerce over four centuries."--Anthony Reid, author of Southeast Asia in Age of Commerce, 1450-1680

"It is Heng's treatment of private Chinese enterprise in Southeast Asia which complements the better-covered accounts of state-level tributary trade. This is by far the most comprehensive analysis I have seen--systematically investigating Chinese trade and shipping at a number of levels, intra-regional, large-scale commerce and small-scale, individual traders."--Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

"This book is a milestone in efforts, championed in recent decades by Anthony Reid and many others, to break down the barriers between the fields of Chinese history and Southeast Asian history."--International Journal of Maritime History

"What is good about this book lies in the fact that it is well structured, easy to read, and not overloaded with too many details. Heng has clearly moved away from the purely 'philological' to creating a complex historical model for Sino-foreign interaction in the South China Sea--a construction that is fresh in kind and certainly apt to ignite new research along similar lines."--Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

From the Publisher