Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T14:18:15.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - Foreign Trade

from Part II - 1000 to 1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

By
Angela Schottenhammer
Edited by
Debin Ma  and
Richard von Glahn
Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Richard von Glahn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

Foreign trade always mattered in imperial China. Especially during the middle period and early modern times, China experienced enormous growth and expansion of foreign trade. According to Confucian concepts, merchants belonged to the lowest echelon of society; agriculture, not trade, was considered the basis of a stable state and society. Most Chinese governments indeed sought to maintain more or less strict control over foreign commerce and those who were responsible for it. But one has to emphasize the co-operative rather than antagonistic relationship with markets and with the merchant class during most of China’s imperial history. In addition, we can observe certain characteristics and qualitative changes throughout the centuries.

Keywords

foreign trademaritime Asiasilverbronze coinsaromaticsspicespiracyceramicsshipwreckstribute
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of China , pp. 637 - 675
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Atwell, William S., “International Bullion Flows and the Chinese Economy, circa 1530–1650,” Past and Present 95.1 (1982), 68–90.Google Scholar
Chaffee, John W., The Muslim Merchants of Premodern China: The History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750–1400 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Pin-tsun, “The Rise of Chinese Mercantile Power in Maritime Southeast Asia, ca. 1400–1700,” Crossroads: Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World 6 (2012), 205–30.Google Scholar
Deng, Gang, Chinese Maritime Activities and Socio-economic Consequences, c. 2100 b.c.–1900 a.d. (New York, Greenwood Press, 1997),Google Scholar
Deng, Gang, “The Foreign Staple Trade of China in the Pre-modern Era,” International History Review 19.2 (1997), 253–85.Google Scholar
Giersch, Pat, “Cotton, Copper and Caravans: Trade and the Transformation of Southwest China,” in Tagliacozzo, Eric and Chang, Wen-chin (eds.), Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia (Durham, NC, Duke University Press 2011), pp. 37–61.Google Scholar
Haneda, Masashi, and Oka, Mihoko (eds.), A Maritime History of East Asia (Kyoto, Kyoto University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Heng, Derek T.S., Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century (Athens, Center for International Studies, Ohio University, 2009).Google Scholar
Li, Kangying, The Ming Maritime Trade Policy in Transition, 1368–1567 (Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 2010).Google Scholar
Tianwei, Lin 林天尉, Songdai xiangyao maoyi shigao 宋代香藥貿易史稿 (Hong Kong, Zhongguo xueshe, 1930).Google Scholar
Lo, Jung-pang, China as a Sea Power, 1127–1368: A Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People during the Southern Song and Yuan Periods (Singapore, National University of Singapore Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Mancall, Mark, “The Ch’ing Tribute System: An Interpretive Essay,” in Fairbank, John K. (ed.), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 63–89.Google Scholar
Mukai, Masaki, “New Approaches to Pre-modern Maritime Networks,” Asian Review of World Histories 4.2 (2016), 179–89.Google Scholar
Chin-keong, Ng, Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683–1735 (Singapore, Singapore University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Schottenhammer, Angela, “Brokers and ‘Guild’ (Huiguan 會館) Organizations in China’s Maritime Trade with Her Eastern Neighbours during the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” Crossroads: Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World 1/2 (2010), 99–150.Google Scholar
Schottenhammer, Angela, “Characteristics of Qing China’s Maritime Trade Politics, Shunzhi through Early Qianlong Reigns,” in Schottenhammer, (ed.), Trading Networks in Early Modern East Asia (Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 2010), pp. 101–54.Google Scholar
Schottenhammer, Angela (ed.), Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, vol. 1, Commercial Structures and Exchanges (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).Google Scholar
Sen, Tansen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003).Google Scholar
Shiba, Yoshinobu, “Sung Foreign Trade: Its Scope and Organization,” in Rossabi, Morris (ed.), China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries (Berkeley, University of California Press 1983), pp. 89–115.Google Scholar
So, Billy K.L., Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Area Center, 2000).Google Scholar
Van Dyke, Paul A., Merchants of Canton and Macao, vol. 1, Politics and Strategies in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2011); vol. 2, Success and Failure in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Vogel, Hans Ulrich, Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues (Leiden, Brill, 2013).Google Scholar
von Glahn, Richard, “The Ningbo–Hakata Merchant Network and the Reorientation of East Asian Maritime Trade, 1150–1350,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 74.2 (2014), 249–79.Google Scholar
Wang, Gungwu, The Nanhai Trade: The Early History of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea (Singapore, Marshall Cavendish International, 1998).Google Scholar
Wheatley, Paul, “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade,” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32.2 (1959), 1–139.Google Scholar
Xing, Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620–1720 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Zhao, Gang, The Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policies, 1684–1757 (Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×