Boundaries Andbeyond
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Spine width: 32.5 mm Ng Chin-keong Ng Ng Chin-keong brings together the work Throughout his career, Professor Ng of forty years of meticulous research Chin-keong has been a bold crosser on the manifold activities of the coastal Boundaries of borders, focusing on geographical Fujian and Guangdong peoples during boundaries, approaching them through the Ming and Qing dynasties. Since the one discipline after another, and cutting publication of his classic study, The Amoy and Beyond across the supposed dividing line Network on the China Coast, he has been between the “domestic” and the “foreign”. sing the concept of boundaries, physical and cultural, to understand the pursuing deeper historical questions Udevelopment of China’s maritime southeast in Late Imperial times, and He demonstrated his remarkable behind their trading achievements. In its interactions across maritime East Asia and the broader Asian Seas, these Boundaries versatility as a scholar in his classic the thirteen studies included here, he linked essays by a senior scholar in the field challenge the usual readings book, Trade and Society: The Amoy Network deals with many vital questions that help of Chinese history from the centre. After an opening essay which positions on the China Coast, 1683–1735, which China’s southeastern coast within a broader view of maritime Asia, the first us understand the nature of maritime explored agriculture, cities, migration, section of the book looks at boundaries, between “us” and “them”, Chinese China and he has added an essay that and other, during this period. The second section looks at the challenges and commerce. His new book deepens his puts his answers in a longer perspective. to such rigid demarcations posed by the state and existed in the status quo. research on these topics but also ventures With China once again fully engaged The third section discusses movements of people, goods and ideas across China’s Maritime farther afield, pursuing the history of with the ocean, this volume makes national borders and cultural boundaries, seeing tradition and innovation diplomacy, technology, and culture. compelling reading. as two contesting forces in a constant state of interaction, compromise and Southeast in Late reconciliation. This approach underpins a fresh understanding of China’s – Sherman Cochran, – Wang Gungwu, boundaries and the distinctions that separate China from the rest of the world. Imperial Times Cornell University East Asian Institute, In developing this theme, Ng Chin-keong draws on many years of writing and National University of Singapore and research in Chinese and European archives. Of interest to students of migration, of Chinese history, and of the long term perspective on relations between China and its region, Ng’s analysis provides a crucial background to the Beyond historical shared experience of the people in Asian maritime zones. The result is a novel way of approaching Chinese history, argued from the perspective of a fresh understanding of China’s relations with neighbouring territories and the populations residing there, and of the nature of tradition and its persistence in the face of changing circumstances. Ng Chin-keong was professor of Chinese History at the National University of Singapore until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683–1735. Calligraphy: The two Chinese characters 畊海 (genghai), or commonly written as 耕海 9 789814 722018 , literally mean “ploughing the sea”. http://nuspress.nus.edu.sg Ng Chin-keong Bound & Beyond Jkt Hardback final_32.5mm lani.indd 1 10/10/16 2:31 PM Boundaries and Beyond Boundaries and Beyond China’s Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times 耕海:明清东南沿海与 传统藩篱的移位 Ng Chin-keong © 2017 Ng Chin-keong This book is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ Published by: NUS Press National University of Singapore AS3-01-02, 3 Arts Link Singapore 117569 Fax: (65) 6774-0652 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://nuspress.nus.edu.sg All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Name(s): Ng, Chin-keong. Title: Boundaries and beyond: China’s maritime southeast in late imperial times / Ng Chin-keong. Description: Singapore: NUS Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographic references and index. Identiier(s): OCN 950557701 | ISBN 978-981-47-2201-8 (case) Subject(s): LCSH: Merchant marine--China--History. | China--Commerce-- History. | China--Foreign economic relations--Asia--History. Classiication: DDC 382.09510903--dc23 The electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-981-4722-44-5. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Contents List of Maps vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Part One: Maritime East Asia in Historical Perspective 1. Commodity and Market: Structure of the Long-distance Trade in the East Asian Seas and Beyond Prior to the Early Nineteenth Century 3 Part Two: Between “Us” and “Them” 2. Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Haifang (Coastal Defense) during the Late Ming and High Qing 57 3. Trade, the Sea Prohibition and the “Folangji”, 1513‒50 101 4. Treaties, Politics and the Limits of Local Diplomacy in Fuzhou in the Early 1850s 147 5. “Shooting the Eagle”: Lin Changyi’s Agony in the Wake of the Opium War 175 6. Information and Knowledge: Qing China’s Perceptions of the Maritime World in the Eighteenth Century 191 Part Three: Pushing the Traditional Boundaries 7. The Changing Landscape in Rural South Fujian in Late-Ming Times: A Story of the “Little People” (1) 207 8. Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers in Offshore Trading Activities, 1522‒66: A Story of the “Little People” (2) 242 9. Managing Maritime Affairs in Late-Ming Times 261 v vi Contents 10. Liturgical Services and Business Fortunes: Chinese Maritime Merchants in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries 292 11. The Amoy Riots of 1852: Coolie Emigration and Sino-British Relations 316 Part Four: Transcending Borders 12. Expanding Possibilities: Revisiting the Min-Yue Junk-trade Enterprise on the China Coast and in the Nanyang during the Eighteenth to the Mid-nineteenth Centuries 345 13. The Case of Chen Yilao: Maritime Trade and Overseas Chinese in Qing Policies, 1717‒54 415 14. “Are These Persons British or Chinese Subjects?”— Legal Principles and Ambiguities Regarding the Status of the Straits Chinese as Revealed in the Lee Shun Fah Affair in Amoy, 1847 444 Glossary of Chinese Characters 469 Bibliography 474 Index 496 List of Maps 1. The Asian Seas, Trading Regions and the Silk Road in Historical Perspective xv 2. China Coast and Trading Ports (Sixteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries) xvi 3. Maritime East Asia and Trading Ports/Regions in Historical Perspective xvii vii Preface This collection includes 14 selected essays on maritime China in Late Imperial times. The three earliest pieces originate from a Master’s thesis that was written in 1970 and the most recent pieces are the English versions of two conference papers presented in 2010 and 2013 respectively at the National Cheng-kung University of Taiwan. The rest were published in the 1990s and 2000s. The main title of the volume “Boundaries and Beyond” provides some sort of frame of unity for the different topics. My choice of the word “boundaries” as a concept has been inspired by John Hay’s ideas in his introduction to the edited volume Boundaries in China. Hay mentions all sorts of boundaries that have been “drawn for speciic purposes, demarcating particular regimes of powers.… The demarcations are erected as barriers.…” Ritual is a good example. While its principal purpose is for “the maintenance of stability in a system”, it can also be seen “as a dynamic system, rather than simply as a frozen body of pre/proscription”. The former situation “inherently sets it against the forces of change”. However, “its inception … is a reaction to those forces, which are therefore always implicit in it. Ritual is not ‘non-change’, but rises to demarcate a fundamental boundary between stability and instability.”1 The main heading of the book title, “Boundaries and Beyond”, highlights the two contesting forces of continuities and discontinuities that characterized China’s maritime southeast in late imperial times. Boundaries were in the process of shifting. They were there for the purpose of maintaining stability, status quo, or law and order. The state prescribed which occupations were perceived to be fundamental and which secondary. Besides this function, boundaries also worked to protect the powerful, the wealthy or the interest groups who often had the privilege of setting the boundaries to prevent others from inlicting harm and destruction upon them. There were also boundaries of activity set to demarcate the land and the sea and between “us” and “them”. In actuality, boundaries were not strict demarcations separating the space within them from that outside them. Boundaries were in a state of lux, driven by the emerging socioeconomic forces and hence embodied dualistic characters of “tradition” and “change”. 1. Boundaries in China, ed. John Hay (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1994), pp. 8‒9. ix x Preface In accordance with the content of each topic, the 14 chapters are grouped into four parts. Part One provides a long view of the development of maritime East Asia.