Boundaries and Beyond
linked essays by a senior scholar in the field challenge the usual readings
China’s southeastern coast within a broader view of maritime Asia, the first
China’s Maritime farther afield, pursuing the history of Southeast in Late Imperial Times
畊海 耕海 Ng Chin-keong Boundaries and Beyond
Boundaries and Beyond
China’s Maritime Southeast 耕海:明清东南沿海与in Late Imperial Times 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, Publishedvisit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ by
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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. Identi ier(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. Classi ication: 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 Preface Acknowledgments vii ix Part One: Maritime East Asia in Historical Perspective xi
1. Commodity and Market: Structure of the Long-distance Trade in the East Asian Seas and Beyond Prior to the Part Two:Early Between Nineteenth “Us” Century and “Them” 3
Haifang
2. Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and (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 Part Three:the Maritime Pushing World the Traditional in the Eighteenth Boundaries Century 191
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 Contents vi
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 Part Four:Sino-British Transcending Relations Borders 316
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 Glossaryin ofAmoy, Chinese 1847 Characters 444 Bibliography Index 469 474 496 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 Mast er’s thesis that was written in 1970 and the most recent pieces are the Englishversions of two conference papers presented in 2010 and 2013 respectivelyat the National Cheng-kung University of Taiwan. The rest were published in the 1990s and 2000s. The main title of the volume “Boundariesand Beyond” provides some sort of frame of unity for the differenttopics. Boundaries in ChinaMychoice of the word “boundaries” as a concept has been inspired byJohn Hay’s ideas in his introduction to the edited volume . Hay mentions all sorts of boundaries that have been “drawn for speci ic 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 eaction a r to those forces, which are therefore always implicit in it. Ritual is not ‘non-change’, but rises 1to demarcate a fundamental boundary between stability and instability.” 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 whoten of had the privilege of setting the boundaries to prevent others from in licting harm and destruction upon them.There were also boundaries of ctivitya 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”. Boundaries in China
1. , ed. John Hay (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1994), pp. 8‒9.
ix Preface x
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. It places China’s southeastern coast in late imperial times in the broad perspective of maritime East Asia and the Asian Seas over a long period of some two thousand years. One salient feature of this maritime world was its lexibility and inclusiveness, allowing people from within or without to assume different roles as commodity producers, traders, shippers, cargo carriers or consumers in the long- distance shipping trade. Part Two depicts the orthodox perceptions of viewing and responding to the changes or challenges. Part Three reviews the undercurrent of social and economic forces that had the effect of modifying the existing boundaries. Part Four examines the transnational movements crossing the borders, altering the status quo and creating new types of boundaries. Parts Two to Four are arranged under three sub-themes that seem to indicate a chronological sequence of movement in three stages from tradition toward change. In fact, they illustrate a continuous process of interactions throughout late imperial times between the status quo and challenges as shown in all the chapters. In other words, status quo and change did not preclude each other, rather, both were responding to the current social and economic forces. Although tradition remained strong, change was also occurring all the time, either in the form of a deep undercurrent or as an increasingly visible phenomenon. As regards the conventions, the volume uses Pinyin romanization and simpli ied Chinese characters in general for the Chinese terms or publication titles. However, the Wade-Giles or dialect-pronounced names are kept in accordance to the scholars’ own preference. An older form of romanization is applied to a few Chinese place names, such as Amoy, Soochow and Canton that were commonly used in the older western writings. There is also no conversion to Pinyin for such place names as Taipei that follow the local usage. For the Chinese characters in the article or book titles, the complex form of characters is kept for the pre- 1949 publications, the historical texts of Imperial times or the printed materials from outside mainland China. Place names in Southeast Asia are as complicated. In general, names that have long been used in the past in English literature have been chosen. Among them are the Moluccus, Celebes, Bantam and Malacca. When discussing shipping trade in the Malay world, however, either the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago or the Indonesian Archipelago are the terms used depending on the geographical extent of the activity. When it comes to the modern period, the more familiar term in western writings, the Indian Archipelago, is also used. No attempt has been made to update the contents of the essays to accommodate later works by other scholars. Other than the editorial re inement, the essays are kept in their original form and style. Acknowledgments
Chronological Table of Chapters
Date Title Source
1970 Managing maritime affairs in An outgrowth of a chapter late Ming times in my MA thesis writtenNanyang in University1970. The Journalthesis chapter was reproduced in , no. 5 (1971): 81–100. 1970 The changing landscape in An outgrowth of a chapter rural south Fujian in late- in my MA thesis writtenNanyang in Ming times: A story of the University1970. The Journal,thesis chapter “little people”(1) was reproduced in no. 6 (1972): 189–213. 1970 Gentry-merchants and An outgrowth of a chapter peasant-peddlers in offshore in my MA thesis writtenNanyang in trading activities, 1522–66: A University1970. The Journalthesis chapter story of the “little people”(2) was reproduced in , no. 7 (1973):Emporia, 161–75. Commodities and 1991 The case of Chen Yilao: EntrepreneursFirst published in in Asian Maritime trade and overseas Maritime Trade, C. 1400– Chinese in Qing policies, 1750 1717–54 , ed. Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund. Stuttgard: Franz Steiner Verlag for Sudasien-Institut, Universitat Heidelberg, pp. 373–400.
xi Acknowledgments xii Maritime Asia: Pro it Maximisation, 1994 Liturgical services and EthicsFirst published and Trade in Structure c. business fortunes: Chinese 1300–1800 maritime merchants in the eighteenth and early , ed. Karl Anton nineteenth centuries Sprengard and Roderich Ptak. Wiesbaden: HarrassowitzMariners, Verlag,Merchants pp. and75–96. Oceans: Studies 1995 The Amoy riots of 1852: inFirst Maritime published History in Coolie emigration and Sino- British relations , ed. K.S. Mathew. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors,The pp.Portuguese 419–46. and the Paci ic 1995 Trade, the sea prohibition and First published in the “Folangji”, 1513–50 , ed. Francis A. Dutra and Joao Camilo dos Santos. Santa Barbara: Center for Portuguese Studies, University of California,China Santaand haifang HerBarbara, Neighbours: pp. 381–424. Borders, 1997 Maritime frontiers, territorial VisionsFirst published of the Others, in expansion and Foreign Policy (10th to 19th (coastal defense) during the Century) late Ming and high Qing , ed. Roderich Ptak. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 211–57. 2001 “Are these persons British or A rewritten version of a Chinese subjects?”—Legal paper presented in 2001 at principles and ambiguities the Workshop on “China and regarding the status of the Southeast Asia: Historical Straits Chinese as revealed Interactions”, held at the in the Lee Shun Fah affair in Centre of Asian Studies, Amoy, 1847 University of Hong Kong. Acknowledgments
xiii Power and Identity in the Chinese 2003 Treaties, politics and the WorldFirst published Order in limits of local diplomacy in Fuzhou in the early 1850s , ed. Billy So, John Fitzgerald, Huang Jianli, and James Chin Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UniversityMaritime Press, pp.China 239–67. and Overseas Chinese 2004 “Shooting the eagle”: Lin inFirst Transition, published 1750–1850 in Changyi’s agony in the wake of the Opium War , ed. Wang Gungwu and Ng Chin-keong. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag,The pp. East 373–86.Asian Maritime World, 1400– 2007 Information and knowledge: 1800:First published Its Fabrics in of Power Qing China’s perceptions of and Dynamics of Exchanges the maritime world in the eighteenth century , ed. Angela Schottenhammer. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 87–98. 2012 Expanding possibilities: TheHaigang, essay originates Hainan, haidao: from a Revisiting the Min-Yue junk- HaiyangChinese versionshi lunwen published ji 海港 trade enterprise on the China in海難 海盜:海洋史論文 coast and in the Nanyang 集 · during the eighteenth to the · mid-nineteenth centuries (Ports, shipwrecks and Piracy: Collected鄭永常 essays on ocean cultures), ed. Cheng Wing Sheung . Tainan: The Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, pp. 25–70. Acknowledgements xiv
2015 Commodity and market: TheDongya essay originateshaiyu wangluo from yu a Structure of the Long- gangshiChinese shehuiversion lunwenji published東亞 distance trade in the East in海域網絡與港市社會論文集 Asian Seas and beyond prior to the early nineteenth century (Collected essays on networks and port communities of Maritime East Asia), ed. Cheng Wing Sheung. Tainan: The Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, NCKU.
As indicated above, I would like to record my thanks to Harrassowitz Verlag, Franz Steiner Verlag, Hong Kong University Press, Professor João Camilo dos Santos at the Center for Portuguese Studies, UCSB, Professor Dr K.S. Mathew, and Professor Tai Hua at the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Cheng Kung University for granting me their kind permission to include in the present volume my essays that irst appeared in the volumes published/edited by them. I would like to thank many colleagues and friends who have helped me in one way or another in the publication of the present volume. They have been unsparing of their time either in responding to my queries about a number of references that I use in footnotes, or helping verify their authors, the exact Chinese/Japanese titles or other publication information. They include Akira Matsuura, Ei Murakami, K.C. Yap, Kai-Yiu Chan, Su Hsia Yang, Koh Keng We, Clement Liew, Wee Tong Bao, Shenqi Shu, and Apicha Chutipongpisit. I am grateful to Christine Chan who was a great help in drawing the three maps for the book. Thanks to Roderich Ptak, Dietmar Rothermund, Karl Anton Sprengard, Angela Schottenhammer, Francis A. Dutra, João Camilo dos Santos, K.S. Mathew, Cheng Wing Sheung, Billy So, John Fitzgerald, Huang Jianli, and James Chin Kong for the original publication of my papers in their edited volumes. I am indebted to Kwan Siu-hing who kindly read and commented畊海 genghai on Chapter 13. Matthew Piscioneri and Rosemary Robson greatly contributed to the re inement of the text. The Chinese characters ( , or “ploughing the sea”) depict how the Chinese seafarers from China’s southeast had for centuries perceived their maritime life. It is a great honor that Mr Shen Yunzhi, a South Fujianese calligrapher from Zhao’an, agrees to grace the page with his elegant brush writing. I must thank Shen Huifen for introducing Mr Shen to me. Last but not least, I want to express my appreciation to NUS Press for publishing this collection of my selected works. My thanks go to Peter Schoppert, Paul Kratoska and Qua Lena at the Press. While Peter keenly supported the project, Paul offered his useful suggestions and Lena ably guided the production process. Map 1: The Asian Seas, Trading Regions and the Silk Road in Historical Perspective Map 2: China Coast and Trading Ports (Sixteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries) Map 3: Maritime East Asia and Trading Ports/Regions in Historical Perspective
PART ONE
Maritime East Asia in Historical Perspective
Chapter 1 provides a panoramic view to put the chapters in Parts Two to Four in a broader context. It surveys the development and sustainability of long-distance shipping trade in the East Asian Seas and the western part of the Asian Seas. The geographical unity of maritime East Asia is illustrated by the popular participation of its people and also viewed from the port-to-port as well as port-to-hinterland linkages. With the arrival of the western Europeans in Asian waters in the closing years of the ifteenth century, maritime trade in the Asian Seas entered into a global age.