Abstract
There is little doubt that territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS) and the East China Sea (ECS) continue to be sources of tension and possible future conflict(s) that could escalate beyond the region. Countries such as the United States officially take no position on claims of sovereignty and are deeply committed to upholding the freedom of navigation and the maintenance of maritime security. At the heart of this unsettled situation is arguably the ‘nine-dash line’, or nanhai jiuduan xian 南海九段线 in Chinese, thebasis of which refers to a demarcation (initially eleven-dashes) that first appeared on a map produced by the Republic of China (ROC) in 1947 to justify its claim to the whole of the SCS following the acceptance of the Japanese surrender of its islands as set in the Cairo and Potsdam declarations and the subsequent peace treaty signed at the San Francisco conference on 8 September 1951. Upon the formation of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and the evacuation of the ROC to Taiwan, this eleven-dash boundary was revised to nine and approved by then-premier Zhou Enlai. At present nine countries have overlapping claims (China, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore). Sea Rovers alludes to this ‘unsettled situation’ as a continued legacy of ‘the peculiar history of East Asia’s maritime realm’ (p. 1). What is more, it was within the early-modern period of the mid-sixteenth- and seventeenth-century that this ‘realm’ truly became contested.
The realms of maritime East Asia, although abstract to other maritime realms globally, has a transnational similarity that makes Sea Rovers a valid and useful source for comparative studies on maritime history and the global interconnectivity of waterways. Each of the sixteen essays in this edited volume explores maritime East Asia as a place that is both contested and contradictory; a space of diverse cultures and peoples; and countless dialects and languages. It is a volume that is edited by two noted scholars of the emergence of an early-modern period in East Asian maritime history. Moreover it is a book that is espoused by a number of key authors in the histories of the region.
The seas of eighteenth-century East Asia were woven into the fabric of international trade. Each thread delicately intertwined into zones of exchange. The traffic of enormous quantities of silver followed the desire to consume Chinese silk, pottery, and Southeast Asian tropical goods. This cargo was collectively carried on Chinese junks, Japanese shuin 朱印 [red-seal] vessels, and Southeast Asian jongs, which in turn mapped and navigated the river-courses and sea-lanes. The vessels thus connected the export-orientated harbours to the Spanish galleons, the Indian dhows, and the Dutch and English men-of-war who in turn brought this trade to the thriving economic systems of the Indian Ocean, Europe, and the Americas. Yet the latter has been given far more scholarly attention than the former in spite of its importance. Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang have rightfully continued to correct this imbalance.
In correcting this, two major themes have emerged, the first of which views the ECS and the SCS as part of a Chinese Mediterranean; a view that seeks to emphasise unity and connectivity by its many actors. The second considers the seas as part of a wider Indian Ocean world – a web of maritime spice routes – one that is subjected to the same monsoon patterns. Sea Rovers attempts to add a third by understanding the maritime realms of East Asia as a ding an sich; a thing unto itself.
For Andrade and Xing Hang it is China that makes maritime East Asia so unusual. ‘No other ocean realm has had such a colossus affecting its trading patterns and historical developments’ (p. 3). Yet for the editors it was not solely size and dominance that made it extraordinary. Its maritime policies and an enactment of prohibition (haijin 海禁) in theory made the sea a border and not an opportunity. Added to this, the draconian set of restrictions was also adopted by the Chosŏ n dynasty in Korea (which modelled their maritime policies on Ming China) and the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan endorsed restriction (kaikin 海禁). Prohibition on maritime activity by China, Korea, and Japan in turn made East Asia an anomaly in world history. Instead of fostering overseas trade and profiting from it, many polities became ‘insular and mainland’ (p. 5).
What is more, it is relevant to add that the Ming-Chosŏ n-Tokugawa prohibition policies were not the norm throughout the history of East Asia. In fact for most of the preceding dynasties overseas trade was largely encouraged. As a result of this, maritime East Asia was decentralised and multilateral and made up of ‘circuits of private and often illegal’ exchanges. It was home to a thriving space of ‘smugglers and pirates, soldiers and samurai, monks and fishermen’ (p. 5). The transnational aspect of this community led to the formation of notable characters, not least the rise in the Zheng family. I’ll come back to this family momentarily. Beforehand, it is important to reflect that this volume sees the evolution of pre-modern East Asia occurring in four stages. The first, ‘the wild and woolly 1500s’ (pp. 6–8), was a period with little central authority and instead the seas became a hotbed of violent piratical activity. This was followed by the 1570s–1620s; a period where prohibition was moderated and licensed trade was established from Fujian. It was during this period that the Spanish colony of Manila was established (1571) with a direct link to the Americas and with it access to silver. Chinese emigrant communities quickly asserted themselves there as traders and artisans. This was followed by the establishment of the Dutch entrepôt in southern Taiwan in 1624 after being driven out of Penghu by the Ming navy. A third period followed (The Zheng Period: 1630s to 1683), which was an era in which much of the economic and military sway was under the control of the Zheng clan in southern Fujian. The last and final section – Maritime Asia in the early Qing – witnesses the end of the Zheng monopoly and a ‘period of unprecedented maritime freedom’ (p. 21), but a return to a fluctuating policy of maritime development and injunction.
Out of the sixteen chapters in this edited volume, at least ten focus primarily on the Zheng period. It is a shame that each of the four periods were not given equal attention. That said, I can understand why. This period is particularly important in that it enables readers to reassess previous accepted models on European expansion eastwards. It informs the reader that the maritime cultures of the East Asian seaboard were developed from an infinitude of interactions rather than a result of European accession.
Furthermore, and this is where the book became important to me, by framing maritime East Asia in such a way, it identifies the importance (strategic, economic, cultural, and many other such adjectives) of Taiwan. Andrade is no stranger to writing Taiwanese history, but what sets this apart is that it frames the island globally in a pre-modern period.