Chinese circulations: Capital, commodities and networks in Southeast Asia (2024)

Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800

Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol.87, Pt. 2, No. 307, Dec. 2014, pp.118-120, 2014

Journal of International and Global Studies, 2011

Southeast Asia and the Early Maritime Silk Road

in J. Guy (ed) Lost Kingdoms of Early Southeast Asia: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture 5th to 8th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, p.22-25.

Southeast Asian Trade in a Global Perspective, from Antiquity to the Modern Era

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History

Southeast Asia has been a critical nexus of the economic interactions between the Indian Ocean, China Seas, and the Pacific Ocean littoral. Trade and commerce developed from the early first to late second millennia involving shipping and commercial networks both within Southeast Asia and from further afield. Accompanying these networks were the region’s port cities, which held these networks together, pulling the subregional networks of trade and commerce into one regional economic sphere. The nature of trade and commerce was affected by the different ecological and economic zones of Southeast Asia. This in turn affected the types of products that were traded and the communications links that connected the different subregions to the outside world. In addition, economic interactions with regions further afield and the geopolitical changes that these regions underwent also determined the types of products that flowed into and through Southeast Asia, as well as the way in which commer...

Commodity Flows in the South China Sea in the Early Modern Period, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Century

At the dawn of the fifteenth century, the South China Sea was a region that hummed with commerce: massive junks, fishing craft, and hordes of merchant mariners plied these waters as part of an articulated commercial network that acquired and distributed spices, ceramics, silks, aromatics and a whole assortment of more mundane goods. This rich commerce coincided with an explosion in material culture and vigorous state-building in the polities of the South China maritime rim, resulting in an unprecedented rise in prosperity and cultural refinement. Examination of the secondary literature strongly suggests this commercial and material development and trends of political consolidation and internationalization of trade were mutually reinforcing. One of the most significant ways in which this commercial and material expansion can be perceived is through how demand began to incorporate certain luxury commodities as objects of popular consumption, “everyday luxuries.” In China in particular, this process was facilitated by preexisting cultural paradigms. Through exploring the life cycles of certain commodities in this period, I hope to illustrate three significant aspects of this commercial network: how overlapping types of commodity demand are shaped by existing sociocultural paradigms, how state formation is crucially linked to the expansion of demand, and how ingrained demand can result in the creation of alternative sites of supply.

Maritime Trade in Southeast Asia during the Early Colonial Period

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2014 ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON UNDERWATER CULTURAL HERITAGE, 2014

The arrival of naval expeditions in the Philippines and Melaka from Spain and Portugal respectively during the early sixteenth century CE created profound transformations in patterns of Southeast Asian maritime trade as European markets became available to Southeast Asian products and vice versa. The production and distribution of Southeast Asian natural and manufactured products intensified in response to increased supply and demand. This subsequently led to the discovery of raw material sources and production centres as well as the emergence and development of maritime polities that serve as ports of call by various types of watercraft vessels. This paper will present the archaeological excavation results of sixteenth century shipwrecks in Malaysia (Xuande and Wanli), the Philippines (San Isidro and Royal Captain junk) and Thailand (KoSamui and KoKradat) in an attempt to analyse maritime trade patterns as the Southeast Asian region transitioned from its previous intraregional-focus on maritime trade to participants of the global trade economy.

Silk for Silver: Manila-Macao Trade in the 17th Century

Philippine Studies

Maritime Southeast Asia Between South Asia and China to the Sixteenth Century

Beyond the Silk Road Metaphor: Transregional Maritime Exchange and Social Transformation in Iron Age Southeast Asia

ACTA VIA SERICA Vol. 8.2 , 2023

Over the past 30 years, intense archaeological research has revealed a great increase in regional and transregional object mobility across the South China Sea during the Iron Age (500 BCE to 500 CE). Some objects had moved from far away in the Mediterranean, while others were connected to places in central East Asia. Such evidence has given rise to grand explanations for this movement, among which the most prominent has been the growth of Silk Road trade. Scholars are divided as to whether the Silk Road is still a suitable explanatory concept, with some emphasizing its orientalist overtones and colonial baggage and others seeing it as a useful metaphor for global connectivity before globalization. This paper explores how productive the Silk Road concept really is for understanding transregional connections and social change in Iron Age Southeast Asia.

Tracing Back of Chinese Artifacts History: The Trading and Diplomacy Relationship Between China and Archipelago in Early Century

The Trading and Diplomacy Relationship Between China and Archipelago in Early Century, 2001

Given the location of Indonesia’s archipelago is between Asia and Australia, it had become not only the crossing bridge for the prehistoric people but also - not less important - maritime trade route between India and China. Indonesia’s location between the two trade centers had also influenced history. Therefore, it is hard to portend what time both countries – India and China – had trade relationships with the Archipelago’s people because since the first century India and China had already had a great relationship in commerce and Buddhism religion. With their strategic relation, their ships must have visited Indonesia for they must have passed through Malacca Strait.