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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
In virtually every stage of these transactions, the aid of Chinese-overseas Chinese whose families had permanently resided in Thailand from the late Ming or newcomers in the eighteenth century-was invaluable.60 They knew the trade routes, had learned many business skills, had far greater mobility than most Siamese, and nonetheless identified with Thai society far more successfully than their European rivals. Moreover, these overseas Chinese and China-born merchants knew how to deal with both the government and merchant circles of the China mainland. They spoke the local dialects and read the yamen forms. They could cut corners and find loopholes in the law. They all had friends, relations, or neighbors to call on in case they ran into trouble. Most importantly, they knew who to bribe and how to win an argument. And so, as their Siamese patrons were like all foreign investors anxious to reduce risks in an unknown market, the Chinese were the "native experts" they relied on to sell their surplus rice.

These skills, sharpened through decades and centuries of their families' dealing with the Chinese government, proved particularly effective in disguising the Siam boats they operated as Chinese boats. As Jennifer Cushman writes of these Siam junks: "Since the vessels themselves were designed to conform to Chinese junk models, the presence of Chinese on these vessels as officers and crew made them virtually indistinguishable from Chinese craft."62 Regarded as Chinese craft, these Siam boats were allowed certain concessions not usually granted foreign vessels, such as reductions of measurement fees and rebates on cargo duties. Most important, after foreign trade was restricted to Canton in 1757, they enjoyed like all Chinese boats the right to continue trading at every other Chinese port as well as Canton. Thus, when the ships of the Siam monarchy entered Amoy, Canton, and a wide variety of coastal ports, they were usually considered not Siamese but Chinese.63 As this trade was highly profitable for the royal household, the Chinese traders, and probably often the local Chinese officials, no one wanted to correct the misunderstanding. The omission of much of this trade from the Chinese record is precisely what they all wanted.

What the Siamese royal family wanted from this trade was the wealth of manufactured goods the Chinese had long traded with southeast Asia, especially silk goods, porcelain, and metal goods.64 What they, living in a very fertile land with a tropical climate, had to offer was rice.65 And that was precisely what the Fujian and Cantonese traders wanted in large amounts.

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