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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Fujian had since the late twelfth century regularly depended on rice imports from Chekiang to the north and Guangdong to the south.66 By 1700, that option was no longer so clear, as both of these provinces were regularly pleading rice shortages themselves and competing with one another for rice shipments from the Lower Yangtze Valley.67 The foreign option, Siam's rice, now loomed as a solution.

China had imported Siam rice in the seventeenth century, when its sailors were aware of its abundance and cheapness.68 Quanzhou is said to have heavily imported it in the late seventeenth century.69 But the court first learned of its cheapness only in 1722, and the Kangxi Emperor promptly ordered the import of 300,000 bushels of rice from Siam.70 His successor, the Yongzheng Emperor, was less enthusiastic about this solution, particularly about its becoming a permanent policy. He probably feared that the country's security would be threatened if it became deeply dependent on a foreign source for a staple and if the transport of that staple was conducted over long ocean distances and so be open prey to pirate attacks. Local officials also expressed their dismay over this change, probably because they feared that the import of a tax-free good like rice would lower their income.

But severe famines in Fujian in 1726 and 1727 forced the court and emperor to act.72 Deciding there was no alternative, the Yongzheng Emperor assented, and Fujian for the next decade imported several hundreds of thousands of rice every year.73 The next figures so far discovered come from the mid-1750s: In 1754, 1755, and 1758, between 90,000 to 100,000 bushels are said to have been imported to just Amoy from Southeast Asia, mainly from Siam.74 As the number of its ships' overseas voyages had doubled during the two intervening decades75, as Guangdong also began to import Siam's rice76, as from the 1740s Fujian and Guangdong merchants also began to import it on their own ships directly from Siam77, and as the price of rice in the mid and late eighteenth century was far higher than in the early eighteenth century78, there is in fact every sign of a steady increase in the volume of this trade over the second quarter of the eighteenth century. As for the actual scale of this import trade, recall that 74 so-called Chinese boats-the figure must be a minimal total-were leaving just Amoy at this time.79 They would have normally had a cargo capacity of 10,000 bushels, which they would have filled with a variety of products. Since rice was in such heavy demand at this time, a half-cargo of 5,000bushels of Siam rice would not have been unthinkable. And for that figure to reach just 10,000 bushels, only 20 of the 74 counted ships would have had to been seeking profit from this lucrative tax-free staple.80

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