The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
The
Age of Commerce (1540-1680)-International Shipping and
Bullion Flows in East Asian Waters
This week I want to talk
to you about something not as abstract as money-that is,
trade and war on the sea. Throughout Easter Asia the world
of the sea has long been regarded as different from that
of the land. The sea had no walls, no officials, no laws,
and virtually no signs of civilization, that culture of
the land and the state we consider East Asian. Instead
it had beasts and boats, unpredictable weather, and strange
currents. It led to places where people did exotic things
like live in trees and drink milk. It tolerated an enormous
human variety beyond the comprehension of the ordinary
peasant and official and it bred mixed races and unloyal
subjects. Chinese of the southeast coast may have become
accustomed to trade within a few miles of shore, Japanese
may have begun to think of their inland sea as a kind
of lake, and the Koreans had an extended history of trade
and war around their peninsula. But overall, the sea beyond
the horizon remained dark, dangerous, and unruly. The
people who lived off its fish and boats were likewise
considered rough and dangerous, often not very different
from smugglers and pirates. And in fact, they at times
were, particularly when they confronted the arbitrary
commands of a landed order indifferent to the ways of
their own.
This relationship between
maritime trade and war then was not fixed. It had its
own cycles which were quite distinct from the dynastic
cycle. This week, to provide a human and commercial context
to last week's analysis of currency, I want to explore
a long cycle in this relationship, which I believe lasted
in East Asian waters from the eighth to the seventeenth
century. During this cycle of nine centuries, Chinese
domination over the waters of East Asia persisted through
imperial bans and pirate attacks. Its exports largely
remained the manufactured good that had won it in fame
in markets throughout East Asia and the world-coins, ceramics,
silk, and metals. Yet, two significant breaks would occur,
the first in the early Ming, when the fate of its maritime
trade diverged from that of its maritime fleet, and the
second during the mid-sixteenth century when the arrival
of Japanese silver redirected its focus from southeast
to northeast Asia for the next century.
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