Voyages, Migration, and the Maritime World: On China’s Global Historical Role 9783110587685, 9783110585070

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Voyages, Migration, and the Maritime World

Voyages, Migration, and the Maritime World On China’s Global Historical Role Edited by Clara Wing-chung Ho, Ricardo King-sang Mak, and Yue-him Tam

The publication of this book was generously supported by the HKBU Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology – Amway Development Fund

ISBN 978-3-11-058507-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-058768-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-058514-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ho, Clara Wing-chung, editor. | Mai, Jingsheng, editor. | Tan, Ruqian, editor. Title: Voyages, migration, and the Maritime World: on China's global historical role / edited by/herausgegeben von Clara Wing-chung Ho, Ricardo K. S. Mak, Yue-him Tam. Description: Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2018] Identifiers: LCCN 2018018457| ISBN 9783110585070 (print) | ISBN 9783110585148 (e-book : epub) | ISBN 9783110587685 (e-book : pdf) Subjects: LCSH: China–Foreign relations–History. | Navigation–China–History. Classification: LCC DS740.4 .Y69 2018 | DDC 303.48/251–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018018457 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: 4X-image / E+ / gettyimages Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents Acknowledgements 

 7

Notes on Editors and Contributors  Introduction 

 9

 13

Part I: Perspectives on the World 1

HANEDA Masashi World/Global History and the Positionality of Historians 

2

Valerie HANSEN The World in the Year 1000: The View from Beijing 

 23

 37

Part II: China’s Maritime World: From Ancient to Modern Times 3

Chinhau LEI The Emergence of Organized Water Transport in Early China: Its Social and Geographical Contexts  45

4

Kin Sum (Sammy) LI Cultural Interactions throughout the Ancient South China Sea 

5

HAN Xiaorong The Role of Vietnam in China’s Foreign Relations 

 91

 121

6

Kuo-tung CHEN Advantages of Chinese Navigators during the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries   134

7

Ronald C. PO The Pearl by the Bohai Sea: Qinhuangdao in the Early Modern Period   143

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 Contents

8

Philip THAI Smuggling and Legal Pluralism on the China Coast: The Rise and Demise of the Joint Investigation Rules, 1864–1934   165

9

Donna BRUNERO Beyond Tariffs and Duties: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service and its Representations of China’s Maritime World c.1912–49   186

Part III: Migrations and the Travel of Ideas 10

Glen PETERSON International Law and China’s Entry into the ‘Family of Nations’: The Question of Forced Migration and Refugees   207

11

Catherine S. CHAN At the Edge of Two Worlds: Rethinking the Portuguese Diaspora in British Hong Kong   231

12

YUNG Ying-yue The Global Migration of a Chinese Family: Kwan Yuen-cheung and His Descendants   243

Acknowledgements The present volume is the result of an international conference focusing on topics related to our understanding of the role of China in the global history. The original title of the event was “Voyages, Migration and the Maritime Silk Road: An International Symposium on China’s Role in Global History.” Jointly organized by the Department of History, Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology of the Hong Kong Baptist University, the Zheng He Society of New York, and the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; and co-sponsored by the Chinese Cheng Ho Society, International Zheng He Society, and the Mr Simon Suen and Mrs Mary Suen Sino-Humanitas Institute of the Hong Kong Baptist University, the conference took place at the University on December 7 and 8, 2015. With seventy registered participants and a considerable number of guests and walk-in participants, the event successfully brought together scholars representing eight countries/regions sharing similar scholarly interests. The idea of hosting this conference began when one of the editors, Yue-him Tam, visited the Hong Kong Baptist University in the 2014–15 academic year. It was the conversation between Yue-him and Professor Albert S. C. Chan, former President of the Hong Kong Baptist University, which had brought the conference idea to realization. Therefore, we extend our immense gratitude to Professor Chan, who kindly approved the generous funding to support this joint venture between academic units at the university. Without Professor Chan’s support, this conference would never have happened. Our gratitude extends to our co-organizers and co-sponsors. Ms. Sulia Chan, President of the Zheng He Society of New York, had worked tirelessly with us throughout the preparation. She tapped into her global network to invite participants from diverse and interesting backgrounds. We also thank the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies for sending in a team of presenters. We are grateful to our colleagues Chen Zhi, Director of the Jao Academy, and Zhang Hongsheng, Director of the Suen Institute, who decided to join us as co-organizer and cosponsor respectively at the early preparatory stages of this event. We are indebted to Professor Roland T. Chin, our current President, and Professor Adrian J. Bailey, our Dean. Both of them had rendered their indispensable support to the conference and attended the opening as officiating guests. The happy conclusion of a scholarly event relies on the participation of each and every member. We would like to thank our keynote speakers, presenters, panel chairs, discussants, as well as the entire team of the Organizing Committee and the Working Committee in making this a successful conference. In particular, we thank the authors of the twelve papers in this volume for going through https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-201

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the entire process with us. We must also thank Anke Beck and Xingguo Shi of DeGruyter who expressed interest in publishing this volume at an early stage, and Rabea Rittgerodt who subsequently worked with us on the editing and production. Their insightful support for academics is very much appreciated and it was an absolute pleasure to work with them in order to bring this project to fruition. Last but certainly not the least, our huge thanks to Ka-lai Chan, who served as both the Conference Coordinator and our Editorial Assistant. We could not imagine the smooth organization of the conference and the timely preparation of this volume without Ka-lai’s energetic support. CH RM YHT September 2016 Updated February 2018

Notes on Editors and Contributors Editors Clara Wing-chung HO is Professor and Head at the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University. She is the editor of several volumes including Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Qing Period, 1644–1911 (1998, paperback edition 1999; Chinese edition 2010), Windows on the Chinese World: Reflections by Five Historians (2009), Overt and Covert Treasures: Essays on the Sources for Chinese Women’s History (2012), and Xingbie shiye zhong de Zhongguo lishi xinmao (2012). Her books in Chinese include Nüxing yu lishi: Zhongguo chuantong guannian xintan (1993), Zhongguo gudai de yu’er (1997), De cai se quan: Lun Zhongguo gudai nüxing (1998), and Caide xianghui: Zhongguo nüxing de zhixue yu kezi (2015). Ricardo K. S. MAK is Professor of History and Director of Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He began his academic career at the Department of History of the National Taiwan University after receiving his PhD. in History and Political Science from the University of Regensburg in 1993. Specializing in modern historical methods and theories, Sino-German relations and modern Chinese intellectual history, he has published a dozen monographs and edited volumes and over fifty articles and reviews on related topics. Yue-Him TAM is Professor of History at Macalester College in the United States. He researches modern Japanese and Chinese intellectual history and Sino-Japanese relations. He teaches courses on both China and Japan in modern and traditional periods in addition to an introductory course on East Asian civilizations covering Korea, Vietnam, Japan and China. He also offers a course on Imperial Japan’s war crimes and post-war memory in contemporary East Asia. Tam has published widely in English, Chinese and Japanese. He is the past president of the San Francisco-based Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia and has been part of the Advisory Board of the East Asian Library Journal (Princeton University). He was an Academic Adviser to two monumental Chinese publications: the 76-volume series Historical Sources of the Nanjing Massacre (Nanjing, 2005–2012) and the 60-volume series Criminal Records of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 (Beijing: 2015). Since the early 1980s, Tam has been serving on the board of The Chinese Association for Studies of Sino-Japanese Relations (Beijing, China) and the executive board of The Chinese Association for Japanese Historical Studies (Tianjin, China). He has held many honorary and visiting academic positions in Japan, China and the United States, including Daniel and Kitty Tse Visiting Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2015.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-202

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Contributors Donna BRUNERO, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the intersections between maritime history and British imperial history, with particular reference to the Asian port cities of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is the author of Britain’s Imperial Cornerstone in China: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1854–1949 (London & New York: Routledge, 2006). Her teaching experience includes courses on: the port cities of Asia, maritime history, and British imperial history. Catherine S. CHAN acquired her MPhil in History at the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University. She is currently a PhD student at the Department of History (Historical Studies), University of Bristol where she is working on the Portuguese diaspora in British Hong Kong. Her other research interests include East Asian transcultural studies, Hong Kong cultural identities, Hong Kong urban studies and heritage in Southeast Asia. CHEN Kuo-tung received his B.A. & M.A. in History (National Taiwan University) in 1980 and his Ph. D. in History (Yale University) in 1990. He was Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, from 1982 to 2002 and at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, since 2002. His research interests include Chinese economic history and maritime history of the Ming-Qing period. He is currently coordinating a joint research project (Maritime knowledge for China Seas) with PaolaCalanca of the École française d’Extrême-Orient. He has published many articles and comments. His recent book review appears in T’oung Pao, vol. 100 (2014). He has also publishes four books and edited one: 1. Kuo-tung Ch’en, The Insolvency of the Chinese Hong Merchants, 1760–1843 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1990); 2. Kuo-tung Ch’en ed., China and Adjacent Nations 漢文化與周邊民族 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2003); 3. Kuo-tung Ch’en, The Island’s History in Relation to Mountains and Sea 臺灣的山海經驗 (Taipei:Yuanliu Publisher, 2005); 4. Kuo-tung Ch’en, Maritime East Asia in the Past Millennium 東亞海域一千年 (Taipei: Yuanliu Publisher, 2005); and 5. Kuo-tung Ch’en, The Guangdong Maritime Customs and Hong Merchants in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries 清代前期的粵海關與十三行 (Guangzhou: Guangdong renminchubanshe, 2014). HAN Xiaorong is a professor in the Department of Chinese Culture, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research has focused on the interactions between intellectuals and peasants and between state and ethnic minorities in China, as well as China’s relations with her neighbors, particularly Vietnam. His publications include Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900–1949 (SUNY, 2005), Red God: Wei Baqun and His Peasant Revolution in Southern China, 1894–1932 (SUNY, 2014), Zhongguo minzhu guanxi sanlun 中國民族關係散論 (Singapore: Bafang wenhua, 2015), and numerous articles. HANEDA Masashi, BA and MA in historical studies (Kyoto University) and PhD in Iranian Studies (Université de Paris III), has worked as professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA), the University of Tokyo since 1997. He was the director of the IASA between 2009 and 2012 and has worked at the University headquarter as vice president between 2012 and 2015 and as executive vice president since April 2016. His major publications in Western languages include: Le système militaire safavide. Le chah et les Qizilbaš. Klaus Schwarz Verlag (Berlin,

Notes on Editors and Contributors 

 11

1987); Islamic Urban Studies. Review and Perspectives. Kegan Paul International (London, 1994); and Asian Port Cities, 1600–1800. Local and Foreign Cultural Interactions (National University of Singapore Press & Kyoto University Press, 2009). Valerie HANSEN teaches Chinese and world history at Yale, where she is professor of history. Her current research examines the interconnected world of the year 1000, exploring the goods, people, and ideas that traveled from one region to another in a time with no mechanized transport. In the past decade, she has spent three years in China: 2005–06 in Shanghai on a Fulbright grant; and 2008–09 and 2011–12, teaching at Yale’s joint undergraduate program with Peking University. In fall 2015, she taught at Yale-NUS in Singapore. Her books include The Silk Road: A New History (2012), The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800 (2nd edition, 2015), Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China (1995), Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127–1279 (1990), and Voyages in World History (co-authored with Kenneth R. Curtis (3rd edition, 2016). Chinhau LEI obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of History at National Taiwan University in June 2014. He was a Ph.D. Candidate Fellow in the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica and a Visiting Student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. He also studied Chinese oracle bone and bronze inscriptions and Chinese historical geography at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Dr. Lei’s research focuses on the chronology and geography of the Western Zhou Dynasty. His published monograph, The Zhou Road: The National Highway in an Age of Limited Mobility, deals with the transportation system of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The research on the origin and development of organized water transport in Chinese history is a logical continuation of his research on the transportation system in early China. Dr. Lei is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. He had been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University, and served as a Research Fellow in Chinese Art at the Newark Museum in the summer of 2016. Kin Sum (Sammy) LI, PhD (Princeton, 2015), is Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He is interested at the history of mass production in the ancient world and he attempts to study industrial art through the assistance of science and technology. He is working on articles and a book manuscript on the arts of ancient China. Glen PETERSON is Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include the social and cultural history of South China, Chinese migration to Southeast Asia, Chinese overseas and the modernization of China, refugee movements into and out of China in the twentieth century, and the history of the international refugee regime in Asia. His books include The Power of Words: Literacy and Revolution in South China, Education, Culture and Identity in Twentieth-Century China (with Ruth Hayhoe and Yongling Lu) and Overseas Chinese in the People’s Republic of China. He is currently working on a book-length study of China’s role in international efforts to address the problem of forced migration and refugees, 1920 to the present. Ronald C. PO is Assistant Professor of Chinese History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has published articles on the history of China and oceanic studies in peerreviewed journals such as Modern Asian Studies, Late Imperial China, Journal of the Royal Asiatic

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Society, and the American Journal of Chinese Studies. His forthcoming monograph is entitled The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He is also the Books Review Editor of the Journal of Global History. Philip THAI is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Northeastern University. A historian of Modern China, he has research and teaching interests that include legal history, economic history, and history of capitalism. At the core of his inquiries is understanding the interplay between law, society, and economy. He is currently working on his manuscript tentatively titled, The War on Smuggling: Law, Illicit Markets, and State Power on the China Coast. The study uses China’s campaigns against smuggling during the twentieth century to examine the transformation of state authority and the larger socioeconomic impact of state-building. Professor Thai received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2013 and his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2000. His interdisciplinary work has been supported by a number of organizations, including the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Fulbright-Hays Program, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Ying-yue YUNG (M.A., Columbia; Ph.D., Tokyo) taught Japanese Studies at National University of Singapore in the 1980s, and then moved to Asia University, Tokyo, where she is a professor teaching International Relations and Chinese Studies. She currently researches on (1) cultural contacts among Americans, Japanese students and Chinese students in late nineteenth century America, and (2) her own family history, namely the histories of Kwan Yuen-cheung family and Yung Hoy family.

Introduction With the growing transnational outreach of cultural and academic networks, it is gratifying to note that in the historiography of world/global history, an increasing number of scholarly works are furthering the extraordinary efforts of Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Max Weber to the East Asian region, particularly China and Japan.1 This new generation of multilingual Western scholars possess profound knowledge of both Western and East Asian histories, religions, politics, economies, societies, literature and the arts. Their views of East Asia are becoming less Eurocentric or even entirely non-Eurocentric. In 1984, Paul Cohen published his seminal work Discovering History in China, in which he calls for a China-centered approach to revisit Chinese history.2 This influential approach has been guiding the subsequent mainstream discussions on China and its interaction with the world. Particularly in the last two decades there have been many Western scholarly works by clear-eyed observers in the United States and Europe who have researched issues that have challenged us for a long time. For example, Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy,3 illustrates how timber was replaced in the eighteenth century because of the wide use of coal and how the development of trade around this enabled Western Europe to surpass China as the largest economy in the world. Pomeranz has clearly documented the “Great Divergence” in the growth of the modern world economy by comparing the ups and downs in China and Europe. His book won the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association in 2000 and many other honours, indicating its popularity in the Western world in spite of some of its problems. Shortly after Pomeranz’s book, Robert Allen, Tommy Bengtsson and Martin Dribe, partially supporting Pomeranz’s argument, empirically alleged that for more than a millennium prior to the “Great

1 It seems impossible to provide here a detailed list of books and articles on global history, into which historians in different parts of the world have thrown themselves with great zeal. Daniel R. Woolf, A Global History of History (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Dominic Sachsenmaier, Global Perspectives on Global History: Theories and Approaches in a Connected World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) persuasively discuss how global history has grown into a specialized discipline embodying great diversities of perspective and conceptual creativity. 2 Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). 3 Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-001

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Divergence,” the Chinese and Japanese were indeed eating better, enjoying better medical care, and thus living longer than their European counterparts, which is in contrast to the long standing view in the West.4 In the last few years, some Western scholars have looked beyond the “Great Divergence,” arguing that a “Resurgence” of East Asia has already been in action in our current millennium.5 Younger Western scholars have also called for redefining the “Great Divergence.” These scholars argue that when we consider world/ global history, it is simply insufficient to pay attention to only economic and technological changes. It is imperative to include the underlying cultural divergence since the axial age in the West as well as Asia. They are even striving to expand the basic function of history from being viewed as a discipline that is a major resource to cultivate “national identity” to also play a role in the cultivation of an identity as “residents of the Earth.”6 It has become clear to us that in the current scenario there are fewer ideological, cultural and language barriers standing in the way of a more critical understanding of global history. Today, notions such as the global village and the necessary exchanges and encounters between the West and the non-Western world are taken for granted by many. However, let us do not forget that these are relatively new notions in the history of the human race. The religious historian Mercea Eliade’s statement several decades ago still remains valid: “the Western world has not yet, or not generally, met with authentic representatives of the ‘real’ non-Western traditions.”7 In recent decades, Eliade’s call for inclusion has been gradually answered as scholars from the East have continually participated in the writing of global history, a project that has finally become a transnational initiative undertaken by both Western and Eastern representatives. With this in mind, scholarly works that position China as a crucial center in global interactions are certainly not uncommon. For instance, a few years before Eliade’s statement, Edwin Pulleyblank had already shed light on the undeniable connections between China and the Western world, stressing the importance of Chinese history as an inevitable

4 Robert C. Allen, Tommy Bengtsson and Martin Dribe, eds., Living Standards in the Past: New Perspectives on Well Being in Asia and Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 5 Giovanni Arrighi, Takeshi Hamashita and Mark Selden, eds., The Resurgence of East Asia (London: Routledge, 2003); Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of the “Rest:” Challenges to the West from Late Industrializing Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 6 Molly B. Kroker, “The ‘Great Divergence’ Redefined: The Rise and Fall of the West and the Recovery of China,” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 6. no. 9 (2014), pp. 1–3. 7 Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), pp. 8–9.

Introduction 

 15

portion of world history.8 Whilst Arnold Toynbee argued that China ran the world for more than twenty centuries,9 Frederic Wakeman highlighted China’s role in the construction of the world from the early modern to modern ages.10 Some other works that attest to China’s pivotal role in the making of the world include ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age,11 China in World History,12 The Silk Road in World History13 and a list of publications that continues to expand.14 More than this, the emergence of Eastern scholarship has reversed the game of interpreting history, amplifying the course of historical writing from the East to the West. As a result, the shaping of global history has since seen a renewed zeal– in China, for instance, the three-volume Jianming shijie shi 簡明世界史 (A brief history of the world), published in the early 1970s, became a paradigm of world history writings widely adapted throughout the nation for decades.15 From the Chinese 8 Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Chinese History and World History: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, OX.: Cambridge University Press, 1955), reprinted on Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Essays on Tang and Pre-Tang China (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2001). 9 Arnold Joseph Toynbee, ed., Half the World: The History and Culture of China and Japan (London: Thames & Hudson, 1973). 10 Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., Telling Chinese History: A Selection of Essays, edited by Lea H. Wakeman. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). 11 Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 12 Samuel Adrian Miles Adshead, China in World History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); also, similar observations can be seen in Adshead’s T’ang China: The Rise of the East in World History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 13 Xinru Liu, The Silk Road in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 14 William H. McNeill and Jean W. Sedlar, eds., China, India, and Japan: The Middle Period (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); John E. Wills Jr., 1688: A Global History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001); Lynn A. Struve, ed., The Qing Formation in World-historical Time (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004); Pamela Kyle Crossley, Global Society: The World since 1900 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004); Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005); Alexander Woodside, Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea and the Hazards of World History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Julia Lovell, The Great Wall: China against the World, 1000 BC – AD 2000 (London: Atlantic Books, 2006); Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (New York & London: Bloomsbury Press, 2008); David E. Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800 (Lanham, MS: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009); Paul S. Ropp, China in World History (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); John E. Wills Jr., ed., China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Kenneth Pomeranz, James B. Given and Laura J. Mitchell, eds., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A Companion Reader (New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011). 15 Qiao Mingshun 喬明順 et al. ed., Jianming shijie shi 簡明世界史 (A brief history of the world; Beijing: Beijing renmin chubanshe, 1971). Li Qunwu 李純武 and Shou Jiyu 壽紀瑜, eds., Jianming

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 Introduction

perspective, the formation of communities can be better explained through the lens of labour, class struggle, dialectical materialism and antagonism of productivity and production relations. Such reinterpretations of world history offer an alternative explanation to social conditions within industrial societies that Western thinkers have long endeavoured to tackle. However, the fact still remains that China’s global and historical role is not yet widely and fully known both at home and abroad. Hence as organizers of the international conference in Hong Kong in 2015, for which the papers collected in this book were originally presented, we were not shy in naming the conference title as “Voyages, Migration and the Maritime Silk Road: China’s Role in Global History.” We chose this conference title, not because China’s economy is the second largest in the world today, but because we want to communicate a historical fact that long before the Great Divergence between the West and the East in the eighteenth century and prior to China’s Admiral Zheng He’s worldwide explorations in the fifteenth century, the Chinese had carried out various cultural and economic activities around the world, many years prior to Columbus sailing outside Europe. The original conference focused on a variety of themes related to China’s role in global history. The latter has become a dynamic field in mainstream scholarship, following the cultural turn and eventually the global turn that is happening in numerous academic disciplines. As far as history is concerned, scholars have been conceptualizing and debating about the configuration of world history, the new world history, and global history. Moreover, in this age of globalization, frontier scholars have been making considerable attempts to chart China’s past in the light of the global historical process, and very often using comparative perspectives. The conference consisted of ten panels and a total of 49 papers were presented in person or in absentia. The keynote speakers included Valerie Hansen, Chen Kuo-tung, and Haneda Masashi, whose papers are all represented in this volume. Among the remaining nine panels, five covered the connection between China and the world from the early period to the contemporary world. The remaining four panels were on “Geographical Explorations,” “Zheng He’s Voyages and

shijie tongshi 簡明世界通史 (A concise history of the world; Beijing: Beijing renmin chubanshe, 1981) follows its structure and narrative very closely. Another example modeled on Jianming shijie shi is Shijie shi 世界史 (World history; Beijing: Beijing renmin chubanshe, 1983), a joint venture undertaken by twelve universities including Liaoning University, Huadong Normal University and Nanjing University. Two major works in the 1990s, Wu Yujin’s 吳于廑 and Qi Shiyong’s 齊世榮 Shijie shi 世界史 (World history; Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1992) and Cui Lianzhon’s 崔連仲 six-volume Shijie tongshi 世界通史 (A general world history; Beijing: Beijing renmin chubanshe, 1997) also rely on Jianming shijie tongshi’s framework.

Introduction 

 17

Their Global Impact,” “The Maritime Silk Road and China’s Maritime Power,” and “Migration and the Chinese Diasporas.” A wide variety of topics were covered in these panels, including but not limited to ancient transport, cultural interactions beyond national borders, historical voyages, maps, trade routes, technology, maritime power, piracy, smuggling, the customs service, Chinese settlements overseas, refugees, port cities, economic development, law establishment, and the travel of ideas through translation and popular culture. While acknowledging the contribution of every single paper submitted to the conference,16 the current volume is only able to include a selected few. The twelve papers included here cover China’s long-established connection to the outside world, documenting the various processes and resulting dynamics produced by the movement of peoples, goods, and cultures. Written by scholars from different generations based in countries around the world, including Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, the UK and the US, the twelve papers either address old questions from new perspectives, or foreground new topics that were largely ignored in previous scholarship. Some suggest possible future directions. Readers who are interested in rethinking China’s position on the global historical stage against the backdrop of post-Orientalism will find this volume helpful. The twelve papers in this volume are part of the aforementioned effort to catalyze new academic initiatives, and to raise awareness about the gaps to be filled in research into the rich but still largely neglected role of China in world/global history. By bringing China into the platform of world history, understanding the world as a product of China’s long-standing interactions with it and acknowledging China’s contributions to the outside world, this edited volume furthers the possibility of propelling historiography to a bigger and truly global platform. In elucidating the various episodes and experiences of transnational synergy that concern China as an agent, provenance or space, this volume strings together twelve conference papers under three major themes- Perspectives on the World, 16 Besides those authors whose papers have been included in the current volume, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the following authors who had submitted their papers to the conference: Sulia Chan, Chen Duoyou, Chien Chao, Chwang Leh-chii, Kent Deng, Ding Guoqi, Ding Jie, Fan Guangxin, Fung Kam-wing, Fausto Guimarães, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Michael Winghin Kam, Chin-yi Jeff Lai, Katy Ngan Ting Lam, Lee Pui Tak, Lin Ying Yu, Liu Oiyan, Liu Zhaomin, Lu Steven, Ma Jianxiong, Ricardo K. S. Mak, Jamie Monson, Ng Wing Chung, Pal Nyiri, Charlotte Rees, Tan Ta Sen, Zhang Zhigang and Zhou Yunzhong. We also thank the following scholars who served as either panel chairs or discussants at the conference: Fan Ka Wai, Clara Wing-chung Ho, Michael Hoeckelmann, Loretta E. Kim, Kwok Kam-chau, Catherine Ladds, Lam Weng Cheong, Raymond Kwun-sun Lau, Lee Kam-keung, Li Ji, Lu Weijing, Ricardo K. S. Mak, David Schley, Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel, Tam Ka-chai, Yue-him Tam and Wicky Wai-kit Tse. All of them had significantly contributed to the success of the conference.

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 Introduction

China’s Maritime World: From Ancient to Modern Times and Migrations and the Travel of Ideas. This volume is divided into three parts. Part I includes only two papers, which set the tone for a discussion about the perspectives of a new type of world/global history. Haneda Masashi starts his paper by clarifying the conceptual meanings of several important terms such as world history and global history. He goes on to review how world history is studied and taught in Japan, Europe, USA, China and South Korea. As a result of the review he questions whether the national history of individual countries is all that we need in our age of rapid globalization. Haneda goes on to review various versions of global history and asks whether we should be satisfied with such diverse versions of “global history” being carried out independently in each country and language. He calls for international cooperation and mutual help between historians in different countries. Supporting the Global History Collaborative, he advocates for a new world history to promote the notion of “residents of the Earth” in addition to the conventional identity of a nation-state. He also supports the use of English as the lingua franca of academic discourse for the new world history. The second paper in Part I, “The World in the Year 1000: The View from Beijing” by Valerie Hansen, declares the year 1000 to be the beginning of globalization. During this year a single object could travel through the entire world for the first time. People’s knowledge of different religions from different parts of the world was amazingly impressive. Numerous artifacts and documents support the details of this theorisation. All these interactions took place in Song China and the Liao Kingdom in the northeastern part of present day China. Therefore, Hansen argues that globalization indeed started in the Chinese-speaking world in the year 1000. Part II discusses the power of the sea in connecting China with the outside world and vice versa. In his analysis of historical relics related to water transport, Lei Chinhau argued that early Chinese society witnessed unprecedented and long-lasting transformations that resulted from progressive developments in water transport and sea routes. This, certainly, could not have been possible without competent Chinese navigators and this fact is highlighted in Chen Kuo-tung’s “Advantages of Chinese Navigators during the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries.” Culturally, Li Kin-sum Sammy’s work demonstrates how goods, economic and cultural networks linked China to Taiwan, Southeast Asia and as far as the Roman Empire through the South China Sea; this is seconded by Han Xiaorong’s piece that focuses on Vietnam as China’s gate to the outside world and further evidenced by Ronald C. Po in his paper on the area of Qinhuangdao. Being a complex link to other parts of Asia, Africa and the West, the maritime world was prone to legal technicalities and illegal activities, calling for innovations in law and control: Philip Thai’s work sheds light on how legal pluralism emerged on

Introduction 

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the Chinese coast to resolve the problem of smuggling and Donna Brunero talks of how staff from the Chinese Maritime Customs Service attempted to educate the West on China’s maritime heritage and navigation achievements. Part III reflects on the tangible and intangible movements of people and cultural ideas from China to elsewhere in the world. Glen Peterson looks at human displacement by analyzing the role of forced migration and refugees in propelling China’s entry into the European-dominated “Family of Notions.” The spatial mobility of communities and peoples usually entail multiple crises, either as a stimulant to migration or as a product of migration– Catherine S. Chan recalls the crisis of identity that occurred within the Portuguese community in Hong Kong under the British Empire and with a similar notion, Yung Ying-yue’s paper narrates her family’s personal experience of global diaspora and subsequent transformations in the idea of “Chineseness.” Through the twelve selected papers in this edited volume, we hope to trigger an acknowledgment of the new perspectives about the role of China as a longstanding birthplace, stepping-stone, experimental ground and agent of international exchange that has been for centuries. In view of the increasing scholarly attention given to transnational issues, these papers offer a trans-disciplinary approach for understanding how politics, economy, military, culture, as well as alliance and conflict within a single and within multiple communities emerge and progress through global mobility and trans-border negotiations. The editors September 2016

Part I: Perspectives on the World

HANEDA Masashi

1 World/Global History and the Positionality of Historians Starting a few years ago, I began to meet and exchange ideas related to the concept of “world/global history” with Ge Zhaoguang and other historians at the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies of Fudan University, as well as with Benjamin Elman and other researchers in the Princeton University Department of East Asian Studies. In 2014, a project was launched to create an international network focused on the study of global history known as the Global History Collaborative (GHC), which in part overlaps with this ongoing exchange, and brings together scholars from the Princeton University History Department, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in France, and the Frei Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in Germany.1 My academic exchanges with these historians from around the world have led me to develop some thoughts about various issues related to world history studies that I had not previously seriously considered. World/global history studies seems to be approaching an extremely important crossroad, not only in Japan but globally as well. In this paper, I would like to raise two questions regarding current history studies, in particular world/global history studies, and discuss what I believe we, as historians, should do at this important juncture.

Various Versions of World History and My First Question People around the world view world history in different ways. I would like to begin by examining how world history is studied and taught in various countries around the world.

1 Detailed information regarding the project can be found in the following website: http://coretocore.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ Note: The results reported in this paper are drawn from research conducted as part of the “Global History Collaborative” supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Core-to-Core Program https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-002

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(1) Japan Since the early twentieth century, world history has been studied and taught at Japanese universities and other research institutions as three separate disciplines – Japanese history, Oriental history, and Western history. This scholarly division was consistent with the world view of Japanese intellectuals and politicians at the time. In their view, the world was divided into three parts: the nation of Japan, the Western world that Japan needed to imitate and overtake, and the Orient that Japan needed to lead. As such, it was only natural that they believed that each region should have its own history. It goes without saying that this is a modified version of the Western view of the world, which divides the world into West (Occident) and non-West (Orient). Geographically speaking, Japan is located in non-Western world, but, it is definitely not like other countries in the Orient. This view of the world did not change after Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. And even today, when such a tripartite division is clearly incongruous with the present world, major universities in Japan continue to study and teach world history within this framework. Meanwhile, at the high school level, Oriental and Western history have been combined and taught as a single subject known as sekaishi or “world history” since the early 1950s; accordingly, history is taught in two parts, Japanese history and world history. In Japan, high school textbooks are written according to governmental curriculum guidelines set by the Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The MEXT checks if a textbook complies with the governmental curriculum guidelines and, if there is a problem, advises the publisher of any revisions that need to be made. The governmental curriculum guidelines are revised and officially published every ten years based on discussions by a panel of experts consisting primarily of university and high school teachers. Given that major universities in Japan do not have well-developed research programs for studying world history, it can be said that, it has been this governmental curriculum guideline committee that has de facto determined the framework for understanding world history in Japan. The following figure represents the conventional understanding of world history in Japan today. According to this model, different regions of the world and countries have independent histories following their own timelines; world history, then, is understood to be the aggregation of these separate threads. The model also shows the advancement of Europe into various parts of the world starting in the sixteenth century, leading to globalization under Western leadership. Here, I would like the reader to pay particular attention to East Asia. In Japanese textbooks, East

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General View of World History in Contemporary Japan East Asia

Japan Korea China Southeast Asia South Asia Africa

West Asia of Antiquity

Islamic World

Mediterranean World

Europe

West

America

Flow of Time Figure 1: General view of world history in contemporary Japan.

Asia is described as a “civilization” or “region”2 unto itself and, thus, should have its own history as is the case for South Asia and Europe. However, the nature of this history is not clearly explained. This is because Japan itself is located in the region. Japan is believed to have a different history from that of other countries in the region; to describe the history of East Asia would complicate the understanding of Japan’s relationship to the rest of the region. Any description of East Asian history would necessarily include the history of China and the Korean Peninsula. It is considered problematic to, on the one hand, postulate that Japan has its own history and, on the other hand, posit that there is an East Asian history that includes other countries in the region. (2) Germany, France, and the European Region In this region, world history was conceived as a universal history of humankind by nineteenth century thinkers such as Hegel and Ranke. According to these 2 Two terms, “civilization” and “region,” have substantially different meanings in English. However, in the context of world history as discussed in the Japanese language, they are nearly equivalent.

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intellectuals, Europe stood at the fore of humankind’s advancing front, and, as such, only Europe had a history. They believed that non-European regions of the world were not progressing and, therefore, did not have a history in the narrow sense of the word. Accordingly, the history of Europe was considered equivalent to “world history.” In European countries, which have inherited this tradition, the term “world history” is not commonly used; instead, the term used is simply “history.” For example, in French high schools (lycées), there is subject called “history (histoire),” which describes the pasts of France and neighboring countries. “History” does not uniformly cover the past of the world as a whole. The pasts of China, Japan, and other non-European regions are discussed only at the point when direct relationships are formed between such regions and France (and Europe) in the modern era. Similarly, at universities and other research institutions, the primary purpose of history departments and history courses is to study the pasts of France and other European countries. In most cases, the pasts of Japan, China, and other non-European regions are dealt with within the framework of oriental studies or, more recently, area (or regional) studies (aire culturelle). While the situation is starting to change due to the rise of global history studies, in the past, a clear distinction was made between pasts of Europe and non-Europe, and few opportunities existed to comprehensively discuss the pasts of the world within the framework of “world history.” (3) The United States of America In the United States, the circumstances related to “world history” have been changing rapidly in recent years. Similar to the situation in Europe, as recently as 30 years ago, a clear distinction was made between the history of “Western civilization” and the history of other regions; “world history” as a distinct framework did not exist. However, since the establishment of the World History Association (WHA) in 1982, the nature of “world history” has been a subject of continuous discussion, and it appears that theory regarding world history studies has advanced substantially since entering the twenty-first century. Here, I would like to introduce the definition of “world history” presented on the World History Association’s website. Put simply, world history is macrohistory. It is transregional, transnational, and transcultural. Although it is important for students of world history to have a deep and nuanced understanding of each of the various cultures, states, and other entities that have been part of the vast mosaic of human history, the world historian stands back from these individual elements in that

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mosaic to take in the entire picture, or at least a large part of that picture. Consequently, the world historian studies phenomena that transcend single states, regions, and cultures, such as cultural contact and exchange and movements that have had a global or at least a transregional impact. The world historian also often engages in comparative history, and in that respect might be thought of as a historical anthropologist. World history is not, therefore, the study of the histories of discrete cultures and states one after another and in isolation from one another. It is also not necessarily global history. That is, world history is not simply the study of globalization after 1492. As long as one focuses on the big picture of cultural interchange and/ or comparative history, one is a practicing world historian. Therefore, for example, a number of noted world historians focus on travel and cultural exchange within the vast premodern Islamic World. Others study the exchange of goods, ideas, flora, and fauna across the so-called Silk Road that criss-crossed Eurasia from roughly 200 BCE to about 1350 CE. Others concentrate on comparative holy wars both within and outside of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism Christianity, and Islam. Still others have chosen to study in depth the global or transregional impact of single items or classes of items, such as the development and use of firearms across the world from antiquity to the present or the significant roles that such apparently humble items as cotton and codfish have played across the vast span of human history. Given the current pandemic of AIDS and the ever-present fear of new pandemics, the role of disease in human history has also become an important and timely topic of study and teaching.3 I rate this view of world history highly for overcoming the deficiencies of the Eurocentric world history that originated in Continental Europe in the nineteenth century and suggest that it could even be called a “new world history.” In this definition, no distinction is made between the Western and non-Western worlds. World history is not viewed as the aggregation of histories of individual countries, as is the case in Japan. Any researcher interested in studying world history will, undoubtedly, have to refer to this definition in the future. That said, I am not completely satisfied with this view of “global history” and, as I will explain later, feel that there is further room for discussion. Interestingly, it does not comment on why and for whom world history studies is needed. I would also point out that

3 http://www.thewha.org/about-wha/what-is-world-history/

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this is the definition used by one academic society4 in the United States, that the majority of historians in the United States do not have a particularly strong interest in such world history studies, and that the framework for history education used in each state, in most cases, is the conventional framework centered around Western civilization. (4) China and South Korea Similar to the situation in Japan, history in China and South Korea is taught in two parts consisting of national history and world history. In China’s case, this means Chinese history and world history; in South Korea’s case, South Korean history and world history. Surveying countries around the world, this handling of world history is unique to Japan, China, and South Korea. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to examine a world history textbook used in Chinese high schools and remember being surprised at how little reference was made to China. This is because, in world history as it is taught in Japan, China plays a major role. A world history in which China does not appear would be unimaginable in Japan. In China, the country’s past is taught within the framework of national history. The same division is observed in academic studies; researchers at the Institute of World History Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, as a rule, specialize in the histories of foreign countries. In China, world history and Chinese history are considered a completely different disciplines. As can be seen from the aforementioned discussion, world history is not necessarily studied or taught in the same way in different countries or different regions of the world. Why do such differences exist? The answer is simple. It is because the positionality of historians or those who relate history is different. The vast majority of historians, including those who study the histories of other countries, study history as citizens of the country to which they belong, using and publishing results in the language of their country. While there are numerous languages such as English and Spanish that are used in more than one country, a historian’s nationality and research language are strongly linked. I also publish much of my research in the Japanese language. In his book titled Tableau de la France, the renowned nineteenth century French historian Jules

4 From the beginning, the focus of this academic society was world history education, and many of its members were high school educators (for more detail, see the History, Mission and Vision of WHA on the WHA website: http://www.thewha.org/about-wha/history-mission-and-vision-ofthe-wha/)

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Michelet declared that “The history of France begins with the French language.”5 This situation has not changed substantially from then to now. Naturally, history education, which based on this history studies, is conducted in the language of each country. Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, in most countries, history has been taught in schools as a means of cultivating a national identity. National histories have been constructed and narrated as something to be shared by a given country’s citizens, whereas foreign histories are described simply as a way to understand other countries and their pasts. At the root of this division is a binary view of the world in which a clear distinction is drawn between oneself and others. Insofar as historians discuss history in their own languages and countries use education to cultivate a national identity, it is only natural that the framework and description of world history should differ from country to country. So long as the countries based on the concept of a sovereign nation state developed in modern Europe continue to exist, it is highly unlikely that such understanding and description of history will disappear. Is it okay, in today’s world, to continue studying and teaching the history in the same manner as 100 years ago – differently in each country and in each language, using countries as the primary framework? This is my first question. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that the concept of “country” is unnecessary for understanding history. As emphasized by Ge Zhaoguang, I am well aware of the importance, especially in the case of contemporary China, to understand the past of a single country based on the framework of “China” and the significance of doing so.6 That said, my question is whether such history of individual countries is all that we need in this age of rapid globalization.

Various Versions of Global History and My Second Question My second question is related to one of the reasons for this new rising tide of history studies that is different from world history or sekaishi [world history in

5 Jules Michelet, Tableau de la France: Géographie physique, politique et morale. A. la Croix et Cie. 1875, p.1, L’Histoire de France commence avec la langue française. 6 Ge Zhaoguang 葛兆光, “Zai quanqiushi chaoliu zhong, guobieshi hai you yiyi ma? 在全球史 潮流中、國別史還有意義嗎”, in Institute of Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University  復旦大學文史研究院 (ed.), Quanqiushi, Quyushi yu Guobieshi: Fudan, Dongda, Pulinsidun Sanxiao Hezuo Huiyilunwenji 全球史、區域史與國別史―復旦、東大、普林斯頓三校合作會議論 文集 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2015), pp. 3–9.

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Japanese], referred to as “global history” in English, guroobaru hisutorii (global history as it is understood in Japanese), and quan qiu shi (global history as it is understood in Chinese). At least, that is the case in Japan. Interestingly, this new history studies and interpretation of world history is, by and large, carried out independently in each country and independently in each language, much as in the past. What is more, these terms have not yet been clearly defined in their respective languages. For example, the term “global history” has at least two different meanings. One meaning, as presented on the World History Association’s website, is the “history of globalization;” the main objective of such history is to study the history of the world as it moves toward greater unification. Since its establishment a decade ago in London, Journal of Global History has primarily published research articles on global history consistent with this meaning of the term. The other meaning set aside the unification of the world but, rather, refers broadly to the range of new approaches to understanding the history of the world that differ from the conventional view of world history as the aggregation of histories of individual nation states. The “world history” pursued by the American World History Association is close to this sense of “global history.” Although I will refrain from detailed discussion here, the “world history” and “global history” discussed by Diego Holstein7 differ subtly from both of the meanings above. As is evident from the foregoing discussion, the term “global history” in English does not yet have an established meaning or definition. The same can be said of guroobaru hisutorii in Japanese. While there is vague consensus that the term refers to history that “transcends the history of individual countries,” there is no clear definition as yet. This new trend in history studies has certainly responded to the development of global history studies in other countries; it is, however, fundamentally an extension of the conventional history studies conducted in Japanese. This is evident from the fact that guroobaru hisutorii researchers criticize the frameworks, perspectives, approaches to subjects, and areas of interest peculiar to history studies in Japanese, which have been taken for granted up to now.8 As I have not conducted sufficient research on quan qiu shi in Chinese, I will refrain from commenting, except to mention my thoughts in relation to the title of this international symposium. From the title “Voyages, Migration and the Maritime Silk Road: An International Symposium on China’s Role in Global History” 7 Diego Holstein, Thinking History Globally (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 8 With regard to this issue, I discussed the difference between guroobaru hisutorii in Japanese and global history in English in a recent article. HANEDA Masashi, “Japanese Perspectives on Global History,” Asian Review of World Histories, 3/2, 2015, pp.219–234.

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alone, it would appear that China’s past is included in the concept of quan qiu shi. If this is the case, it seems that the most important difference between quan qiu shi and shijieshi is whether or not China’s past is included. In any case, in the past, history studies in various countries around the world was carried out independently in each country, and the results of these studies were reported and organized in individual languages. While research in Western countries occupied a central position, history studies in different countries influenced each other in complicated ways. The recent tides of global history, guroobaru hisutorii, and quan qiu shi are also deeply interrelated, but they have emerged from the respective academic contexts of each country or language. As such, they differ subtly in terms of their perspectives, methods, and points of emphasis. On this point, the situation of guroobaru hisutorii studies is the same as that of past history studies. My second question, therefore, is whether or not we should be satisfied with such various versions of “global history” being carried out independently in each country and in each language.

Initiatives of the Global History Collaborative One reason that the aforementioned international network of academic institutions known as the Global History Collaborative was established was to somehow change this situation. The vision is for history researchers from different countries to work together to refine the theory and methods of global history. Otherwise, just as in the past, various versions of “global history” will simply be carried out in each country and in each language, and the circumstances surrounding studies on the history of the world will remain unchanged. In order to advance collaborative research in a meaningful way, history researchers in different countries must have a good understanding of each other’s frameworks, perspectives, areas of interest, and approaches to history studies. In this regard, the role of non-Western history researchers is important. The perspective of conventional history studies is often criticized as being Eurocentric even by Western researchers. Thus, non-Western historian should proactively express their views and present their research related to world history and global history whenever opportunities are available to them including international conferences and through international collaborations. World history studies is extremely important in today’s closely-linked world. It is for this reason as well that we must develop an interpretation of world history that we can agree on, as much as possible, through international collaborative research. That is not to say that there needs to be a single interpretation of world

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history. What is important is an exchange of ideas and mutual understanding. Researchers can present different interpretations of world history, as long as there is an underlying mutual understanding of each other’s standpoints. This international collaborative network has carried out various activities in three key areas – mutual exchange of researchers and graduate students, methodology-related workshops, and a summer school for graduate students – for nearly two years. The first summer school was held at the University of Tokyo in September of 2015. Methodology-related workshops for both researchers and students have been held in Berlin and Paris, respectively in 2014 and 2015. Through such activities, I believe that we have, fortunately, been able to achieve broad agreement on what global history is. We believe that global history represents the approaches used to study the world’s past. In this sense, “global history” in English and guroobaru hisutorii in Japanese are the same. At least in the case of history studies conducted in the Japanese language, “new world history” and guroobaru hisutorii represent two sides of the same coin. The methods of guroobaru hisutorii are useful for achieving new interpretations of world history in Japanese. What, then, are these methods? Specifically speaking, I believe there are at least three approaches that are characteristic of guroobaru hisutorii approaches: namely, (1) taking a bird’s-eye view of the world at a given point in time and attempting to understand and describe all aspects (politics, economies, environment, etc.) comprehensively, (2) attempting to clarify and describe how politics, economies, and cultures are connected and influence each other across national and regional boundaries, or (3) focusing on micro themes while taking global connections and their implications into consideration. These are the approaches that I believe would be effective for developing a new interpretation of world history, at least in Japanese, and it is these approaches that have gradually gained traction based on discussions by Prof. Sebastian Conrad of Frei Universität Berlin and Prof. Andreas Eckert of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, both of whom are working to advance the theory of global history studies9. These approaches do not set the boundaries of nation states as initial spatial conditions and do not assume citizens of a given country to be the population of interest. Attention is paid to these factors only in a limited portion of research on history in the modern era. I believe that the accumulation of studies clarifying historical facts based on such approaches will relativize the twentieth century

9 For more detail, see Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). Since the book was published just I was finishing this article, I could not include all the discussions of this important work.

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understanding of world history, which is based on a rigid framework that presumes the histories of nation states.

Three Points of Discussion Related to New World History in the 21st Century Assuming that this twentieth century understanding of world history is relativized, what is the twenty-first century understanding of world history, or the new world history, that we should pursue? Regarding this question, I would like to discuss the following three points: (1) the meaning and significance of new world history studies, (2) the standpoints of historians, and (3) the language of new world history. (1) The meaning and significance of new world history The following is a response to the two questions that I raised above related to why we should not be satisfied with research conducted independently in each country and in each language. In my description of the WHA website above, in addition to acknowledging the WHA for revising our understanding of world history studies, I also pointed out that no mention is made of why and for whom a new type of world history is being created. The discovery of new points of view and new methods is important for scholarship. However, scholarship is only meaningful in so far as it is connected to actual society. Scholarly interests can always be linked in some way to actual society. Scholarship must not be for the sake of scholarship alone. As discussed above, by using the nation state as its frame of reference, history studies in the past have been used to strengthen a sense of “belonging” to a nation and to cultivate a national identity among citizens. Such history studies was wellsuited to the state of world in the period starting with establishment of sovereign nation states up to the 1980s, during which various international issues could be resolved through negotiation among sovereign nations. However, circumstances in the world today are very different from those that existed up to the 1980s. All regions of the world are now closely connected thanks to the rapid development of transportation and communications technology and globalization of the economy, information, environment, and ideologies. Numerous global problems have emerged that cannot be resolved at the level of individual countries. Individuals living in today’s world must not only be aware that they are citizens of a given country but that they are also citizens of the Earth and act accordingly. What is needed is for people to develop an identity as “residents of the Earth.”

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To this end, history, as a discipline that has contributed to the cultivation of “national identity” in the past, should play a role in the cultivation of an identity as “residents of the Earth.” Re-examining the past with the world, or the entire Earth, as a frame of reference should be an effective means for achieving this goal. It is in this sense that the study of new world history using the approaches of guroobaru hisutorii is important. When the Earth (not nations, regions, or civilizations) is set as the frame of reference, how will humankind’s past be interpreted or understood? What kind of narrative will foster people’s identity as “residents of the Earth”? This is a modern-day challenge worthy of our efforts. (2) The Standpoints of Historians In order to carry out new world history studies, it is important that historians themselves develop multiple identities as a citizen of a given nation state and as a resident of the Earth. The majority of historians continue to conduct research from a perspective firmly rooted in the concept of nation states. This, in itself, is not problematic and, in fact, is to be expected. It is natural that one’s location on the planet Earth and the group(s) or entity(ies) with which one identifies should influence one’s view of history of one’s own country and that of the world.10 It is important for historians from each country to share their results of world history studies, based on their respective identities, and to adequately discuss these results from the standpoint of being residents of the Earth in order to clearly identify those research results that can be shared and those that cannot. If certain aspects or viewpoints cannot be shared, they should be thoroughly discussed to clarify why this is the case. For such discussion to be possible, we must first understand the evolution of history studies in each country and in each language. This is the work that the Global History Collaborative is currently engaged in. These discussions will likely result in a re-examination of the prevailing approach to history studies based on individual countries. They may even influence the understanding of world history in individual countries and in their respective languages. All of these outcomes would be most welcome. Alternatively, differences may remain. However, as long as historians share a standpoint as residents of the Earth, they should be able to understand their differences and to recognize the validity of their respective views of world history.

10 This point was clearly laid out by Prof. Ge Zhaoguang at the conference that was jointly sponsored by Fudan University, Princeton University, and the University of Tokyo. The Chinese version of the proceedings of three conferences on global history organized by three universities has already been published. See n.7. Japanese and English versions will follow.

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(3) The Language of New World History I do not, by any means, intend to say that the accumulated results of history studies in different languages should be thrown out. Rather, these should be valued as a manifestation of the diverse bodies of knowledge that exist in the world. New world history and guroobaru hisutorii studies can be carried out as extensions of the lines of research that have evolved in each country and in each language. What is important is that the bodies of knowledge in each language are mutually understood and shared. For this to occur, research results need to be translated and shared. I am currently in the process of editing the Japanese version of a collection of articles from the three conferences that were jointly sponsored by Fudan University, Princeton University, and the University of Tokyo.11 This work has given me an opportunity to examine a part of the body of knowledge in Chinese, as well as the body of knowledge in English, with which I am relatively familiar, and to position these within the body of knowledge in my native language of Japanese. The work has been onerous and time-consuming but extremely fruitful and deeply meaningful from an intellectual standpoint. For the time being, it appears that we have no option but to familiarize ourselves with multiple languages and to continue to diligently translate such works into our respective languages whenever the opportunity to do so arises. It is especially important that an effort be made to translate works originally published in non-Western languages into Western languages. In Japan’s case, since the latter half of the nineteenth century, Japanese scholars have been extremely enthusiastic about translating humanities and social science-related works written in Western languages into Japanese; however, the new knowledge that has been created in Japanese as a result of this has rarely been translated into Western languages and presented to a Western audience. While this is primarily due to an overestimation by Western scholars of the value of their own bodies of knowledge, which has resulted in an indifference to the bodies of knowledge of others and a lack of enthusiasm for translating works to their own languages, Japanese scholars are also partially culpable insofar as they have failed to try to publish the results of their research in Western languages. I would imagine that the situation in Chinese is similar to that in Japanese. We have our own bodies of knowledge, so we should not spare any effort to present these to Western audiences.

11 The collection is scheduled to be published by the University of Tokyo Press under the title Guroobaru Hisutorii to Higashi Ajiashi [Guroobaru Hisutorii and the History of East Asia] in March 2016.

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I do not necessarily agree with English being afforded a position of privilege as the lingua franca of academic discourse. However, considering practical matters, English is useful as a means of saving time and effort and mutual understanding and advance discussion. As a case in point, the aforementioned Global History Collaborative conducts all communications – including reports, discussions, planning, and consultations – in English. When English is used in academic discourse, a clear distinction should be made between bodies of knowledge accumulated in English-speaking countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia and bodies of knowledge in “global English” that will likely be generated when scholars from around the world participate in discussions. English-speaking countries have their own perspectives, values, approaches to subjects, methods, and frameworks for discussion. These represent individual bodies of knowledge on par with those accumulated in French, Japanese, or Chinese. Scholars whose native language is English should be aware of this fact and should discuss their perspectives, values, and frameworks for discussion together with scholars whose native language is not English, sharing perspectives when they can be shared and showing mutual understanding and respect with regard to perspectives that cannot be shared. The views of scholars whose native language is English should not be afforded any special privilege just because the discussion is conducted in English. The English used in such discussions is neither American English nor British English but, rather, “global English.” I feel that a global body of knowledge in “global English” is being created at an unprecedented pace. In the case of history studies, this has the potential of creating a “world history of residents of the Earth.” Once such a body of knowledge is formed, it will become more difficult to add new value, meaning, and context. In this sense as well, there is an urgent need for historians in non-English countries who regularly conduct research in different languages to develop an awareness of their standpoints as residents of the Earth, to conduct studies using guroobaru hisutorii methods, and to proactively present their views and research results in English. This is challenge that only historians from non-English speaking countries can undertake. The path may be precipitous but my hope is that we can courageously move forward with as many like-minded scholars as possible.

Valerie HANSEN

2 The World in the Year 1000: The View from Beijing In today’s world, even ordinary people live in houses filled with objects manufactured in different countries – one has only to think of all the things one can buy at Ikea. When did objects first start to move around the world? The year 1492 and its immediate aftermath seems like the obvious candidate, but this trend began in the year 1000 CE, when a single object could travel the entire world for the first time. Different political units were expanding, causing hitherto separate groups of people to come into contact with each other. These changes also occurred in the Chinese-speaking world, both in Song China and in the Liao territories in the north. In or around the year 1000, many events occurred that reflect how different regions came into contact with each other for the first time. For example, In 970 Vladimir, ruler of the Kievan Rus, converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church and rejected Judaism, Islam, and Roman Catholicism; Scandinavians living in Greenland landed at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada close to the year 1000; in what is now the American Southwest, the people of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, feasted on tropical chocolate, while the lords of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan peninsula wore New Mexican turquoise – yet never knew the Huari lords of the central Andes; most of northern and eastern Europe converted in and around the year 1000 to Christianity; the Empire of Ghana in western Africa converted to Islam; Islamic rulers conquered the western edge of modern China and the north of India as far as Delhi; and The Song dynasty of China concluded a treaty with the non-Chinese Liao dynasty in the north that encouraged the Song to trade with Southeast Asia and the Liao with Central Asia and north Asia all the way to the Black and Baltic Seas. This paper focuses on interactions among three of the world’s regions at that time: the territory under direct and indirect control of the Liao dynasty, the Islamic world (no longer unified under the Abbasids), and the realm of the Vikings, which expanded from its base in Scandinavia first to Iceland, then Greenland, and finally modern Canada. How do we determine the borders of the Liao dynasty? Although traditional Chinese historians focused on the 16 prefectures around modern-day Beijing, then called Nanjing (“Southern Capital”), the five capitals visited by the emperor and his Kitan court, lay at the heart of the Liao realm. There was a bigger Liao world, though, that extended to the north and the west of this core. To define this world, we must draw on both documents and archaeological finds. A handful of epitaphs written in Kitan smallscript are of limited utility. In  contrast, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-003

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archaeological materials and paintings, whether from museums or on tomb walls, are  particularly informative. Chinese sources, whether preserved in the Liaoshi 遼史 or other Song-dynasty materials, offer additional help, especially the Liaoshi records of gift-giving by envoys. Following the 1005 signing of the treaty of Chanyuan, which established markets on the border but greatly limited the extent of trade, Song-dynasty trade shifted away from the north and south towards Southeast Asia. Chinese maritime trade began early and in the early fifth century the Buddhist pilgrim Faxian traveled home from India by boat, was blown off course, and landed in Shandong. The maritime trade intensified after the treaty was signed, as Song China reoriented towards Southeast Asia. The main written sources about the Song trade with the southeast are the Song huiyao 宋會要 (administrative records of the Song dynasty) and miscellaneous notes (biji). The archaeological excavation of different shipwrecks has shed considerable light on the nature of Song trade with Southeast Asia. Careful investigation of shipwrecks can reveal the cargo they carried, where they were built, from where they departed and where they were repaired. The Quanzhou ship, which was excavated in 1973–74, measured 34.6 meters by 9.82 meters, and was deliberately scuttled in 1276–1277. Its cargo included: 2400 kg (5300 lb) incense and other aromatic woods; 5 Chinese litres (sheng) of black pepper; Ambergris from Somalia; 6.3 grams (.22 oz) of frankincense; 4 kg (8.8 lb) mercury; 1 turtle shell; Small amounts of hematite and dragon’s blood plant fungus. (Janice Stargardt, “Shadowy Actors in Song Maritime Trade Studies,” in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 372. Archeologists found 96 wooden labels from the Quanzhou ship that listed the the names of individuals, shops, localities, and commodities. One label read “Nanjia 南家,” which Fu Zongwen realized referred to the southern branch of the imperial Zhao clan of the Song dynasty, which was based in Quanzhou (John Chaffee, “The Impact of the Song Imperial Clan on the Overseas Trade of Quanzhou,” The Emporium of the World, 34.) Another shipwreck, the Sinan shipwreck, which sank off the southwest coast of Korea in 1313, supplements our understanding of the maritime trade. It contained 16,792 different ceramics of Chinese manufacture and 26.8 metric tons of coins dating from the year 14 to 1310, with the majority from 1080s, the time of the

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New Policies. Archaeologists estimate that an additional thirty tons of coins from the same wreck still lie on the ocean floor. Other sources reveal the major goods the Song Chinese imported from Southeast Asia: gharuwood (Langkasukah) camphor wood (Langkasukah – on the west coast, across from Kedah, Or from Chitu) kingfisher feathers (S Vietnam) Tortoise shell (Philippines) Elephant ivory (also Langkasukah) crowns made of gold (near Kedah) nutmeg (Maluku, west of Sulawesi = Moluccas) cloves (Maluku) dragon’s blood, “medicinal resin from a palm fruit” S Malay peninsula dammar tree resin S Malay peninsula civet – glandular secretion for perfume – Borneo Pandanus mats (from present-day Singapore) Pepper from Java Rhino horn from Java Sandalwood from Lesser Sunda Islands, east of Java. Source: Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman (ed). Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Volume I: Early History. Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1998, 87. While Song-dynasty China merchants traded with Southeast Asia, the Liao dynasty, which included the modern city of Beijing, continued to trade with different polities in Central Asia, Siberia, and Manchuria, as the Liaoshi reveals. Due to the ongoing payments from the Song, the Liao had large quantities of both silver and silk to spend. The Liao maintained gift exchanges with Song China, Goreyo Korea, Japan, regional rulers in Central Asia including the Karakhanids, and they tried to establish relations with the Ghaznavids, who were based in Afghanistan. The Islamic world extended into the modern territory of the People’s Republic for the first time, when Khotan fell to the armies of Karakhanids. The Kitan rulers subsequently established relations and exchanged brides with the Karakhanids, who were Muslim, but not with the Ghaznavids in modern Afghanistan, who refused the Liao Emperor Shengzong’s offer to establish relations in 1026 on the grounds that Kitan ruler was too far away to be a real threat and also was not a Muslim. One important change occurring in the year 1000 throughout Afro-Eurasia was the increasing knowledge about different religions. Just as the Ghaznavid

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ruler knew that the Liao Emperor Shengzong was not a Muslim, so, too, did the Kievan ruler Vladimir realize in 970 that he could choose among four major religions. Rejecting Judaism, Islam, and Roman Christianity, he chose Eastern Orthodoxy because of the beauty of the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople (modern Istanbul). As his envoys explained, “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty.” Serge A. Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974), 67–68. The scholars of the Islamic world were the most knowledgeable about the different peoples living in Afro-Eurasia. One of the leading scholars writing in Arabic was al-Marwazi (1050–1120). He recorded the gifts presented by the Liao as well as the correspondence between Shengzong and Mahmud, the ruler of the Ghaznavids (translated by V. Minorsky, Sharaf al-Zamān Tāhir: Marvazī on China, the Turks, and India (London: the Royal Asiatic Society, 1942), pp. 19–21. al-Marwazi also noted that the main goods exported by the Islamic world to the Chinese (and presumably the Kitan) included: “ivory, frankincense, genuine Slavonic amber,” and khutu, a loan word into Arabic from Kitan meaning “walrus tusk.” Goods excavated from Liao-dynasty tombs and their pagoda storehouses testify to the deep ties of the Kitan with the Islamic world. The undisturbed tomb of the Princess of Chen 陳國公主, buried in 1018, contains much jewelry crafted from amber from the Baltic (just as al-Marwazi reported; see the excellent research by Xu Xiaodong, “Multi-Cultural Characteristics of Liao Amber and the Source of Raw Material: Amber from the Tomb of Princess Chen and her Consort,” in: Aleksander Palavestra et al (ed.) Amber in archaeology: proceedings of the fifth International Conference on Amber in Archaeology (Belgrade: National Museum, 2009) 238–249, especially 242–243,), a brass plate from Nishapur, Iran; a glass bottle from Syria or Egypt; among other objects. (See Nei Menggu zizhiqu wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 內蒙古自治區文物考古研究所, Zhelimumeng bowuguan, 哲里木盟博物館, Liao Chenguo gongzhu mu 遼陳國公主墓 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1993); Hsüeh-man Shen (ed.), Gilded Splendor: Treasures of China’s Liao Empire, 907–1125 (New York: Asia Society, 2006). The Northern Pagoda (beita 北塔) in Chaoyang, Inner Mongolia, had two sealed chambers. Although the lower one was robbed, the upper one was not, and Chinese archaeologists published the results in 2007. It also contains beautiful glass work as well as a splendid model of a house 1 meter tall made from pearls and other rare gems. Liaoning sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiu suo 遼寧省 文物考古研究所 and Chaoyang shi beita bowuguan, 朝陽市北塔博物館, eds, Chaoyang Beita: Kaogu fajue yu weixiu gongcheng baogao 朝陽北塔:考古發掘與維

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修工程報告 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2007), plate 48. See also Youn-mi Kim, “Eternal Ritual in an infinite Cosmos: the Chaoyang north pagoda (1043–1044)” (PhD dissertation Harvard University, 2010). The final archaeological site considered here is the Xuanhua tombs, particularly one painting from the tomb of Han Shixun 韓師訓 at Xiabali, Xuanhua, dating to 1111. (See Li Qingquan 李清泉, Xuanhua liaomu: Muzang yishu yu Liaodai shehui 宣化遼墓: 墓葬藝術與遼代社會 (The Liao-dynasty tombs of Xuanhua: tomb art and Liao-era society) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2008)). This is particularly interesting because it shows a scene in which the female servants display the household’s treasures to a male visitor (perhaps an envoy). These include an agate ball, a silver ingot, rhinoceros horn, an oversize Chinese coin made from possibly jade, coral, and a piece of gold leaf. The tomb did not necessarily contain these goods (because it was disturbed when archaeologists reached it), but this painting shows the Han family – most likely a family living on the southern edge of Liao territory who mixed both Kitan and Chinese customs. (See Pamela Crossley, “Outside In: Power, Identity, and the Han Lineage of Jizhou,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 43 (2013): 51–89.) Most likely the Han family knew about these various goods, which the Princess of Chen tomb shows that the royal family possessed, and desired them for their own use in the afterlife. In this sense, the larger world of circulating gifts from distant places percolated down to lower social strata – not the poorest of the Liao society but certainly the well-off who could afford the painted tombs of Xuanhua in Hebei. As al-Marwazi’s account of the Kitan overture to the Ghaznavids and multiple goods from the Islamic world found in Liao territory show, the Liao realm was connected to the Islamic world. Similarly, thousands of Islamic silver coins found in Scandinavia testify to the trade between the Islamic world and the Vikings. The year 1000 marked the arrival of the Vikings in modern-day Canada. The Vikings settled in Iceland between 870 and 930, and the Althing assembly exiled Erik the Red for having wrongfully killed a man in 980. Erik and his followers went first to Greenland, and from there to Canada. This is not a tentative claim: archaeologists have found diagnostic Viking (notably a soapstone lamp and an iron pin) at the site of L’Anse aux Meadows in Canada. An analysis of different dating techniques points to a period of occupation, probably about a decade starting in the year 1000 (Birgitta Wallace, “The Norse in Newfoundland: L’Anse aux Meadows and Vinland,” Newfoundland Studies 19.1 (2003): 21–23.) Did the Vikings travel farther south in North America? Most analysts think so, but they propose that the Norse ships traveled to northern New England, possibly the modern state of Maine. Pictorial evidence of men with blond hair and boats with prows like Viking ships from the Maya site of Chichen Itza, dating to 1000, suggests they may have gone much farther (Earl H. Morris, Jean Charlot, Ann

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Axtell Morris, The Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itzá, Yucatan (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication 406, 1931), Volume I, Plate 147. Reference kindly provided by my colleague Mary Miller.) Archaeologists working in the Americas have reconstructed many trade routes, with those across North America particularly active around the year 1000. They debate whether the peoples of Mesoamerica, including the Maya resident at Chichen Itza, had direct contact with the peoples of the Andes. The Andean were the only peoples in the Americas with a long history of metalworking: those in North America used obsidian to make knives and did not use any metals. But sometime around the year 1000 the residents of Chichen Itza began to make implements of gold: could this new metal-working tradition been the product of contact with the Andeans? In closing, let us consider what kind of good might have traveled from the Andes north through North America to reach L’Anse aux Meadows. Or a bird like the Papagayo with unusually colored feathers far brighter than anything in Scandinavia? (The bird could have been transported live in a cage or, if that proved too difficult, perhaps only the feathers were traded.) Perhaps an unusual animal skin? We do not know that any of these items were traded from the Andes to L’Anse aux Meadows, and we are not even certain that those trade routes were sufficiently well established to support such a trade. But we do know that once an item reached L’Anse aux Meadows, the Vikings could have carried it to Scandinavia. From there it could move on well-established trade routes – the Amber Road – to the different countries formerly part of the Abbasid empire. And from there the item could travel to the Kitan capital. This is why this paper dates the beginning of globalization to the year 1000.

Part II: China’s Maritime World: From Ancient to Modern Times

Chinhau LEI

3 The Emergence of Organized Water Transport in Early China: Its Social and Geographical Contexts Summary: The basic assumption of this paper is that organized forms of inland water transport in early China paved the way for the development of maritime activities in Chinese history. However, in researching the origin of organized water transport in early China, previous scholarship has failed to represent the huge diversity in the social and geographical contexts in which water transport took place, thus coming up with an overgeneralized theory of the development of water-based transport in Chinese history. The purpose of this research is to analyze historically the social and geographical contexts in which water transport took place in early China. By analyzing the records pertaining to water transport in oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, classical texts, regional historical texts, as well as archaeological sources and visual depictions of water transport in bronze art, it demonstrates that water transport was limited to ceremonial, river-crossing, and entertainment purposes in North China during the Shang and the Western Zhou periods. It was the States of Chu, Wu, and Yue in the south that exploited the potentials of water transport militarily during the late Spring and Autumn period in multiple ways. With the intensification of military competition between the north and the south, canals were constructed to improve the geographical coverage of watercourses in China, resulting in the development of water transport on a sophisticated scale and the emergence of sea routes in Chinese history. It is argued that the recognition of the huge disparity in the roles played by water transport respectively in the North and the South during the founding stage of Chinese civilization may not only clarify the origin of maritime transport in Chinese history but also help explain the ambivalent attitudes toward maritime activities adopted by the largely land-based Chinese empires in the subsequent eras.

Introduction This research is less about the technological evolution of ships or boats than about how ships or boats were used in ancient China. There were numerous ways https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-004

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of using waterborne vehicles by all social classes, but here I am focusing on the mobilization of ships or boats on a sophisticated scale by ancient states from the late Shang Dynasty to the end of the Warring States period. The manner in which they institutionalized waterborne vehicles for various aims has profound implications for understanding the political history, military history, and historical geography in different polities. From another aspect, the development of organized water transport can also be treated as the “pre-history” of the maritime history of China. The first recorded water transport in China took place through inland waterways, and there was considerable time gap before sea routes appeared in historical records. The basic assumption of this research is that organized inland water transportation paved the way for the development of maritime transport in Chinese history not only because sea routes appeared in historical records later than inland routes, but because it is common sense that sea navigation is a step forward in ship building, navigation skills, nautical technology, and knowledge about winds, currents, tides, astronomy, and meteorology.1 An understanding of the “pre-history” of Chinese maritime history may shed light on the later development of maritime activities in imperial China. Therefore, the purpose of this article is two-fold. My primary aim is, of course, to illustrate the different contexts in which organized water transport took place in ancient China. This aspect is intimately related to the political history, military history, and historical geography of the states in question. However, another aim of this research is to call for response from historians working on the maritime history in later periods. Although Marc Bloch cautioned us against using origins to explain subsequent development by coining the famous adage “The Idol of Origin,”2 it is hoped that a clarification of the earliest stage of water transport in China may provide a solid foundation based on which some general trends and issues concerning inland and oversea transportation and activities in Chinese history can be explained.

Sources, Definition, and Methodology All historical research requires a certain degree of generalization, but it is also clear that it is perilous to take China as a whole in tracing the development of 1 Sun Guangqi 孫光圻, Zhongguo gudai hanghai shi 中國古代航海史 (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 2005), pp. 60–64. 2 Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), pp. 29–35.

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water transport in Chinese history. A certain tendency to generalize is indeed understandable. Although evidence of water transport exists in various forms from China’s earliest history, this evidence is usually isolated in time and space. Given the limited evidence available to scholars, it is tempting to correlate them in order to trace the development of waterborne carriers and water-related activities. But this approach will inevitably result in an oversimplification of history, as it will link different pieces of evidence specific to a time and place with each other without examining them in their respective contexts. The pictographic nature of Chinese characters lends itself to be taken as visual evidence at face value. For example, in researching the development of ships in ancient China, it is common for scholars to infer the structure of ships or related activities from the graphic representations of ships in Chinese oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, such as , 舟 zhou, 凡 fan, 般 ban, 受 shou, , 3 , and so on. However, the use of pictographic depictions as the sources of history should also be treated with caution because of the necessary abstraction in graphic representation and the conservatism in their evolution. The visual content of a graph can at most be an imprecise reflection of certain phenomena or concepts at the time of its creation. It is not appropriate to pinpoint it down to a specific time and place and to use it as evidence of history. Furthermore, the use of legendary invention of artifacts in Chinese textual traditions as evidences should be deemed methodologically inappropriate.

3 Xi Longfei 席龍飛, “Zhongguo gudai de zaochuan jishu 中國古代的造船技術,” in Zhang Xun 章巽 ed., Zhongguo hanghai kejishi 中國航海科技史 (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1991), p. 16; Yang Shengnan 楊升南, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju 商代的水上交通工具,” Yindu xuekan 殷都學刊 (2006), pp. 1–7; Peng Deqing 彭德清, Zhongguo hanghai shi 中國航海史 (Beijing: Renmin jiaotong chubanshe, 1988), pp.  11–14; Wang Guanzhuo 王冠倬, Zhongguo guchuan tupu 中國古船圖譜 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2011), p.  29; Sun Guangqi 孫光圻, Zhongguo gudai hanghai shi, pp.  51–54; Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954–), Vol. 4, part 3, pp. 147, 439; Hsu James C.H 許進雄, Ancient Chinese Society: An Epigraphic and Archaeological Interpretation (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu chubanshe, 2013), pp.  401–407; Chen Hsin-hsiung 陳信雄, “Song Yuan de yuanyang maoyi chuan 宋元的遠洋貿易船,” in Zhongguo haiyang fazhan shi lunwenji II 中國海洋發展史論 文集 (二) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1986), pp. 2–3. Scholars also argues that the character of fan 凡 in Shang Oracle Bones testifies to the use of sails during the Shang Dynasty. For example, see: Yang You 楊槱, “Zhongguo zaochuan fazhan jianshi 中國造船發展簡史,” in Zhongguo zaochuan gongcheng xuehui 1962  nian nianhui lunwenji 中國造船工程學會 1962 年年會論文集 (Beijing: Guofang gongye chubanshe, 1962), p. 8. However, a close examination of the contexts and shape of fan in Shang Oracle Bones reveals that this character originally means pan 盤. The shape of is a side-view projection of a dish, representing its ring foot, body, and handles. Fan was also used as the phonetic component of feng 風 in Shang Oracle Bone inscriptions. There is no evidence indicating that it had been used as ship sails.

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It  seems to me rather unconvincing that, since the historicity of ancient sage kings have long been cracked by the Doubting Antiquity School 疑古學派, scholars still attribute the invention of boats, oars, or rafts to the Yellow Emperor or other mythological figures, such as Fuxi 伏羲 and Suiren 隧人.4 In a similar vein, in researching the early history of water transport, anecdotal texts of early history created during the Warring States Period or even later periods can be invalidated.5 One of the anecdotes quoted often is the story of King Zhao’s 昭王 death in the Han River during his second expedition in the south. The Lushi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 relates that King Zhao died in the Han River when local people tricked him into taking a defected boat, which disintegrated in the middle of the river. Judging from the most recent research on King Zhao’s expeditions based on bronze inscriptions, this anecdote can be refuted.6 So what is left to consider forhistorical research on the earliest water transport in Chinese history? In contrast to the abundant evidence of the earliest ships from about four thousand years ago in Egypt through the Roman period,7 it is clear that we are left with too little evidences to fully trace the origin and evolution of boats and water transport in Chinese history. Archaeologically discovered shipwrecks are scarce, preventing us from knowing physically what the earliest ships looked like and how were they built and used.8 Neither are we able to provide any numerical data regarding the quantity of transportation via waterways in ancient China. Fortunately, the current situation allows us to approach this issue from another angle to establish the social and geographical contexts in which ships were organized on a large scale and traveled over a considerable distance through natural or artificial waterways. To be precise, the period under investigation starts from the late Shang, Western Zhou, to the end of the Warring States period. The regions that attract our attention are the three most important fluvial systems in ancient China: the Yellow River, the Yangtze, and the Huai River basins.

4 彭德清, Zhongguo hanghai shi, pp. 3–5; 5 For a definition and discussion on the historicity of anecdotal texts, see: David Schaberg, “Chinese History and Philosophy,” in Andrew Feldherr and Grant Hardy eds., The Oxford History of Historical Writing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 394–413. 6 Chinhau Lei 雷晉豪, “Gaixian gengzhang: Zhao wang nanzheng ji qi shehui jingji beijing 改弦更張: 昭王南征及其社會經濟背景,” in Conquest and Resistance: Political Dynamics and Cultural Transformation in the “Southern Territory” of the Zhou Dynasty (Taipei: Ph.D. Dissertation, National Taiwan University, 2014), pp. 89–162. 7 Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 11–22; Richard A. Gould, Archaeology and the Social History of Ships (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 121–127. 8 For a list of the ships from early China discovered archaeologically, see: Wang Guanzhuo, Zhongguo guchuan tupu, pp. 20–21.

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During the process of state building and military competition, the states in these regions developed different modes of transportation that best suited their geographical conditions. An understanding of the modes of transportation is therefore intricately connected with the political and military history of the states in ancient China. The term water transport needs some clarification. It refers to the intentional use of natural or man made waterways in achieving long-distance movement. To cross the river is not water transport, as water in this case is more an barrier than a medium of movement. I also reserve the use of the phrase water transport for travels that employed waterborne vehicles, such as boats, ships or rafts, which enable people to head toward their destinations. It does not include log driving through waterways or transportation on frozen rivers. I also focus on organized water transport instead of on sporadic cases. Given the lack of numerical data, it is impossible to determine quantitatively how “organized” each event was in ancient China. But the activities should at least exhibit the quality of sophisticated levels of organization, formed through the agency of the state for military, administrative, ritual or economic purposes. There can be little doubt about the crucial roles played by transportation systems in exercising military power, in territorial control, in civil administration, or in long-distance trade. As one of the two major forms of long-distance transportation in ancient China, water transport served as an alternative to, or a potential competitor for, land transport. How the states utilized water transportation depended upon differences in their geography, culture, and military strategies. In this regard, understanding the various roles played by water transport in different regions also helps shed light on the political and military history of the states in each region. Readers may speculate why I chose to exclude the Xia and the early Shang Dynasties from our investigation. The reason is mainly because of the lack of reliable sources. My hope is to base this research on sources that have a reliable date and provenance. Therefore, this investigation starts with the late Shang Dynasty and ends in the Warring States period. The sources that we use include Shang oracle bone inscriptions, Western Zhou bronzes, transmitted classics, archaeologically discovered materials, and visual representations of water transport in historical sources. There is still one methodological issue that needs explanation. Historians are well aware that the absence of evidence should be treated with great caution. This reservation is certainly well justified. Inscriptional and classical sources often cover only the core areas of ancient Chinese civilization, and archaeological evidences largely depend on their state of preservation. We can always argue that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This argument, however, is

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a slippery slope. There is no end to it and when taken to an extreme, all conclusions regarding ancient history become tentative. But this should not prevent us from drawing any conclusion on the basis of the evidence that we currently have in hand. Besides, in a world where political authority instead of the free market was the primary agent behind social and regional integration,9 it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that aside from the domains dominated by the Shang, the Zhou and major regional states, there could have been little possibility of discovering organized water transport on a sophisticated scale. Therefore, I argue that the positivist approach on which this research premised is not only methodologically sound but historically effective.

The Late Shang Dynasty The metropolitan centers of the late Shang and the Western Zhou Dynasties were located in North China, so textual sources available to us come from this area. Although records of water-related activities have long been identified by scholars, none of them prove that ships had been used as a means for large-scale transportation over a considerable distance. Instead, ships were of limited use, and waterways were more an obstacle to travel than a means of moving. Let us start with the Shang Dynasty. The character appears in Shang oracle bone inscription and is transcribed as boats (zhou 舟). In his pioneering research on transportation during the Shang Dynasty, Yu Xingwu 于省吾 identified three verbs, , , and she 涉, that have been applied before the character of boats , revealing how they were used in the Shang Dynasty.10 He suggested that should be transcribed as shui 繂, and the term “ ” be interpreted as using ropes to haul the boats. In a latter publication he altered this theory and transcribed as shui 率, meaning “to follow (循 xun).” Thus he reinterpreted “ ” as “to let the boats follow down the stream of the rivers.”11

9 Wang Te-chuan 王德權, “Gudai Zhongguo tixi de tuan cheng 古代中國體系的摶成,” New History Journal 新史學 14–1 (2003), pp. 143–201. 10 Yu Xingwu 于省吾, “Yindai de jiaotong gongju he yichuan zhidu 殷代的交通工具和馹 傳制度,” Dongbei renmin daxue renwen kexue xuebao 東北人民大學人文科學學報 2 (1955), pp. 96–103. 11 Yu Xingwu, Jiagu wenzi shilin 甲骨文字釋林 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009), pp. 280–283; Yang Shengnan, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju,” p. 4.

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Scholars now generally agree that the character of should be transcribed as xun 尋.12 Though scholarly opinions regarding the meaning of this character differ, I suggest that it is more appropriate to understand its meaning as “to use” instead of “to follow.” Zuozhuan records “jiang xun shi yan 將尋師焉” and “ri xun gan ge 日尋干戈.”13 Du Yu 杜預 commented on xun that “xun, to use 尋, 用也.” Therefore, the term “尋舟 xun zhou” simply means to use the boats. This term appears three times in the corpus of Shang Oracle Bone inscriptions: On …cho, Xing divined, the King is going to use the boats on the Zhang River.14 Will he be safe and sound? …丑卜, 行貞, 王其尋船于滳, 無災? (Heji 24608) On yi hai, Xing divined, the King is going to use the boats on the Yellow River. Will he be safe and sound? 乙亥卜, 行貞, 王其尋舟于河, 無災? (Heji 24609) On geng shen, the King is going to use the boats…sacrifice two calves? 庚申卜, 王其尋舟… 二牢, 茲用? 　(Tunnan 2296)

The scale and purpose of his trips were unclear. Combining the first two divinations, Yang Shengnan 楊升南 suggests that the King must have flowed from the Zhang River into the Yellow River.15 Evidence for this theory is circumstantial, however. We do not know whether the divinations for the two events were related or not, nor do we know whether the boats were employed merely for rivercrossing, for long distance travel, for pleasure, for rituals appeasing the river gods, or for other possible purposes. All these questions cannot be answered as the crucial contexts were lost in the Delphic language of the inscriptions. It is clear, however, from Tunnan 2296 that the use of boats on rivers entailed risks, so a sacrifice was conducted. Statistically speaking, records of boats being used finding mention in oracle bones were rare. Among a large number of oracle bone inscriptions recording the travels for various purposes of Shang kings (presumably using chariots),16 the use of boats takes up no more than three cases, appearing only during Period II. The sacrificing of two calves before the king was to use boats suggests that the boat transport was a special event that requires arrangements.

12 Yu Xingwu et al., Jiagu wenzi gulin 甲骨文字詁林 2, P. 970–974; Li Xiaoding 李孝定, Jiagu wenzi jishi 甲骨文字集釋 3, pp. 1031–1038. 13 Zuozhuan, Xi Gong 5, Zhao Gong 1, pp. 304, 1218. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, Chunqiu Zuozhuang zhu 春秋左傳注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990). 14 “滳” stands for the Zhang River 漳水. See Yang Shuda 楊樹達, Jiweiju jiawenshuo: Buci suoji 積微居甲文說 ·卜辭瑣記 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1954), p. 47. 15 Yang Shengnan, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju,” p. 4. 16 See Li Xueqin, Yindai dili jian lun 殷代地理簡論, in Li Xueqin zaoqi wenji 李學勤早期文集 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008), pp. 157–277.

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The verb she 涉 appeared in the classical text of “Pan Geng 盤庚” in Shangshu 尚書, recording the relocation of the Shang capital across the Yellow River to Anyan.17 Quite a few she 涉 appear in the corpus of Shang Oracle Bones. Some of them involve the crossing of rivers adjacent to Anyang, such as the Yellow River and the Zhang River 滳. These texts do not mention the way of river-crossing, perhaps because it is something too ordinary to be mentioned at all. But people did not necessarily use boats for river-crossing in ancient China. Instead, the most common way of crossing a river was wading through the water: The gourd has its bitter leaves, and the crossing at the ford is deep. If deep, I will go through with my clothes on; if shallow, I will do so, holding them up. 匏有苦葉, 濟有深涉 ̥深則厲, 淺則揭 ̥18

Therefore, despite a considerable number of she 涉 have been recorded in oracle bones, we are not able to determine how they crossed the river and whether ships had been employed at all. There is only one incident in which boats were explicitly mentioned: On jia xu, officials broke away by crossing the river by boats. Yan…did not report this incident. Fifteen days later, on ding hai, they were captured. 甲戌, 臣涉舟, 延□弗告 ̥旬又五日 丁亥, 執 ̥(Heji 64 正)

The meaning of chen in Shang oracle bones is ambiguous, and I am reluctant to translate chen 臣 as officials. In any case, what is crucial here is that this is the only example in which the use of boats in river crossing was recorded in the Shang oracle bones. But the nature of the boats was unclear. We do not know if they were provided by the officials at large, or whether public boats were deployed at major fords. If commercial ferries existed at all, perhaps the inscription can be interpreted as the officials crossed the river by bribing the ferrymen, Yan 延□. Another category of boat use involved rituals in the ancestral temple. There are quite a few cases in this category and the key word here is , transcribed as she 設, meaning “to arrange for:”19 …arrange for boats, from Shang Jia… Zu Yi, one calf… Father Ding… … 一, 父丁… (Heji 32389)

舟自上甲…祖乙牛

17 Shangshu, “Pan geng,” pp.  81–98. Chu Wan-li 屈萬里, Shangshu jishi 尚書集釋 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 1986). 18 Shijing, “Pao you ku ye 匏有苦葉,” p.  60. Chu Wan-li, Shijing quanshi 詩經詮釋 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 1988). 19 Yu Xingwu, Jiagu wenzi shilin, p. 285.

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On ding mao, the King ordered Qin to offer libations and arrange for the boats. 丁卯貞, 王 令 奠, 舟 ̥ (Heji 32850) …divine, the King ordered… arrange for the boats…貞, 王令… 舟… (Tunnan 4052)

Though the location where these rituals took place is unclear, the first record does imply that they took place in the royal ancestral temple. Boats were used on some sort of rituals or on ceremonial occasions, but details are unavailable. Another presumably ritual context in which boats were found involves the verb “ cheng:” …divine, the King ordered Qin to … this autumn. After the arrangement of the boats, he offered libations. …貞, 王令 今秋…舟 , 乃奠  ̥ (Heji 32854) … divine…ordered Bi… boats were arranged… libations. …貞…令比…舟 …奠 (Tunnan 866)

The pictographic nature of the character dian 奠 implies that alcoholic drinks were poured on the ground as an offering to gods. It is therefore commonly understood as libations. The character “cheng ,” also rendered as , or 稱 in its modern form, is a verb commonly seen in Shang oracle bones and should be understood as ju 舉.20 In a ritual context, it can be interpreted as “to present,” but in general contexts it can be understood as “to use,” as in the phrase of “ju bing 舉兵.” It is plain that in the previous two cases the boats were used during libation ceremonies, but why such ceremonies involved boats has no answers. So far, it can be concluded that boats had been used in river-crossing and for some sort of ceremony during the late Shang Dynasty.21 But the above-mentioned inscriptions provide little clue as to the mechanism governing these boats and the scale and organization of the activities. We have to turn to another category of record to speculate on the administrative system.

20 Gulin, pp. 3138–3139. 21 Still some fragmentary evidences need discussion. The term “chu zhou 出舟” appears four times in the corpus of Shang Oracle Bones. The verb chu 出 has various meanings. But in one case the King divined “chu zhou” on two consecutive days, implying that the verb chu may be interpreted as “to dispatch” or “to use,” as in the case of “chu bing 出兵.” Again, information as to the scale, quantity, purpose, and contexts are lost. There is little we can know beyond the fact that boats were used. Another inscription mentions “zhi zhou 執舟 (capturing the boats),” appearing in two characters alone. Given the lack of context, we are not able to determine whether zhou 舟 in this case is a person or a boat. There is no evidence to link this record to a military operation.

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In Shang oracle bone inscriptions, there are records of “lai zhou 來舟,” “de zhou 得舟,” and “bi zhou 畀舟,” indicating the acquisition of boats through tributary means or exchanges.22 These are the means through which the Shang state acquired boats. Another inscription mentions the manufacture of royal boats for the King: On ji si, Zheng divined the construction of the royal boat(s). 己巳卜, 爭貞, 作王舟 ̥ (Heji 13758 正)

Therefore, aside from acquiring boats through tribute and exchange, the Shang court also produced its own boats for the kings. The problem is that these records give us no clue as to the number, scale and organization of these boats. There are other cases in which the character zhou 舟 appears in Shang oracle bones which bears on the mechanism of boats management (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Citing the evidences from bronze inscriptions, Yang Shengnan argues that the term “yin zhou 尹舟,” which appears fifteen times in Shang period bronze inscriptions, stands for an official supervising the boats of the Shang Dynasty.23 If this is the case, then the number of boats owned by the Shang court must have been impressive. However, key to this theory is the interpretation of the character yin 尹 as a general term for “ministers” and zhou 舟 as boats. If this is the case, we can expect to find other officials with titles consisting of yin plus the objects that they supervised, such as horses, chariots, archives, lands and so on. The truth is just the opposite. Searching the key word yin in the database of Digital Archives of Bronze Images and Inscriptions 殷周金文暨青銅器資料庫,24 I can find no official bearing titles consisting of yin 尹 plus objects that they were supposed to 22 Heji 795, 11462 正, 11460 甲正 and 乙正. “lai 來” should be interpreted as to present, as in the case of “lai niu 來牛” and “lai ma 來馬.” 23 Yang Shengnan, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju,” p. 3. 24 Digital Archives of Bronze Images and Inscriptions. URL: http://www.ihp.sinica.edu. tw/~bronze/

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supervise. This statistical result suggests that “yin zhou 尹舟” was not an official title but a lineage name. On one occasion, the Shang king did inspect the boats (sheng zhou 省舟),25 but the context of this inspection is unclear. It is unknowable whether he was inspecting the Royal Boat or other public boats owned by the Shang Government for official purposes. The number of boats inspected is not testified. Two inscriptions record that the King ordered somebody to get the boats (qu  zhou 取舟),”26 again with uncertain contexts and quantity. Yang Shengnan interprets this in a military direction, but the theory rested on his interpretation of a series of undeciphered characters, so is only circumstantial.27 Yang also cited two cases to support a military use of boats.28 One is to interpret the phrase “qiang zhou qi 羌舟啟” as “ to order Qiang to lead fleets as the advance force.” The character qi 啟 does have the meaning of “advance force,” but, grammatically speaking, it seems more appropriate to interpret “qiang zhou” as a private name. Even if the sentence reserves the verb with the object, it is still possible to interpret the word “zhou 舟” as a lineage name, as recorded in Guoyu 國語.29 Another evidence that Yang cites consisted of three inscriptions, all with the formula of: Will the state

in the east? 方其 (

)于東? (Heji 11467, 11468, 20619)

He interprets the undeciphered character as “invading with ships.” This theory is circumstantial, as competing interpretations of the character also exist.30 My opinion is that Yang’s theory exposes a methodological problem that needs further elaboration here. Given the pictographic nature of Chinese characters, it is perhaps tempting for scholars, when faced with undecipherable paleographical characters, to interpret the meaning of the graphs from their pictographic representation. The risk in this approach lies in the complexity of the Chinese writing system. It is not always easy to tell whether a component of a character is a semantic sign or a phonetic one. Chances are that a phonetic symbol might be interpreted semantically. In addition, chances are also that the character is used as a loangraph 25 Huai 1456. 26 Heji 655. 27 Yang Shengnan, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju,” p. 5. 28 Yang Shengnan, “Shang dai de shuishang jiaotong gongju,” pp. 5–6. 29 “禿姓舟人,” see: Guoyu, “Zheng Yu 鄭語,” pp. 467–468. 30 Guo Moruo 郭沫若 interpreted it as ban 般, and Zhang Bingquan 張秉權 interprets it as fu 服. See: Yang Shengnan, Ibid., p. 6.

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假借字, having nothing to do with its pictographically represented senses. The Shang Oracle Bones Script is a mature writing system indicating that it consists of a large percentage of phonograms and loangraphs.31 In this case, it is risky to speculate unknown graphs purely from a pictographic approach. I therefore conclude that none of the evidence provided by Yang Shangnan in support of an organized use of boats during the Shang Dynasty can be substantiated. In sum, from our investigations on the contexts in which boats appeared and the ways that they were managed, conclusions could be made about the role played by boats during the late Shang period. Although boats have been used by the Shang kings on the Yellow River and the Zhang River, the purpose of their travels and the scale of boat use are unclear. One thing certain about boats is that they were employed for crossing rivers during this period of time, but we have no clue as to whether they were self-provided or commercial in nature. Another context in which boats appeared was during libation rituals in the royal ancestral temple. But why and how they were used remain a mystery. Regarding the mechanisms managing the boats owned by the Shang state, we know that the Shang Court acquired boats through various means, including tributes, exchange, and self-production. At least on one occasion the king inspected the boats personally. But, again, we have no idea as to the scale of the royal ship industry— neither the number of boats used by the Shang state, nor the purposes of boat use. We can only judge from a statistical basis that, when compared with land transport, boat transport was considered to be rare and risky which necessitated sacrificial ceremonies in advance. In a word, all the evidence regarding the scale and organization of water transport during the Shang Dynasty is inconclusive. If we are to look for the origin of state organized water transport, the Shang Dynasty is certainly not the answer.

The Western Zhou Period More evidence is available regarding water-related activities during the Western Zhou period. However, an exhaustive collection of sources relating to water transport reveals that during the Western Zhou period, boats were used on limited

31 Li Xiaoding 李孝定, “Cong liushu de guandian kan jiagu wenzi 從六書的觀點看甲骨文字,” Nanyang daxue xuebao 南洋大學學報 2 (1968), pp. 84–106. This article is also collected in: Hanzi de qiyuan yu yanbian luncong 漢字的起源與演變論叢 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 1986), pp. 1–42.

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occasions. None of the evidence involve the transportation of commodities or personnel over a long distance via waterways. There was indeed one new development in the use of boats by the Zhou people. The Shijing (Book of Poetry) records that when King Wen 文王 got married, the Zhou people built a pontoon bridge across the Wei River: The ceremonies determined the auspiciousness of the union. And in person he met her on the Wei River. Over it they made a bridge of boats. The glory of the occasion was illustrious. 文定厥祥, 親迎于渭   ̥造舟為梁, 不顯其光 ̥32

Based on this account, Joseph Needham suggested that ancient China anticipated the Greeks in inventing pontoon bridges.33 Similar usage of boats is also found in a case dated to a later period of time. The Zuozhuan records that Houzi gave a banquet to the Marquis of Jin, when he made a pontoon bridge over the Yellow River. His chariots were placed at stages, 10 li interval from one another, all the way from Yong to Jiang. During the banquet, messengers returned to Qin to fetch the offerings, thereby completing the business in eight journeys. 后子享晉侯, 造舟于河, 十里舍車, 自雍 及絳 ̥歸取酬幣, 終事八反 ̥34

However, the construction of floating bridges should have been limited to special occasions. In ordinary occasions people either wade through the flow or used boats to cross rivers. The Book of Poetry preserves quite a few records of river-crossing. Although difficult to pinpoint these texts to a specific time and place, the scenes that they describe may be taken as a general reflection of daily life in ancient China. One mentions the scene of a boatman waving toward his customers: The boatman keeps beckoning and others cross with him. Only I do not. Others cross with him, but I do not, for I am waiting for my friends. 招招舟子, 人涉卬否 ̥人涉卬否, 卬 須我友 ̥35

This poem implies the existence of commercial ferries; though, given our insufficient understanding about the financial and economic system during the Western Zhou period, it is difficult to know how the service was paid for.

32 Shijing, “Da ming 大明,” p.  455. The marriage was consummated during King Wen’s early regnal years, as the poem mentions “In his early years, the Heaven made for him a mate 文王初 載, 天作之合.” 33 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 4, Part 3, pp. 159–160. 34 Zuozhuan, Zhao Gong 1, p. 1214. 35 Shijing, “Pao you ku ye 匏有苦葉,” p. 60

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Another evidence supporting the existence of commercial ferries is the “Da Dong 大東,” a poem accusing boatmen of social inequity and corruption. Dated to the Western Zhou period, the poem describes: The sons of boatmen wear furs of bears. While the sons from the poorest families take up a hundred of duties in the public sectors. 舟人之子、熊羆是裘 ̥私人之子、百僚是試 ̥36

This may be interpreted as a general accusation of corruption among boatmen, as it seems that the service was abused and became a source of corrupted wealth. As for the availability of ferry services, there was a text of normative nature in Guoyu that is worth mentioning. The text records that when Shan Xiang Gong 單襄公, a minister at the Zhou Court during the mid Spring and Autumn period, visited the State of Chen, he criticized it as failing to provide river-crossing services for travelers: Ferryboats or bridges are not available at fords. They disregard the instructions of our former kings. 川無舟、梁, 是廢先王之教也 ̥37

I translate “zhou 舟 and liang 梁” as two separate nouns. Another way to interpret the text is to take “zhou liang” as a noun, meaning pontoon bridges. In any case, Shan Xiang Gong attributed the origin of this service to the ancestral kings, presumably referring to the Western Zhou traditions. Independent sources are lacking to validate his saying or to prove to what extent this system had been implemented during the Western Zhou period. But his saying does imply that ferry services are not always reliable. Aside from river-crossing, evidence reveals that boats during the Western Zhou period were used in a ritual context at Fang Jing 京. The Mai Zun 麥尊 records that : The King commanded the Marquis of Xing to depart Pei and establish at Xing. In the second month, my lord presented himself at Zhong Zhou and was without impropriety. Afterward, the King conducted a wan ritual at Fang Jing and offered a libation there. On the next day, at the pond of Pi Yong, the King rode in a boat and performed a grand ceremony. The King shot a large goose and captured it. My lord followed and arrayed with the King in a red-pennanted boat. The ceremony was successfully completed. 王令辟邢侯出坏, 侯于邢, 若二月, 侯見于宗周, 亡尤 ̥會王 京, 祀 ̥若翌, 在辟雍, 王乘于舟, 為大禮 ̥王射大龏, 禽, 侯乘 ̥ 于赤旂舟, 從死, 咸 《集成》0601538

36 Shijing, “Dadong 大東,” p. 389. 37 Guoyu, “Zhou yu zhong 周語中,” p. 66. 38 I generally follow the transcription of inscriptions provided by the database of Digital Archives of Bronze Images and Inscriptions. URL: http://app.sinica.edu.tw/bronze/qry_bronze.php. I refer to Edward L. Shaughnessy’s work for the translation of the inscription with revisions. See:

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The Mai Zun is dated to the early Western Zhou period, most probably during the reign of King Kang.39 The meaning of wan remains unresolved, but scholars now generally agree that it was some sort of ritual.40 The location of Fang Jing has not been verified archaeologically but was certainly located at somewhere adjacent to the Western Zhou capital of Feng and Hao.41 It was where the Pi Yong was located, which, according to Confucian commentaries, was surrounded on four sides by water.42 The Mai Zun verifies the record about the pond at Pi Yong. According to the inscription, King Kang rode in a boat to perform a grand ceremony. The King shot a goose from a boat and the Marquis of Xing followed suit from another boat with red flags. The riding of boats and the hunting on the pond should not be taken as being for entertainment. Instead, the context of the inscription suggests that

Edward L. Shaughnessy, “Historical Geography and the Extent of the Earliest Chinese Kingdoms,” Asia Major 2, Vol. 2 (1989), pp. 19–20. 39 Shaughnessy dates it to King Cheng. See: Edward L. Shaughnessy, “Historical Geography and the Extent of the Earliest Chinese Kingdoms,” p. 19. Ma Chengyuan dated it to King Kang, see:Ma Chengyuan 馬承源, Shang Zhou qingtongqi mingwenxuan 商周青銅器銘文選 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1986–88), pp.  46–48. I date the Mai Zun to King Kang. The Mai Zun belongs to a group of vessels produced by the same person, Mai, who was an official in the State of Xing 邢 國. Calligraphic features of the Mai vessels exhibit certain degree of regularization in the strokes and in size but still retain some traits of King Wu and King Cheng. In addition, the flanges on the Mai Fang Yi are in column shape, differing from the flamboyant style characterizing vessels from King Zhao’s reign, as represented by the Ze Ling Fang Yi 夨令方彝. The bird motifs on the Mai Zun do not exhibit the fancy crown and elongated tail that characterized those during the reigns of King Zhao and King Mu. Therefore, I agree that it is appropriate to date the Mai vessel to the reign of King Kang. 40 Liu Yu 劉雨 provides an interesting theory. Having made a comprehensive review of the previous theories regarding wan, Liu Yu linked wan with the wan 綩 ritual recorded in Ta Gui 它 簋 (Jicheng 4330), which is an ancestral ritual conducted right after the death of one’s father. He then argued that all the wan rituals recorded in Western Zhou bronzes should be dated to the immediate aftermath of the death of the casters’ fathers. See: Liu Yu, “Xi Zhou jinwen zhong de jizuli 西周金文中的祭祖禮,” Kaogu xuebao 考古學報 4 (1989), pp. 502–503. Although the linkage of wan with wan 綩 seems plausible phonologically, his theory of dating all the vessels containing wan to the first year after the owners’ fathers’ death cannot be substantiated by chronological evidences. 41 Li Feng, Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou, 1045–771 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 56. 42 Cheng Mengjia 陳夢家 made the most comprehensive collection of texts and bronze inscriptions related to the Great Pond, or Pi Yong. See: Cheng Mengjia, Xi Zhou tongqi duandai 西周銅 器斷代, p. 4.

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boats were ridden for a grand ritual in which some sort of ceremonial archery was practiced.43 Another example of boat-use in a ceremonial context is found in the Bo Tang Fu Ding 伯唐父鼎 (NA 0698),44 an even more controversial vessel dated to the early to mid Western Zhou.45 The inscription is so damaged that a precise transcription seems impossibe. Here I merely follow the most general transcription: On yi mao, the King conducted a wan ritual at Fang Jing. The King performed an exorcism toward the boat at Ping Yong and approached the raised land by the shore.46 The exorcism was accomplished. Bo Tang Fu reported to the King that all have been well prepared. The King approached and embarked on the boat with white flags to exorcise. On the pond at Pi Yong, he shot an ox, a curl-furred tiger, a raccoon, a white deer, and a white wolf. The exorcism was accomplished. 乙卯, 王 京 ̥王辟舟, 臨舟龍, 咸 ̥ 伯唐父告備 ̥王各, 乘辟 舟, 臨白旂 ̥用射絼、虎、貉、白鹿、白狼于辟池    ̥咸 ̥ NA069847

During the Shang and the Western Zhou periods, kings symbolically hunted animals for various rituals, and the marshy environment around the pond at Pi Yong was the land that kept these sacrifices. White animals, as seen in the Bo Tang Fu Ding, also seemed to bear symbolic meanings in the Western Zhou

43 This ceremonial hunt on the pond at Pi Yong is called “water shooting ceremony 水射禮.” For ceremonial shootings recorded in the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, see: Liu Yu 劉雨, “Xizhou jinwen zhong de sheli 西周金文中的射禮,” Kaogu 12 (1986), pp. 1112–1120. 44 For the archaeological reports on this vessel, see: Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo fengxi fajuedui 中國社會科學院考古研究所灃西發掘隊, “Chengan Zhangjiapo M183 Xizhou dongshimu fajue jianbao 長安張家坡 M183 西周洞室墓發掘簡報,” Kaogu 6 (1989), pp. 524–529; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo 中國社會科學院考古研究所, Zhangjiapo xizhou mudi 張家坡西周墓地 (Beijing: Zhongguo dabaike quanshu chubanshe 中國大百科 全書出版社), p. 145. 45 Based on his theory of the wan ritual, Liu Yu dated this vessel to the first year of King Mu. See: Liu Yu, “Bo Tang Fu Ding de mingwen yu shidai 伯唐父鼎的銘文與時代,” Kaogu 6 (1989), p. 742. This date rests on the validity of his theory and therefore requires further investigation. 46 I here follow Liu Yu’s interpretation of zhou long 舟龍 as the raised land by lake for boarding. See: Liu Yu, “Bo Tang Fu Ding de mingwen yu shidai,” p. 741. In contrast, Zhang Zhenglang 張 政烺, Liu Huan 劉桓 and Yuan Junjie 袁俊杰 interprets zhou long as “dragon boats,” presumably the king’s royal boat. See: 張政烺, “Bo Tang Fu Ding, Meng Yuan Ding, Yan mingwen shiwen 伯 唐父鼎、孟員鼎、甗銘文釋文, ” Kaogu 6 (1989), p. 551; Liu Huan 劉桓, “Ye tan Bo Tang Fu Ding mingwen de shidu: jian tan Yindai jisi de yige wenti 也談伯唐父鼎銘文的釋讀 — 兼談殷代祭祀 的一個問題,” Wenbo 6 (1996), p. 29; Yuan Junjie, “Bo Tang Fu Ding mingwen tongshi buzheng 伯 唐父鼎銘文通釋補證,” Wenwu 6 (2011), p. 39. But this interpretation contradicts the fact that, in the second round of the exorcism on the boat, what the King boarded was the boats with white flags instead of the “dragon boat.” I therefore follow Liu Yu’s interpretation. 47 Scholars disagree on the interpretation of many details, which, for the purpose of this article, do not require us to go further into.

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religious culture, implying that they were not wild animals but artificially kept for ceremonial purposes.48 In any case, what is relevant here is that the marshy environment necessitated the use of boats by the Zhou King when carrying out the ceremonial shootings, accounting for another type of boat use during the Western Zhou period. As for the number of boats used during the ceremonies, in the case of the Mai Zun, the King took one boat and the Marquis of Xing took another. In the case of the Bo Tang Fu Ding, only one boat was mentioned. There is no evidence attesting to the use of boats on a large scale, and the movement of these boats seemed to be confined to the pond at Pi Yong, as implied by the name of “pi zhou 辟舟.” Officials were appointed by the king to supervise these boats. The late Western Zhou Chu Gui 楚簋 records a royal appointment commanding Chu to: Supervise the royal lodge on the outskirts of Fang Jing, and those boats at the interior of Fang Jing. 司 啚官、內師舟  ̥ (Jicheng 04246)

The word guan 官 often stood for guan 館 in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions.49 According to this inscription, there were lodges on the outskirts of Fang Jing. The word nei 內, interior, contrasts with bi 啚, the outskirts, and should refer to the boats stationed at Pi Yong. In addition, shi 師 is a quantifier, meaning a multitude of something. Therefore, nei shi zhou 內師舟 refers to those boats inside Fang Jing. From this inscription we can infer that, at least during the late Western Zhou period, there were quite a few boats at Fang Jing, presumably berthed at the Pi Yong. They were supervised by officials appointed by the king. Aside from ceremonial purposes, boats at Pi Yong may also have been used for entertainment. The Jing Ding 井鼎, dated to the early to mid Western Zhou, records that: The King was at Fang Jing. On xin mao, the King fished at the … pond, calling Jing to join fishing. Jing was awarded with fishes. He thus praised the kindness of the King. 王在 京 ̥ ̥ 辛卯, 王漁于□池, 呼井從漁 攸賜漁, 對揚王休  ̥ (Jicheng 02720)

Similar accounts of fishing are seen in the Yu Gui 遹簋 (Jicheng 04207) and the Lao Gui 老簋 (NA 1875). All the fishing took place at Fang Jing, presumably on the very lake surrounding Pi Yong. It is possible that the boats stationed at Pi Yong were involved.

48 Zhu Kun 朱琨, “Lüelun Shang Zhou shiqi sheshengli 略論商周時期射牲禮,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1 (2012), pp. 33–37. 49 See: Jing You 競卣 (Jicheng 05425), Yan Zun 尊 (Jicheng 05986) and Za You 卣 (NA 1452)

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The use of boats for entertainment was found in Mutianzi zhuan 穆天子 傳. Although being a historical romance in essence,50 the Mutianzi zhuan does contain information specifically from the Western Zhou period. According to the text, during his trip to the Xu State 許國, King Mu once floated on a great marsh: On gui hai, the Son of Heaven rode on the Bird Boat and the Dragon Boat and floated on the great marsh. 癸亥, 天子乘鳥舟、龍舟浮于大沼 ̥51

Commentators generally placed the location of the great marsh close to modern day Xu Chang City 許昌市.52 The Bird Boat and the Dragon Boat may be interpreted as boats decorated with bird and dragon motifs. Mutianzi zhuan goes on to mention King Mu’s activities in the following days, including a banquet by the Wei River 洧水, fishing on the Jian Marsh 漸澤, and eating river fish at Sang Ye 桑野.53 It is clear from the context that King Mu used boats for entertainment. Aside from these examples, textual records of boats during the Western Zhou period are few and far between. But before we conclude our investigation, there is still another type of evidence that needs discussion. The discovery of cowries in the metropolitan areas of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties as well as textual records of them have often led scholars to surmise the existence of maritime activities and trade between these regions and the metropolitan areas (Figure 2).54 This, however, cannot be validated upon a closer look at the archaeological evidences. The cowries most commonly seen in the metropolitan areas of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties are Cypraea Moneta and Cypraea Annulus.55 The original habitats of them are the intertidal zones or lagoons in tropical or subtropical zones, where they can be easily collected on the shore. In view of this, the presence of these cowries cannot serve as evidence of deep ocean expeditions.

50 Michael Loewe ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Early China Special Monograph Series no. 2), pp. 342–346. 51 Mutianzi zhuan 穆天子傳, Ch. 5. Wang Yiliang 王貽梁 et al., Mutianzi zhuan huijiao jishi 穆天 子傳匯校集釋 (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1994), p. 258. 52 Wang Yiliang, Mutianzi zhuan huaijiao jishi, pp. 259–260. 53 Wang Yiliang, Mutianzi zhuan huaijiao jishi, p. 258. 54 For example, see: Wang Guanzhuo, Zhongguo guchuan tupu, pp. 34–35; Chen Hsin-hsiung, “Songyuan de yuanyang maoyi chuan,” p. 3. 55 Zhao Shande 趙善德, “Shang Zhou shidai de beihuo 商周時代的 ‘貝貨’,” Wenbo 文博 1 (1988), pp. 80–83; Jung Bor-sheng 鍾伯生, “Shiyusuo cang Yinxu haibei jiqi xiangguan wenti chutan 史語所藏殷墟海貝及其相關問題初探,” Bulletin of IHP  64: 3 (1993), pp.  687–737. For a comprehensive survey on the Shang Dynasty sea shells retrieved by the Institute of History and Philology during its excavations at Anyang, see: Jung Bor-sheng, Ibid.

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Figure 2: Cowries, Cypraea Moneta and Cypraea Annulus.

On the other hand, their appearance in the capitals of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties is insufficient to prove the existence of trade via sea routes or inland waterways. Although scholars still disagree about the sources and transmission routes of the cowries seen in ancient China,56 there seems to be little doubt that as light prestige goods they can very well have been transferred through land routes.57 Therefore, what we see can be taken as evidence of cultural communications, but the question about the physical means through which the exchanges were achieved remains open. In conclusion, one new development in this investigation on the contexts of boat use during the Western Zhou Dynasty was about the functions of boats being for building pontoon bridges. The earliest record of pontoon bridges dates back to the eleventh century BC, during the early regnal period of King Wen, making this the earliest pontoon bridge recorded in human history. Commercial ferries also seem to have come into place, though evidences concerning the operation and management of this system are scarce. Combining 56 For an overview of and discussion on the possible routes through which cowries were transferred into China from their places of origin, see: Kinoshita Naoko 木下尚子, “Cong gudai Zhongguo kan Liuqiu liedao de baobei 從古代中國看琉球列島的寶貝,” Sichuan wenwu 四川文物 1 (2003), pp. 29–34. 57 See the capture of cowries as booty from the coastal area in Shandong, as recorded in the inscriptions of Xiao Chen Chi Gui 小臣 簋 (Jicheng 04238). The X Ding 鼎 (Jicheng 02740) also preserved a similar record of capturing cowries during a war against the Eastern Barbarians 東夷.

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some normative texts regarding the establishment of ferries and bridges, it seems that boats were regularly deployed at fords for river-crossing during the Western Zhou period. In addition, boats were found in a ritual context. Ancient customs required the king to symbolically shoot sacrificial animals for ceremonies. Bronze inscriptions recorded the use of boats by Zhou kings when engaging in ceremonial hunting for sacrifices living around the pond at Fang Jing. The number of the boats there are unclear, but the official title “shi zhou 師舟” implies a substantial number of them. In addition to a ceremonial context, the boats at Fang Jing were also used during recreational fishing. There is, however, no evidence regarding the use of boats on a large scale for long-distance transportation. The functions of boats during the Western Zhou period do not seem to have gone much beyond that in the late Shang Dynasty, mainly for river-crossing, ritual use or recreations. The only major development was the use of boats on floating bridges, but this is synonymous with rivercrossing. Given the vast territory controlled by the Western Zhou Dynasty, the absence of long-distance water transport is something that needs explanation.

Land Transport Versus Water Transport in the Western Zhou Period There were two approaches to long-distance transportation in the ancient world; either via land routes or via waterways. The Western Zhou Dynasty took the former approach. The territories controlled by the Western Zhou Dynasty expanded rapidly during the founding stage of the Dynasty, making the construction of a dynastic-wide communication network a necessity. In order to cope with the increasing demand for military, administrative, economic, and ritual communications, the Zhou Road 周道, a dynastic wide communication network, was built. Connecting the dynastic capitals and the major regional states, the Zhou Road extended along with the expansion of the Western Zhou state, starting from the Wei River Valley and extending through Luoyi into modern day Shandong, Henan, Hebei and Hubei Provinces. Upon the completion of the road network, there were eight major highways that helped consolidate the territories of the Western Zhou Dynasty.58 58 For a comprehensive reconstruction of the routes of the Zhou Road, see: Chinhau Lei, Zhou dao: fengjian shidai de guandao (The Zhou Road: The National Highway in an Age of Limited Mobility) 周道: 封建時代的官道 (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011), pp. 46–156.

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The construction of the Zhou Road coincided with the institutionalization of chariot transportation by the Western Zhou state. Although introduced into China in the late Shang Dynasty, chariots remained luxuries in the late Shang aristocratic society. It was right before the Zhou conquest of the Shang that the Zhou people turned chariots into an organized war machine, and, after the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, incorporated them into the administrative system. The combination of the fastest vehicles in the ancient world with the meticulously built Zhou Road qualified it as the first “highway” in Chinese history.59 The Zhou Road was a land-based transportation network. The two pivots were the Western capitals, Feng and Hao, and the Eastern capital, Luoyi. None of them were major port cities.60 There were sections that encountered rivers, but no evidence indicates that the Zhou Road included waterways except for river-crossing.61 The absence of water transport in the Zhou Road system can be explained by the fact that Zhou people originated from Northwest China and were traditionally more familiar with land transport. The Western Zhou Dynasty was also based in North China, where land transportation dominated. Thus, by combining the fastest vehicles on land with a standardized road system, the Western Zhou Dynasty created an efficient transportation system whose scale and efficiency were not superseded until the Chi Road 馳道 built by the Qin Empire. The reason that the Western Zhou Dynasty took the land approach to long-distance transportation can also be explained by the relative weakness of water transport during the Shang and Western Zhou periods. Scholars of transportation studies propose a scheme that includes six factors in evaluating the strength and weakness of different modes of transportation: speed, loading capability, cost, dependability (how safe and stable is the transportation), completeness (geographical coverage of the transportation network) and frequency (the length of time that transportation can be carried out under annual natural cycles).62 Based on these criteria, it is clear that water transport was generally superior to land transport (chariots and ox carts) in terms of loading capability and cost of transportation. They were comparable in terms of frequency and dependability. 59 Chinhau Lei, The Zhou Road: The National Highway in an Age of Limited Mobility, pp. 15–45. 60 Chinhau Lei, Ibid., pp. 157–162. 61 Chinhau Lei, Ibid., pp. 322–326. 62 Donald J. Bowersox, Pat J. Calabro, and George D. Wagenheim, Introduction to Transportation (New York: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 56–57.

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Under favorable conditions, water transport even superseded the speed of chariot transport.63 Therefore, the major weakness in water transport during the Western Zhou period was insufficient geographical coverage of water bodies. There were natural limits in the network of water transportation, as the physical geography in ancient China separated natural waterways into three independent systems: the Yellow River basin (including the Ji River 濟水), the Yangtze basin (including the Han River) and the Huai River basin. Each of these water systems flowed from west to east and existed independently. For a dynasty with a territory extending far beyond one water basin, it was obvious that water transport was not the answer to linking different parts of the dynastic territories.64 As for communications within one single river basin, it is common sense that the Yellow River basin, where the core of the Western Zhou state was located, was the worst among the three in terms of dependability and frequency. The Wei River, one of the major tributaries of the Yellow River, flows through the capital area of the Western Zhou Dynasty. But the Wei River is notorious for water transport in Chinese history.65 It is obvious that a systematized use of boats could not have been developed by the Western Zhou Dynasty for transport via the Wei River. To a larger extent, historical meteorological research reveals that the Western Zhou period experienced a drop in the annual mean temperature and average precipitation.66 During winters, the Yellow River generally froze.67 Records of a frozen Han River and a frozen Yangtze are also found in the Ancient Bamboo Annals 古 本竹書紀年.68 Such climatic trends would have substantially compromised the frequency of transportation via inland rivers during the Western Zhou period. 63 Water transport in the pre-modern era was generally faster than land transport, either by foot or by horse. Lo Jung-pang provided an interesting comparison. Summarizing the researches of various scholars, he concluded that it required 56 days on foot or 32 days by horse to cover the 1,900 miles from Guangzhou to Beijing even as late as the Qing Dynasty. While it only took 22 days to sail the 1,900 miles from Guangzhou to Java during the Tang Dynasty, even by the most underdeveloped Arabian ships. See: Lo Jung-pang, China as a Sea Power 1127–1368 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), p. 25. 64 Chinhau Lei, Ibid., pp. 387–392. 65 Xin Deyong 辛德勇, “Changan cheng xingqi yu fazhan de jiaotong jichu: Han Tang Changan jiaotong dili yanjiu zhisi 長安城興起與發展的交通基礎－漢唐長安交通地理研究之四,”in Gudai jiaotong yu dili wenxian yanjiu 古代交通與地理文獻研究 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996), pp. 180–184. 66 Zhu Kezhen 竺可楨, “Zhongguo jin wuqian nian lai qihou bianqian de chubu yanjiu 中國近 五千年來氣候變遷的初步研究,” Kaogu xuebao 考古學報 1 (1972), pp. 168–188. 67 For example, “士如歸妻, 迨冰未泮,” “Pao you ku ye 匏有苦葉,” Shijing, p. 60. 68 “In the seventh regnal year of King Xiao, in winter, fierce storms struck, killing horses and cows. The surfaces of the Yangtze and the Han River were all frozen. 孝王七年…冬大雨雹, 牛馬 死, 江、漢俱凍.” Ancient Bamboo Annals, “Zhou ji 周紀,” in Fang Shiming 方詩銘 and Wang

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In addition, frequent flooding of the Yellow River prevented the growth of settlements along its lower reaches. As can be seen from the Historical Atlas of China, no major settlement site has been identified in the lower reaches of the Yellow River from the Neolithic until the Warring States period when the courses of the lower reaches of the Yellow River started to be embanked.69 During the Western Zhou Dynasty, major regional states in the east mainly located close to regional water systems. One clustered along the eastern slope of the Taihang Mountain 太行山, the other in the Shandong region. In the southern territory, regional states scattered along major tributaries of the Huai River (Ru River 汝水 and Ying River 潁水) and those of the Han River.70 The regions around the main course of the Huai River and the Yangtze during the Western Zhou period were beyond the reach of the Western Zhou Dynasty. It is reasonable that, under these geographical circumstances, the Western Zhou Dynasty did not include waterways into its communication network. It is also a logical speculatation that the rise of water transport in Chinese history requires a more favorable climate and the construction of canals that connected the three water systems. Only strong political and military interests would have motivated the construction of such hydraulic systems that require enormous state investments, and this indeed happened during the late Spring and Autumn period. Incidentally, the climate at the time also changed.71

The Spring and Autumn Period: Development in the South Fluvial landscape to the south of the North China Plain is characterized by a higher amount of annual precipitation and denser waterways, and this is the geographical context in which the earliest organized water transport in Chinese history arose.

Xiuling 王修齡 eds., Guben zhushu jinian jizheng 古本竹書紀年輯證 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981), p. 249. 69 Tan Qixiang 譚其驤 ed., Historical Atlas of China 中國歷史地圖集 Vol. 1, 7–8. Tan Qixiang, “Xi Han yiqian de Huanghe xiayou hedao 西漢以前的黃河下游河道,” in Chang shui ji 長水集 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 56–62. 70 Tan Qixiang 譚其驤 ed., Historical Atlas of China, Vol. 1, 15–16, 17–18. 71 Zhu Kezhen, Ibid.

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During Spring and Autumn period, the States of Chu, Wu and Yue were under fierce military competitions. In order to gain an upper hand against their enemies, these states exploited the dense natural waterways in this region and directed ships for military purposes, first for transportation and then as a war machine.72 Later, with the northward expansion of the State of Wu, they built canals to connect the previously isolated water systems for transporting troops into the far north.73 As a consequence, the coverage of watercourses in North China increased. Although available sources are silent about the origin of navy 水師 among the southern states,74 it is clear that the earliest recorded naval battle involved the States of Chu and Wu at Jiuzi 鳩茲 in 570 BC: Zichong of Chu invaded Wu with a troop selected for the purpose. He subdued Jiuzi, and proceeded as far as Mount Heng. 楚子重伐吳, 為簡之師  ̥克鳩茲, 至于衡山 ̥75

The location of Jiuzi, a portal city close to modern day Wuhu City 蕪湖, indicates that the naval forces of the Chu advanced through the Yangtze. It is, however, not clear whether the naval forces of the Chu were merely used for transporting the soldiers or if the battle was fought on the water.

72 Yang Hong 楊泓, “Shuijun he zhanchuan: Zhongguo gudai junshi zhuangbei zhaji zhiwu 水軍和戰船 — 中國古代軍事裝備札記之五,” Wenwu 3 (1979), p.  76. Lo Jung-pang summarized the textual records of naval warfare between the States of Wu, Yue and Chu during the Eastern Zhou period, though more in-depth historical explanation and analysis are lacking. There are also some misinterpretation and uncritical use of classical texts in his book. See: Lo Jung-pang, Chinese as a Sea Power, pp. 25–31. 73 For an outline of the military competitions between the States of Wu, Chu, Yue, Qi and Jin during the late Spring and Autumn period, see: Olivia Milburn, Cherishing Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), pp. 50–115. 74 I use the word “navy” to describe the body of warships and other auxiliary forces owned by the states in ancient China. In pre-modern China, naval forces were called zhou shi 舟師, shui shi水師 or xi liu 習流. Some people argue that “navy” in China is something modern, dating back at most to the late 19th century, as a result of the Self Strengthening Movement. This view originated in Qing shi gao 清史稿, which states “中國初無海軍, 自道光年籌海防, 始有購艦外洋 以輔水軍之議.” See: Qing shigao, p. 4029; Qi Qizhang 戚其章, “Zhongguo haijun chansheng de shijian wenti 中國海軍產生的時間問題,” Shixue yuekan 史學月刊 3 (1983), pp. 51–54. There are qualitative differences between modern navy and naval forces in pre-modern periods in terms of ship building materials, navigation technology, tactics, sources of power and weapons. But there is no need to disqualify ancient water forces as navy. This is rather like the denial of history in pre-modern China based on the concept of historiography developed in the 19th century Europe. In this research, any specialized forces committed to the transportation of troops via ships or battles on water is qualified as navy in ancient China. 75 Zuozhuan, Xiang 3, p. 925.

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But naval battles soon occurred between the Chu and the Wu76. In 538, a battle broke out at Zhufang 朱方.77 In 525, another battle took place at Changan 長岸, in which the Chu captured Yuhuang 餘皇, the royal ship of the King of Wu.78 Gu Donggao 顧棟高 observed a pattern in the war history between the Wu and the Chu that: Topographical advantages provided by the Yangtze were shared by both the Wu and the Chu. But as the Chu was situated in the upper stream…a pattern appears that, among the hundreds of battles between the Wu and the Chu, the Chu almost always prevailed in naval battles, and the Wu often won land battles. 夫長江之險, 吳、楚所共, 而楚居上游…故吳、 楚交兵數百戰, 從水則楚常, 而從陸則吳常勝 ̥79

Though the capital of the Chu State at this period of time is still under debate, it is certain that the Chu was situated somewhere in modern day Hubei Province and was most probably in the Yi Cheng 宜城 area.80 In an age before the invention of steamships, strategic advantages in military geography favoured those who controlled the upper stream of rivers because of the speed and ease with which their fleet could advance in military operations.81 Gu Donggao argued that most of the counter attacks launched by the Wu was aimed at the Huai River region. What he did not take into account was that the reputed land route adopted by Wu was actually supported by water transport along the Huai River. In 502 the naval force of Wu advanced along the Huai River to Yuzhang 豫章, a place whose exact location is still under debate but is most

76 One of the lost parts of the Yuejue shu 越絕書 records the organization of the naval forces of the Wu State. It also provides detailed measurements of different types of war vessels in the Wu Navy. See: Li Bujia 李步嘉, Yuejueshu jiaoshi 越絕書校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013), pp. 418–42. See also Lin Huadong 林華東, “Wuyue de zhouji yu hanghai 吳越的舟楫與航海,” Guangxi minzu yanjiu 廣西民族研究 3 (1988), 75–76. Considering the dubious historicity of the Yuejue shu, this information should be treated with great caution. For scholarly opinions regarding the authenticity, historicity and time of composition of the Yuejue Shu, see Michael Loewe ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, pp. 490–493. 77 Zuozhuan, Zhao 4, p. 1253. 78 Zuozhuan, Zhao 17, p. 1392. 79 Gu Donggao 顧棟高, Chunqiu dashi biao 春秋大事表 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2017), p. 544. 80 Xu Shaohua 徐少華, “Cong Nanzhang Yicheng chutu de jipi caiqi tan Chunqiu Chu Yingdu diwang 從南漳宜城出土的幾批蔡器談春秋楚郢都地望,” in Chuwenhua yanjiuhui eds. 楚文化 研究會編, Chuwenhua yanjiu lunji 楚文化研究論集 6 (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004), pp. 157–166. 81 For similar examples in Chinese history, see: Fu Lecheng 傅樂成, “Jingzhou yu liuchao zhengju 荊州與六朝政局,” in Han Tang shi lunji 漢唐史論集 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 1977), pp. 93–115.

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probably located at the upper stream of the Huai River.82 Two years later, in the decisive war between the Wu and the Chu, the Wu allies advanced through the Huai River and reached Yuzhang the second time. Zhuozhuan records that: The Marquis of Cai, the Viscount of Wu, and the Marquis of Tang, attached the Chu. They left their boats in a bend of the Huai River. Advancing from Yuzhang, they lined one side of the Han River, the army of Chu being on the other side. Xu, the Left Supervisor of Horse, said to Zichang, “You keep on this side of the Han River, going up or down, according as they move. Meanwhile, I lead all the troops outside the Fangcheng to destroy their ships. On my return, I will shut up the passes of Dasui, Zhiyuan, and Ming’e. You then cross the Han River, while I fall on them from behind, we shall give them a great defeat.” 蔡侯、吳子、唐 侯伐楚 ̥舍舟于淮汭, 自豫章與楚夾漢 ̥ 左司馬戌謂子常曰: 子沿漢而與之上下, 我悉方城外 以毀其舟, 還塞大隧、直轅、冥阨, 子濟漢而伐之, 我自後擊之, 必大敗之亅 ̥83

It is clear that the allied forces advanced along the Huai River and pushed to the east bank of the Han River. The war in 504 culminated in the capture of the Chu State capital by the allies. Thanks to the timely rescue operation launched by the Qin State, the Chu survived. But it took decades for the Chu State to recover from the damage of war. Having defeated the Chu State, the Wu State took on the command of both the Yangtze and the Huai River. Now the Wu turned its attention to the Yue State to the south of it. In 496, the first invasion of the Yue State by the Wu State failed, and King He Lü 闔閭 of Wu died of wounds.84 In 494, war between the Wu States and the Yue States resumed, and the Wu defeated the Yue at Fujiao 夫椒, an island on the Tai Lake 太湖.85 Having secured its southern front, the Wu State now turned to the north. Textual evidences suggest that influence of the Wu State had been present in the southern Shandong area. In the year of 487 BC, the Wu invaded the Lu State and captured Wucheng 武城. Zuozhuan records that: Wu invaded us, Zixie acting as guide to it and purposely leading its army by the most difficult path via Wucheng. But before this, some men of that city had been encroaching on the Wu frontier, and had caught rudely a man of Zeng whom they found steeping rushes,

82 Shi Quan 石泉, “Cong Chunqiu wushi ru Ying zhiyi kan gudai Jingchu dili 從春秋吳師入郢 之役看古代荊楚地理,” in Shi quan wenji 石泉文集 (Wuchang: Wuhan University Press, 2006), pp. 194–198. 83 Zuozhuan, Ding 4, pp. 1542–1543. 84 Zuozhuan, Ding 14, pp. 1595–1596. 85 Zuozhuan, Ai 1, p. 1605. For the location of Fujiao, see: Yang Bojun, Ibid., p. 1605; Tan Qixiang, Ibid., pp. 29–30; Meng Wentong 蒙文通, “Wu Yue zhi zhoushi yu shuizhan 吳、越之舟師與水戰,” in Yue shi cong kao 越史叢考 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983), pp. 113–114.

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blaming him for making their water dirty. When the army of Wu arrived, the man who had been caught showed it the way to attack the city and conquered it. 吳伐我, 子洩率, 故道險, 從武城 ̥ 初, 武城人或有因於吳竟田焉, 拘鄫人之漚菅者, 曰: 何故使吾水滋? 及吳師至, 拘者 道之以伐武城, 克之 ̥86

Gu Donggao indicated that the Wu State had long owned some lands in the Qi Zhou 沂州 region.87 The most probable routes of communication between Qi Zhou and the Wu State was through the Qi River, a tributary to the north of the Huai River. The problem was that the Yangtze and the Huai River were separated geographically. If the fleets of the Wu State were to advance northward through waterways, it was inevitable that at least some part of their trip involved sailing on the East China Sea,88 posing more danger to the fleets than inland waterways. Fortunately, topography between the lower reaches of the Yangtze and the Huai River was a swampy land that lends itself to artificial modification. Therefore, in 486, King Fuchai 夫差 of Wu ordered the construction of a canal connecting the Yangtze with the Huai River. The canal, connecting modern day Yangzhou City on the Yangtze side with Mokou 末口, modern day Huai´an City 淮安市, on the side of the Huai River, was later known as Han Gou 邗溝.89 In 485, the Wu cooperated with the Lu State and waged a war against the Qi State. Led by Admiral Xu Cheng 徐承, the Wu naval forces advanced via sea routes to Shandong, though the exact route is not documented. This attempt eventually failed.90 But even if the Wu State succeeded in subduing the Qi State, reliance on natural waterways still posed severe limitations on the maneuver of troops. Perhaps because of the failure of this attempt, between 485 BC and 482 BC, King 86 Zuozhuan, Ai 8, p. 1648. 87 Gu Donggao, Chunqiu dashibiao, p. 558. 88 One way to circumvent a section of the sea route was by sailing through the You River 游水, a tributary to the north of the Huai River, connecting modern day Lianshui City 漣水市 and Lianyungang City 連雲港市. Shuijing Zhu records that Wu People used to sail through the Yo River to avoid the waves on sea. See: Yang Shoujing 楊守敬, Shuijing zhushu 水經注疏 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji, 1989), p. 2569. 89 Zuozhuan , Ai 9, p. 1652. The Han Go, also named Han Minggou 韓溟溝 or Han Jiang 韓江, goes through the Sheyang Lake 射陽湖, a series of lakes between the Yangtze and the Huai River. For the geography of the canal and the original ponds, see: Yang Shojing, Shuijing zhushu, pp. 2555–2556. See also: Shi Nianhai, Zhongguo de yunhe, pp.  22–29; Chen Qiaoyi 陳橋驛, Shuijingzhu yanjiu 水經注研究 (Tianjin: Tianjin guji, 1985), pp. 232–233. 90 Zuozhuan, Ai 10, p. 1656. Scholars inferred from this incident that the Qi State also owned a naval force. See: Wang Guanzhuo, Zhongguo guchuan tupu, p. 46. But the text in Zuozhuan is unclear whether the battle took place on sea or on land, so it cannot be used as evidence to prove that the Qi State owned a naval force.

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Fuchai ordered the construction of a canal connecting the Huai River with the Yellow River system. Guoyu records that: They dug deeply to make a channel penetrating the land between the Song State and the Lu State. Connecting the Qi River to the north with the Ji River to the west, this channel enables the Wu to meet the Duke Wu of Jin at Huangchi. 闕為深溝, 通于商、魯之間 ̥ 北屬之沂, 西 屬之濟, 以會晉公午于黃池 ̥91

This canal was later known as the He River 荷水, which, making use of the swampy land in southwest Shandong, connected the Si River 泗水, a tributary of the Huai River, with the Ji River, a tributary of the Yellow River.92 Now that the fleet of Wu could advance via inland waterways93 from their capital in the deep south into the heartland of ancient Chinese civilization, in 482, at Huangchi 黃 池, a place beside the Ji River, King Fuchai finally asserted his authority over the representatives of the Jin State and became the new hegemonic leader.94 The sudden rise of the Wu State from a peripheral state situated in the deep south to one of the Five Hegemonies 五霸 is phenomenal. There can be many explanations of this. But as the Wu achieved its status through a series of military victories, and since naval forces were involved in most of these operations, I suggest that the military advantages of water transport may have been a major factor. As the states in the north did not own naval forces at this time, the Wu had complete command of the water network covering the vast land from the 91 Guoyu, “Wuyu:” 6, p. 545. 92 Shi Nianhai, Zhongguo de yunhe 中國的運河, pp. 29–34. 93 One theory which traces back to Du Yu’s comment on Zuozhuan and was elaborated by Hu Wei 胡渭 in Yugong zhuizhi 禹貢錐指 suggests that the Han Gou was merely used for logistics, while the naval forces still took the sea route. Hu Wei based this theory on his observation that, during the Sui Dynasty, Han Gou was not deep enough for Emperor Sui Yang’s 隋煬帝 fleets to go through. He suggested that the naval fleets of the Wu should also have encountered similar difficulty. See: Hu Wei, Yugong zhuizhi, Ch. 6 (Taipei, Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 2008).This theory is untenable, however, given the insufficient evidence regarding the size of the Wu State naval ships. It is unsure whether it can be compared with that of the ships of Emperor Sui Yang. In addition, since the Wu State was able to “dug deeply to make a channel 闕為深溝” connecting the Ji River with the Qi River, they should also have make the Han Gou navigable for its naval fleets. 94 Zuozhuan, Ai 13, pp. 1677–1678; Guoyu, “Wu Yu,” pp. 548–553; Shiji, “Wu Shijia,” p. 1474, “Jin Shijia,” p. 1685, “Zhao Shijia,” p. 1792. This meeting was also recorded in bronze inscriptions. See: Zhao Meng Jie Hu 趙孟介壺 (Jicheng 09678, 09679). There is a discrepancy between these sources on whether Wu or Jin was acclaimed as the hegemonic state. “Wu Shijia” and Zuozhuan record that Jin took the lead, while Guoyu, “Jin Shijia” and “Zhao Shijia” favor the Wu State. Tong Shuye 童書業 made a critical study of the sources and concluded that some records are biased toward the Jin. He suggested that Guoyu is the most reliable source on this issue. See Tong Shuye, “Huang chi zhi hui 黃池之會,” in Chunqiu Zuozhuan yanjiu 春秋左傳研究 (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1980), pp. 114–116.

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Yangtze to the Yellow River basin. Watercourses allowed the Wu State to transfer their troops in a stable and efficient way, and at the same time avoid the military powers dispersed along land routes in the Yellow River plain.95 This gave them great freedom in maneuvering the troops for military advantages. Thus it can be said that large scale water transport emerged in the south under fierce military competition between the southern states of Chu, Wu and Yue, and appeared in the north under intense competition between the Wu and the Jin. The states in the north, following the tradition of the Zhou Road, generally used chariots to accomplish long-distance transportation.96 Under this system, the states in the south, in particular the States of Wu and Yue, were considered the most peripheral. In order to counter this geographical disadvantage, they developed a new communication network based on water ways to challenge the north both politically and militarily, and the results were game changing.97

Development of Organized Water Transport during the Warring States Period The hegemony of the Wu State was ephemeral. Just as Fuchai was demonstrating his power at Huangchi 黃池, the insidious King of Yue, Goujian 句踐, suddenly attacked the Wu from behind and took it by surprise: The Yue invaded the Wu with a naval force of 2000 men plus 40000 men who had undergone military training and 1000 officers. They defeated the troops of the Wu and killed their heir ̥ ̥ apparent. 發習流二千人, 教士四萬人, 君子六千人, 諸御千人, 伐吳 吳師敗, 遂殺吳太子 98

95 Had the Wu State advanced via land routes to challenge the Jin’s hegemony, there would have been two approaches. One way was to advance through the Song State, the other through the Chen and the Cai States. But these would only have brought them to the south of the Ji River. They still had to cross the Ji River and face another line of defense, consisting of the Cao, Wei and Zheng States, before they would finally have been able to challenge the Jin face to face. In contrast, water courses enabled the Wu to avoid all these regional powers and to come directly to Huang Chi. 96 The military strength of a state in the north was measured by the number of chariots that it owned, thus giving rise to phrases such as “千乘之國” or “百乘之國.” 97 There are evidences of organized activities related to water in North China. The Geng Hu 庚 壺 records an event in which Geng, a general of the Qi State, led a hundred of ships in a battle against the Ju State 莒國 (Jicheng 09733). However, the inscription is badly damaged that prevents a precise understanding of its contents. It is also unclear whether the ships were used to cross the moat or were used as carriers of troops. Given the location of the Ju State, it is unlikely that the Qi force would have advanced through waterways. 98 Shiji, “Yue shijia 越世家,” p. 1744.

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The naval forces were divided into three parts. Two, led by Fan Li 范蠡 and She Yong 舌庸 respectively, detoured along the coastline and went through the mouth of the Huai River to block Fuchai’s way back to the south. Gojian led the Central troops 中軍 through the Wusong River 吳松江, a tributary of the Yangtze River, and sacked the capital of the Wu State.99 The Wu State was devastated by this defeat and never regained vitality. Afterwards, combined with the forces of the Chu State, the Yue had the upper hand over the Wu. After a series of naval battles, in the year of 473 BC, the Yue finally annexed the Wu State.100 The Yue State succeeded the Wu as the new hegemonic leader of China. In 468 BC, relying on his strong naval power, Gojian relocated its capital from Kuaìȷì̀ 會稽 to Langye 琅邪, in the littoral zone of Shandong, in order to circumvent the Chu State’s pressure on the lower Huai River region and to maintain its geopolitical influences in North China.101 The Yue people continued to hold sway on the East China Sea as late as the First Emperor unified China.102 Now we have to focus on the legacy left by the Wu State for the states in North China. Though the hegemony of the Wu State ended prematurely, it left a valuable legacy for China. The result of their military enterprise was a substantial increase in the completeness of water networks in China. This paved the way for the adoption of the military use of water transport by the states in the north. The Ancient Bamboo Annals records that, around 312 BC, the King of Yue sent a fleet loaded with strategic goods to the Wei State 魏國: In the seventh year of King Wei Xiang, in the fourth month, the King of Yue dispatched Gongshiyu to present three hundred ships, five million arrows, rhinoceros horns, and ivories. 魏 襄王七年…四月, 越王使公師隅來獻乘舟, 始罔及舟三百, 箭五百萬, 犀角、象齒焉 ̥103

The geopolitics behind this contribution was the intensified military competitions between the States of Qin, Chu and Yue. In the year around 312, the Wei was fighting a losing war with the Qin in the West, but made inroads into the Chu in

99 Guoyu, “Wu Yu,” pp. 545–546. 100 Zuozhuan, Ai 22, p. 1719. Zuozhuan merely depicts the outcomes of the last few battles between the Wu and the Yue States. Shiji and Guoyu preserved more details but contain considerable errors and inconsistencies. For a critical examination on the records and a reconstruction of the last few battles based on regional sources such as Wuyue chunqiu and Yue jueshu, see: Meng Wentong, “Wu Yue zhi zhoushi yu shuizhan,” pp. 116–120. 101 Xin Deyong, “Yuewang Goujian xidu Langye shi xiyi 越王勾踐徙都琅邪事析義,” in Jiushi yudi wenlu 舊史輿地文錄 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013), pp. 1–78. 102 Meng Wentong 蒙文通, “Wu Yue zhi zhoushi yu shuizhan,” pp. 110–111. 103 Ancient Bamboo Annals, “Wei ji 魏紀,” pp. 148–149.

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the south. As Chu was a constant threat to the Yue, the Yue supported the Wei in their war against Chu and Qin.104 The route of transportation is undocumented. As the capital of the Wei State was located at Daliang 大梁 and the Yue capital at Wu105, it may have been similar to the routes taken by Fuchai in the year 482 BC.106 This indicates that the Yue still controlled the canals connecting the Yangtze with the Huai River and the Yellow River and that large scale water transport took place on these systems. The contribution of three hundred ships and five million arrows from the Yue State to the Wei State also suggests the military use of ships by the Wei State, though we do not know whether they were used for transportation or for naval battles. If we consider another type of evidence, it seems more likely that ships had been used in naval battles by the Wei State. The rise of representational art during the Warring States period provide us with a new type of evidence testifying to the rise of water transport in North China. In 1935, archaeologists discovered two Shui Lu Gong Zhan Wen Jian 水陸攻戰紋鑑 at Shan Biao Zhen 山彪鎮 in Henan.107 Both bronze jian are decorated with inlaid purple metals depicting repetitive scenes of land battles, naval battles, sieges, hunting, music performances and other rituals (Figure 3). They are dated to the early Warring States period.108 The original excavator, Guo Baojun 郭寶鈞, divided the inlaid decorative images into seven groups, one of which is the scene of a naval battle. As can be seen from the image below, the naval battle was fought between two sides, each having one ship consisting of two levels, making this the earliest record of 104 Shiji, “Wei shijia 魏世家”, p. 1848. 105 The Yue State relocated its capital from Langye to Wu in 376  BC, the 33th regnal year of King Yi 王翳. See: Shiji jijie 史記集解, “Yue shijia,” p. 1747 and Yang Kuan 楊寬, Zhanguo shiliao biannian jizheng 戰國史料編年輯證 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2001), p. 248. 106 Meng Wenyong 孟文鏞, Yueguo shigao 越國史稿 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2010), pp. 305–306. 107 Two bronze jian 鑑 decorated with the inland image of Shui Lu Gong Zhan Tu were uncovered at Shanbiao Zhen. See: Guo Baojun, Shanbiaozhen yu liulige 山彪鎮與琉璃閣 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1959), pp. 18–23. See also: Shiyusuo zhan pin tulu zhizuo xiaozu eds. 史語所 展品圖錄製作小組編輯, Laizi biluo yu huangquan 來自碧落與黃泉 (Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, 2002), p. 69. 108 Gao Ming 高明, “Lüe lun Jixian Shanbiaozhen yihaomu de niandai 略論汲縣山彪鎮一號 墓的年代,” Kaogu 4 (1962), pp. 211–215. Chen Chao-jung 陳昭容, “Lun Shanbiaozhen yihaomu chutu Zhouwang ge de zuoqizhe ji shidai 論山彪鎮一號墓出土周王戈的作器者及時代,” Disquisitions on the Past & Present 5 (2000), pp. 30–44. For an interpretation of the meanings of the pictorial scenes on a bronze with similar designs, see: Jenny F. So, “The Inlaid Bronzes of the Warring States Period,” in Wen Fong ed., The Great Bronze Age of China (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), p. 316.

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Figure 3: The water and land battles scene.1 Note: 1The image is excerpted from Guo Baojun, Shanbiaozheng yu liulige, p. 21.

towered ships 樓船 in Chinese history. The upper level is a fighting deck supported by posts based on the hull. On the deck are fighters holding long weapons, archers shooting arrows, and a drummer situated at the rear. It is worth noting that the length of the spear exceeds that of a man. On the lower level are four oarsmen. Each, in a standing position, holds an oar and leans forward for the haul. However, the number of oarsmen and fighters cannot be taken at face value, as the image is intended to be symbolic rather than realistic. At the rear of the lower level is a man pushing the boat, and at the front a man fighting underwater. The men on two sides were arranged in a similar fashion, despite a pronounced difference in their hairstyles. Guo Baojun observed that among the seven battle scenes on the bronze, all of the battles are fought between a people with long hair and headscarves and a people with short hair. He also observed that the people with short hair are defeated in all instances by the people with long hair. Since textual traditions record that the people living in the Wu and Yue regions were characterized by a short hair style, Guo Baojun surmised that the images depict battles between the Wu or Yue people and those in the Central Plain.109 As the two vessels bearing these motifs were scientifically excavated from Shan Biao Zhen, the people with long hair and high headscarves most probably represent people of the Wei State. It should be noted that three other bronzes decorated with similar motifs have been reported so far. There is one titled Yanle Yulie Gongzhanwen Hu

109 Guo Baojun, Ibid., pp. 19–23. Following Guo’s interpretation, Liu Hong 劉弘 and Li Keneng 李克能 argues that the people with long hair and high headscarves are the Chu people. See Liu Hong and Li Keneng, “Shuilu gongzhan tu yi shi 水陸攻戰圖臆釋,” Zhongyuan wenwu 中原文物 2 (1994), pp. 97–100. But the evidence for this theory is circumstantial.

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宴樂漁獵攻戰紋壺, displayed at the Palace Museum in Beijing.110 Among the miscellaneous inlaid decorations on the surface, the scene of water battle resembles that from the Shan Biao Zhen in composition and style, with only slight differences in detail. This scene depicts fewer numbers of men on board, and the ships have double hulls and more pronounced curves at their sterns (Figure 4). The depiction of double hulls testifies to the development in ship building technology during this period of time. It should also be noted that one of the belligerent fighters is depicted with short hair.

Figure 4: Feast and battle scenes.1 Note: 1The original image is excerpted from The Palace Museum ed., Bronzes in the Palace Museum (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 1999), Plate 281. The image has been cropped and modified by the author.

The provenance of this vessel is unsure. Based on a comparison with other vessels with similar decorative motifs, Tang Funian 唐復年 suggests that this vessel may have originally come from the region around Hui County 輝縣 and Ji County 汲縣 in Henan.111 Furthermore, one clue indicates that this vessel originally belonged to a private collector before it was donated to Palace Museum, and most of the bronzes collected by this collector were from Henan Province.112 Therefore, it is very possible that the Yanle Yulie Gongzhanwen Hu originally came from domain of the Wei State. Two bronze hu 壺, decorated with a water battle motif similar to that on the Hu in the Palace Museum are collected by the Poly Art Museum in Beijing (Figure 5)113. The ships in this image also have double hulls with more pronounced curves at their sterns. What is worth mentioning is that it is the belligerent fighter with a short hairstyle that is defeated. The provenance of this vessel is unknown, but scholars believe that it belongs to the bronze tradition of Jin State 晉系青銅器.114 110 Tang Funian 唐復年, “Zhanguo yanle shelie gongzhanwen hu 戰國宴樂射獵攻戰紋壺,” Gugong bowuyuan yuan kan 故宮博物院院刊 3 (1983), pp. 84–86. 111 Tang Funian, Ibid., p. 90. 112 Xiao Han 蕭寒, “Zhuihui guobao yanle yulie gongzhanwen qingtonghu 追回國寶宴樂漁獵 攻戰紋青銅壺,” Long men zhen 龍門陣 5 (2011), pp. 14–21. 113 These hu come in a pair, and are titled qian cuo shehui shenghuo tuhua hu 嵌錯社會生活 圖畫壺. See: Poly Art Museum ed., Selected Bronzes in the Collection of the Poly Art Museum (Guangzhou: Lingnan meishu chubanshe, 2001), Vol.2, pp. 189–198. The image is excerpted from pp. 194–195. 114 Poly Art Museum ed., Selected Bronzes in the Collection of the Poly Art Museum, Vol. 2, p. 197.

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Figure 5: Inlaid water battle scene.

There is one report of salvage operations conducted by the Lin Fen 臨汾 Police Department to save a thousand looted bronzes at Hou Ma 侯馬. Among the looted bronze was one decorated with inlaid scenes of land and water battles.115 It is possible that this vessel originally came from southern Shanxi, the core of the Jin State. There is yet another piece of evidence linking the naval battle motifs to the bronze tradition of the Jin State. The hu collected by the Palace Museum and the Poly Art Museum are decorated with the motif of the picking of mulberry leaves and branches 採桑圖. This mulberry motif has been found on a decorative mould discovered at the Hou Ma Bronze Foundry 侯馬鑄銅作坊, the official foundry of the Jin State during the late Spring and Autumn and the early Warring States periods (Figure 6).116 This indirectly links the land and naval battle motifs with the decorative traditions practiced in Hou Ma during a similar period of time. However, aside from the bronze Hu excavated by Guo Baojun at Shan Biao Zhen, there is still another scientifically excavated vessel decorated with a similar motif. This bronze hu was excavated from a tomb at Bai Hua Tan 百花潭 in

115 Hua Shi 化十, “Shuilu gongzhan wen tonghu 水陸攻戰紋銅壺,” Wenwu jikan 文物季刊 1 (1995), p. 18. 116 Houma zhutong zuofang 侯馬鑄銅作坊, pp. 205, 441–444. The image is excerpted from Plate 126.1.

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Figure 6: The mulberry motif.

Chengdu 成都 in Sichuan in 1965. Wooden remains in the tomb suggest that the man in the tomb was buried in a boat coffin with 48 burial objects. Among them was the Yan Le Tong Hu 宴樂銅壺.117 The question is whether this hu was produced locally or was imported from the Central Plain. Evidence regarding this issue is inconclusive. However, it should be noted that artistically there is no internal evidence linking this vessel with the local culture of Sichuan.118 In addition, as the original report indicates, accompanying objects in the same tomb reveal a mixture of local style objects with those of the Central Plain. Among the weapons discovered in the tomb, the eleven spears (ge) do not display local features. Among the four lances (mao), three exhibit local features while one is apparently from the Central Plain. Among the bronze vessels, two wu , one zeng 甑, and two boxes appear to be of local style, while that of one ding and the hu are more close to the Central Plain tradition.119 It is worth noting 117 Sichuan sheng bowuguan 四川省博物館, “Chengdu Baihuatan zhongxue shihao mu fajue ji 成都百花潭中學十號墓發掘記,” Wenwu 3 (1976), pp. 40–46. 118 Du Huan cited another bronze hu with inlaid silver hunting scenes discovered in Chengdu to support that both are local productions. See: Du Huan 杜桓, “Shilun Baihuatan qiancuo tuxiang tonghu 試論百花潭嵌錯圖象銅壺, ” Wenwu 3 (1976), pp.  47–50. This argument is unvalidated, as it cannot exclude the possibility that both of them were imported from outside. For the other bronze hu decorated with inlaid hunting motifs from Chengdu, see: Wei Juxian 衛聚賢, “Bashu wenhua futu 巴蜀文化附圖,” Shuowen yuekan 說文月刊 7, Vol. 3 (1942), pp. 39, 117. 119 See: Sichuan sheng bowuguan, “Chengdu Baihuatang zhongxue shihao mu fajue ji,” p. 42.

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that aside from the delicately manufactured Yan Le Tong Hu, the rest of the vessels are coarse in quality. The shape of the two wu does not seem to be wheel-made, while the ding displays inconsistent seam lines. Artistically, the Yan Le Tong Hu was the most extraordinary object in the tomb. It is more likely to be an import. Based on our previous investigation, most of the evidence indicates that the motif of land and naval battle belongs to the bronze tradition of the Jin State in Henan and southern Shanxi. This area became the territory of the Wei State during the early Warring States period. Although the image was not narrative, it may not be unreasonable to take it as a reflection of naval development in this region. Therefore, the appearance of the naval battle motif on bronzes from the Wei State may serve as the visual evidence supplementing the account in the Ancient Bamboo Annals that the Wei State received three hundred boats from the Yue States for military purposes. The development of naval forces in the Wei State coincides with the construction of the so-called Hong Gou 鴻溝 in this region. Shiji records that: The Hong Gou diverted the water from the Yellow River at Yingyang, and, flowing through the States of Song, Zheng, Chen, Cai, Cao and Wei, connected with the Ji, Ru, Huai and Si Rivers…all of its channels were navigable. 滎陽下引河東南為鴻溝, 以通宋、鄭、陳、蔡、 曹、衛, 與濟、汝、淮、泗會…此渠皆可行舟 ̥120

According to Shi Nianhai 史念海, Hong Gou was a massive hydraulic system constructed around the time of Wei Hui King 魏惠王 (reign 370–319  BC). Sourcing water from the Yellow River and the Ji River, Hong Gou ran through the flat North China Plain and connected the Yellow River with the Ji River, Si River 泗水 and the Huai River.121 This hydraulic system substantially altered the transportation geography in North China and became an iconic landmark.122 In addition to Hong Gou, the early Warring States period also witnessed the composition of the “Yu Gong” 禹貢 Chapter in Shangshu. Although written in the name of the legendary Great Yu of the Xia Dynasty, the “Yu Gong” actually describes an idealized tributary system mainly via water routes centered on the Warring States capital of the Wei State, Daliang 大梁. Shi Nianhai suggests that even though it is an imaginary work, its content was based on the physical and political geographies of the Wei State during the early Warring States period

120 Shiji, “Treaties on Rivers and Channels 河渠書,” p. 1407. 121 Shi Nianhai 史念海, “Lun Jishui he Honggu 論濟水和鴻溝,” in Heshan ji 河山集 3, pp. 333–352. 122 For example, after the collapse of the Qin Empire, the tentative settlement reached by Xiang Yu 項羽 and Liu Bang 劉邦 in 203 BC used Hong Gou as the line separating their territories.

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(370–362 BC).123 In this regard, the Yu Gong reflects the ambition of the Wei State and the development of water transport in its domain. What Shi Nianhai did not notice is that the emergence of the Hong Gou and the Yu Gong Chapter coincided with the military use of water transport by the Wei State. Though there is no evidence explicitly linking the two, the temporal approximation suggests that an organized use of water transport by the state was probably the primary motivation behind the construction of such a hydraulic project and the composition of such a literary work. Combining the scenes of naval battle between the Wu or Yue and the Wei State, the contribution of boats to the Wei in Ancient Bamboo Annals, and the genesis of the Hong Gou and “Yu Gong”, we can surmise that the Wei State developed its naval forces out of the need to defend itself from the threats posed by the southern states through waterways. A stimulus and response model seems to explain the development of organized water transport in North China. From a social perspective, the development of naval forces may also be taken as a result of the popularization of warfare during the Warring States period.124 As more and more people of lower social strata were drafted to cope with the ever-intensifying warfare, infantry gradually replaced chariots as the dominant force in the armies. As a result, the logistics and transportation of mass infantry became an issue. Perhaps this explains the development of water transport as a more convenient way for military transport in North China. To be sure, the construction of Hong Gou had more implications than war and politics. It redefined the transportation geography of ancient China. This can be best illustrated by the relocation of “the center of all under Heaven 天下之中” during the Warring States period. During the Western Zhou period, “the center of all under Heaven” was at Luoyi. Shiji records that Zhou Gong 周公 established the eastern capital at Luoyi because of its perfect location: This is the center of all under Heaven, where tributary routes from the four directions are equal in distance. 此天下之中, 四方入貢道里均 ̥125

Luoyi’s status as “the center of all under Heaven” during the Western Zhou period is further corroborated by the He Zun 尊, which called it “zhong guo 中國.”126 123 Shi Nianhai, “Lun ‘Yu Gong’ de zhuzuo niandai 論〈禹貢〉的著作年代,” in Heshan ji II 河山集 (二) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1981), pp. 391–415. 124 Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany: State University of New York, 1990), pp. 54–61. 125 Shiji, “The Basic Annals of Zhou,” p. 133. 126 He Zun 尊 “余其宅茲中國.” (Jicheng 06014).

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This is a geographical definition based on Luoyi’s location at the center of the known world. My reconstruction of the routes of the Zhou Road also reveals that Luoyi was the eastern pivot of the Zhou Road system, illustrating its status as the center of the land-based transportation network.127 The rise of water transportation inevitably led to new centers of transportation. In the Warring States period, the “center of all under Heaven” moved from Luoyi to Tao 陶, modern day Heze City 荷澤市 in Shandong. Shiji records an anecdote about the famous merchant, Taozhu Gong 陶朱公, who, when leaving the Yue State: Stopped at Tao. For this is the center of all under Heaven, where trade routes connected with each other. He can make a fortune by living here. 止于陶, 以為此天下之中, 交易有無之路 通, 為生可以致富矣 ̥128

Tao was a portal city beside the He River 荷水, constructed by the Wu State to connect the Ji River 濟 with the Si River between 485 and 482 BC. As the Ji River originated from the Yellow River, and the Si River was connected with the Huai River, which was further connected with the Yangtze via Han Go, the He River became the location where the three major water systems in ancient China intersected with each other.129 As the Zhou Road system disintegrated with the collapse of the Western Zhou political system, water transportation rose to dominate long-distance transportation during the Warring States. And Tao, as the pivot of the water transportation network, replaced Luoyi to become the new “center of all under Heaven.”130 The story of Tao Zhu Gong and rise of Tao as a portal city has another implication for understanding the nature of organized transport during the Warring States period. During the time when interregional trade prospered, boats were organized on a large scale for commercial purposes. However, we can only surmise the scale of commercial transportation in the north through the rise of Tao City. The only direct evidence testifying to trade through waterways is the E Jun Qi Zhou Jie 鄂君啟舟節 (Jicheng 12113). The inscription indicates that, in 323 BC, E Jun Qi was granted an exemption from custom duties for his fleets consisting of a hundred and fifty boats, organized into 50 kwa 舿, each made up of three boats. The inscription records a series of place names, which I do not cite here. Suffice to say that scholarly opinions regarding 127 Chinhau Lei, Ibid., pp. 157–158. 128 Shiji, “Yue Shijia,” p. 1752. 129 Shi Nianhai, “Shi ‘Shiji huozhi liezhuan’ suo shuode ‘tao wei tienxia zhizhong’ jianlun Zhanguo shidai de jingji duhui 釋〈史記·貨殖列傳〉所說的 陶為天下之中 兼論戰國時代的經濟 都會,” Heshan Ji 河山集 1 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1963), pp. 110–130. 130 Chinhau Lei, Ibid., pp. 387–392.

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some of the river names are still divided, with the rivers mainly belonging to the middle reach of the Yangtze River, ranging across modern day Hunan, Hubei, Anhui and Henan regions, and possibly the Han Go and watercourses in southern Shandong.131 This inscription testifies to the existence of the commercial use of organized water transport on waterways in the south during the Warring States period. In addition to the Central Plain and south China, Sichuan was another region where organized water transport developed during the Warring States. Having been annexed into the Qin State, Sichuan became a naval base for the Qin State. Zhang Yi 張儀 warned the King of Chu that, as the Qin controlled the upper stream of the Yangtze, the Chu State was at a disadvantageous location in the defensive war against the Qin State: To the west of Qin is the Ba and Shu regions, where fleets, carrying supplies, can be launched at Wenshan and flow down through the Yangtze. Although there are more than three thousand li to cover before they can reach Ying, the ships, each carrying fifty men and provided with three months of supply, can advance more than three hundred li daily. Indeed, the distance is huge. But in less than ten days, without a toil, they can reach the Han Gate. 秦西有巴蜀, 方船積粟, 起於汶山, 循江而下, 至郢三千餘里 ̥舫船載卒, 一舫載五十人, 與三月之糧, 下水而浮, 一日行三百餘里 ̥里數雖多, 不費馬汗之勞, 不至十日而距扞關 ̥132

This was an imaginary strategy but probably had some factual basis. According to Zhang Yi, a ship could carry fifty people with the necessary food supply. When going downstream, in particular through the Three Georges,133 it could have reached a speed that would have allowed for great flexibility in maneuvering the troops. It is perhaps a misfortune that these ships, although used on a very large scale, left very little trace archaeologically. The only archaeologically discovered ships from this age seem to be those found at the mausoleum of Zhongshan King Cuo 中山王 . There is no evidence to prove or disprove whether the design of ships in different states differed from each other or not. But this does not hinder

131 For the two most important articles on the geography of the waterways, see: Tan Qixiang 譚其驤, “Ejunqi jie mingwen shidi 鄂君啟節銘文釋地,” Zhonghua wenshi luncong 中華文史論叢 2 (1962), pp. 169–190; Huang Shengzhang 黃盛璋, “Guanyu Ejunqi jie jiaotong luxian de fuyuan wenti 關於鄂君啟節交通路綫的復原問題,” Zhonghua wenshi luncong 5 (1964), pp. 143–168. 132 Zhanguo Ce 戰國策, “Zhang Yi wei Qin po zong liangheng 張儀為秦破從連橫,” Fan Xiangyong 范祥雍 et al., Zhanguoce qianzheng 戰國策箋證 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2006), p. 793–794. 133 Though we cannot numerate the speed and the time needed to cross the Three Georges, textual evidence indicates that ships can go exceptionally fast when going downstream in this area. Cf. the famous poem, “Xia Jiangling 下江陵,” written by Li Bo 李白: “朝辭白帝彩雲間, 千里江陵一日還.”

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us from using these ships as a general reference to the ships used during this period of time. According to the archaeological report, fragments of four ships were discovered in the ship pit at the tomb of King Cuo of Zhongshan. The ship pit is divided into two parts, one in the north and the other in the south. The southern pit contains the fragments of three wooden boats, buried with wooden oars and bronze appendages. The wooden surface was painted, and inside the fragmented hulls were traces of textiles and leathers. A large number of iron hoops used to hold the wooden panels of the hull were also discovered.134 Buried in the northern pit was a larger wooden ship, whose shape is barely recognizable. Based on the color imprints left on the ground, archaeologists have reconstructed the outline of the ship and identified the color paint once applied on the surface. The northern pit also had more funeral assemblages than the southern pit, suggesting that this is the royal ship for the King of Zhongshan.135 According to the reconstruction, the size of the ship is 13.2  m in length from bow to stern, and 2.2 m wide and 0.78 m high at the center, with the bow slightly rising for 0.73  m. The structure of the ship includes a keel, ribs and compartments.136 On the decks, the discovery of musical instruments, including bells, drums, and music stones, suggests that these were not warships or cargo ships but royal ships used for entertainment.137 Despite the aristocratic nature of these ships, this discovery still provides an example for a comparison with ships depicted in other forms. As oarsmen need at least 1 meter for pulling the oars, a simple calculation suggests that, even if the oarsmen were placed in two rows on either side of the hulls, the Zhongshan ships can carry less than 20 people at maximum. Therefore, for ships that can carry fifty people, as mentioned by Zhang Yi, they would be much greater in size. In addition, there is no mention of the existence of double hulls or more than one level of decks on the Zhaongshan ships, suggesting that these ships are structurally simpler than those depicted on the Shui Lu Gong Zhan Tu. In this way, we can speculate that warships during the Warring States period must have had a

134 Hebeisheng wenwu yianjiusuo 河北省文物研究所, Cuo Mu: Zhanguo Zhongshan guo guowang zhimu 墓—戰國中山國國王之墓 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996), pp.  95–100, 327–332. 135 Hebeisheng wenwu yanjiushuo, Ibid., pp. 95, 330. 136 Hebeisheng wenwu yanjiushuo, Ibid., pp. 516–525. 137 Hebeisheng wenwu yanjiushuo, Ibid., p. 330. For discussions on the technical features of the ship, see: Wang Zhiyi 王志毅, “Zhanguo youting yiji 戰國遊艇遺跡,” Zhongguo zaochuan 中國造船 2 (1981), pp. 94–100.

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much more sophisticated structure and been larger in size than those from the Zhongshan State. One last thing about the ships discovered in the Zhongshan State is that it may be interpreted as a testimony to the process of sinicization of the Zhongshan culture.138 Archaeologists have uncovered all the three royal tombs of the Zhongshan State at modern day Lingshou City 靈壽市. The three rulers buried at Lingsho are Huan Gong 桓公 (406-? BC), Cheng Gong 成公 (?–328 BC) and King Cuo 王 (327–313 BC). Comparing the funeral objects discovered at the royal tombs immediately before King Cuo, it is clear that none of the tombs contain ship burials. Instead, chariots were the most popular burial objects in both tombs as well as the aristocratic tombs contemporaneous with them.139 This is perhaps not a coincidence. The royal house of Zhongshan ethnically belonged to the Xianyu 鮮虞 people, a tribe active in the Ordos during the Spring and Autumn period. Material cultures from the tombs of early Xianyu people reveals deep connections with nomadic cultures in the northern steppe, and a diachronic analysis of the material cultures from the Spring and Autumn to the Warring States periods manifested the tendency of sinicization.140 But it was arguably the occupation or Zhongshan by the Wei States between 407- 380s BC that ironically boosted the spread of Chinese cultures to the Xianyu people, and the reign of King Cuo witnessed the height of this process of acculturation.141 Although scholars have long indicated the process of sinicization, none of them seem to have pointed out the cultural meanings of ships in the royal tomb. As our previous discussion reveals, the Wei State was the first in North China committed to developing a naval forces and related transportation projects. Perhaps the ship culture in the Zhongshan State was also introduced through the Wei State during the age of occupation. From this cultural context, the ship burials at the royal mausoleum may also be interpreted as an act of cultural manifestation, testifying to the efforts to sinicize the royal culture of the Zhongshan State.

138 King Cuo of Zhongshan reigned between 327–313 BC. See: Hebeisheng wenwu yianjiusuo, Ibid., p. 533. 139 Hebeisheng wenwu yianjiusuo, Zhanguo Zhongshanguo Lingshoucheng: 1975–1983 nian kaogu fajue baogao 戰國中山國靈壽城—1975–1983 年考古發掘報告, pp. 119–205, 242, 245–246. 140 Hebeisheng wenwu yanjiushuo, Zhanguo Zhongshanguo Lingshoucheng: 1975–1983 nian kaogu fajue baogao, pp. 249–326, 347. 141 Hebeisheng wenwu yanjiushuo, Cuo Mu: Zhanguo Zhongshan guo guowang zhimu, pp. 541–547; Li Xueqin, “Pingshan muzangqun yu Zhongshanguo de wenhua 平山墓葬群與中山國的文化”, Wenwu 1 (1979), pp. 37–41.

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Conclusion The basic assumption of this research is that inland water transport paved the way for the development of sea routes and maritime activities. I therefore argue that in researching the maritime history of China, we should also direct our attention to the “pre-history” of maritime activities. Accounts of seafaring activities appear between the States of Wu and Yue, and there are allusions to maritime transport in the Shandong region during the late Spring and Autumn period.142 It is a pity that material evidence testifying to these earliest maritime activities are scant. We are not able to determine whether the ships used for inland navigation and those on the sea are structurally different or not. Maritime archaeology at this early stage is almost non-existent. But just as the earliest state-organized inland water transport took place between the State of Wu, Chu and Yue, and that the State of Wu and Yue left the earliest textual records of seafaring activities, we can perhaps assume that it was the States of Wu and Yue that developed the sea routes along the East China coast. This is, however, a topic that is beyond the scope of this research. Large-scale transportation systems developed in parallel with civilized societies that were able to mobilize large quantity of resources in constructing and operating a complex transportation system. In the case of China, there are legends attributing the construction of roads to the Xia Dynasty.143 But it was not until the Western Zhou Dynasty, with its rapid territorial expansion on an epic scale, that the construction of a long-distance transportation system became imperative. As an infrastructure of state building, transportation systems played a central role in territorial control and in the operation of the state machine. Before the advent of aviation, there were only two approaches to long-distance transportation. One is the land approach, and the other the water approach. What this research demonstrates is that although boats had long been used on a number of occasions during the late Shang and the Western Zhou periods, present evidence indicates that they were mainly employed for ritual, river-crossing and entertainment purposes. There is no evidence testifying to an organized use of boats in transporting personnel or commodities across a long distance during this period of time. Instead, both dynasties relied on land transport to fulfill their need for communication. In particular, the Western Zhou Dynasty developed a sophisticated transportation system which combined an institutionalized use of chariots 142 Zuozhuan Ai 10; Guoyu, “Wu yu;” and “道不行, 乘桴浮于海,” in “Gongye Chang 公冶長,” The Analects of Confucius. 143 “芒芒禹迹, 畫為九州, 經啟九道,” in Zuozhuan, Xiang 4; “奕奕梁山, 維禹甸之, 有倬其道,” in Shijing, “Hanyi 韓奕,” p. 537.

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with the meticulously built highways, the Zhou Road. This was the infrastructure behind the rapid expansion and the long stability of the Western Zhou Dynasty, symbolizing the first peak in the history of transportation in China. An analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of water transport and land transport in the Western Zhou period reveals that the major weakness of water transport lay in insufficient geographical coverage of waterways. Geography dictated the division of rivers into three individual fluvial systems, the Yellow River, the Huai River, and the Yangtze systems. The lack of connections between them limited the coverage of water networks on the landmass of China, and the Zhou people, originally from the dry lands in Northwest China, had no intention of investing in hydraulic projects that increase the distribution of water channels. Instead, they turned to the land approach and created the Zhou Road that helped sustain their power for nearly three centuries. Following this explanation, our investigation discovered that organized water transport developed in the south among the states of Chu, Wu and Yue. The geography in southern China must have been a contributing factor, but the development of naval forces was a conscious act that was aimed at gaining the upper hand militarily by exploiting the weakness of the military premises in North China. As the military power in the north rested on chariot armies and a land-based transportation network, I argued that the building of canals for naval forces by the Wu State was a strategy that helped avoid major military strongholds in the Central Plain, thus enabling the Wu forces to challenge the hegemonic power in North China directly. In this regard, I used water transport to explain the sudden rise of the Wu State from the deep south to become the new hegemony in China. With the completion of artificial water courses in North China, water transport started to develop in the north during the early Warring States period. The Wei State was the first state in North China to develop a naval force, followed by the Qin and the Zhongshan States. The development of water transport coincided with the construction of the “Hong Gou” system and left its imprints on bronze arts as well as on literary works, such as the “Yu Gong”. It seems that fundamental differences in the roles played by water transport in the north and the south respectively had been set in stone since the very beginning. This research revealed that organized water transport via waterways started from the states in the south, the Huai River and the Yangtze regions. The south also pioneered in exploring the sea routes along the East China coast and in canal constructions. It was not until considerably later that the states in the Yellow River basin institutionalized water transport to cope with the need for military transportation, and the development seems to be explained by a stimulus-and-response model.

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Therefore, throughout the pre-Qin periods, the south always took the lead in developing water transport. Based on different modes of transportation, the north and south competed militarily, with gains and losses on both sides. In a divided world, each state adopted the mode of transportation most suitable for their geography and tradition. Problems came when China became a unified empire. Throughout China’s imperial ages, most of the unified dynasties set their capitals in north China and presupposed a social and economic system based on agriculture, an economic model usually termed “peasant economy 小 農經濟.” Starting from the late Tang Dynasty, maritime trade in southeast China became a hugely profitable source of income which had the potential of supporting regionalism and regional powers. It contradicted the socio-economic presupposition of the Chinese empires based in North China. How did the Chinese empires deal with these heterogeneous elements within its domain? This is a question beyond the scope of this research. But the argument can be made that the ambivalent attitudes toward maritime activities characterizing the policy of late imperial China may be partially explained by the inability of the land-oriented empires to cope with the social and economic systems based on maritime trade. For the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, one approach to deal with the problems created by maritime trade is to monopolize it by the “tributary system 朝貢貿易.” Another more radical approach was to ban all maritime activities 海禁. The later approach started in the Yuan Dynasty for the sake of curbing the power of local merchants and to crack down on smuggling trade, though this policy did not last long.144 Starting from the Ming Dynasty, the monopolization of maritime trade by the tributary system on the one hand and the ban on private maritime activities on the other complemented each other. Starting from 1371 AD, Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, imposed a strict ban on civilian martime trade in order to prevent the rise of regionalism and to curb smuggling activities.145 This policy was intermittently maintained during the Ming Dynasty, while the government tried to monopolize maritime trade profit through the tributary system,146 culminating in Zheng He’s 鄭和 seven voyages. 144 Hong Fuzhong 洪富忠 and Wang Liyuan 汪麗媛, “Yuan chao haijin chutan 元朝海禁初探,” Guyuan shizhuan xuebao 固原師專學報 1, Vol. 25 (2004), pp. 10–14. 145 Ts’ao Yung-ho 曹永和, “Shilun Mingtaizu de haiyang jiaotong zhengce 試論明太祖的海洋 交通政策,” in Zhongguo haiyang shi lunji 中國海洋史論集 (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2000), pp. 149–190; Cheng Wing-Sheung 鄭永常, Laizi Haiyang de tiaozhan: Mingdai haimao zhengce yanbian yanjiu 來自海洋的挑戰－明代海貿政策演變研究 (Taipei:Daoxiang chubanshe, 2004), pp. 16–20. 146 For a discussion on the consolidation of the tributary system during the Yongle 永樂 reign, see: Cheng Wing-Sheung, Ibid., pp. 57–91.

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Furthermore, during the transition between Ming and Qing, the Qing government also imposed maritime ban as well as the so-called Great Clearance 遷界令 in an attempt to weaken the power basis of Koxinga and the subsequent Dongning Dynasty in Taiwan. The discovery of Chinese export ceramics at sites overseas may be an indicator of the conditions of maritime trade during a specific period of time.147 Based on his research on Chinese export ceramics discovered in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa, Lu Taikang demonstrates that there was a remarkable recession in local ceramic industry and the amount of Chinese export ceramics in the aforementioned areas during the Yongle 永樂 and Xuande 宣德 years. This synchronism with Zheng He’s seven voyages attests to the negative effect of strict maritime ban and the tributary system on private maritime trade.148 In addition to the phenomenon in the early Ming Dynasty, I hope to focus on another site, the Penghu Archipelago 澎湖群島 in the Taiwan Strait, a place where I had participated in several archaeological surveys in the past few years. At the Penghu Archipelago, a port of call on the trade routes between China and Southeast Asia, considerable amount of Chinese export ceramics have been discovered by archaeologists since the 1960s. Among them, Chen Hsin-hsiung pioneers in making the most comprehensive surveys of the coastal areas of the Archipelago and comes up with a chronology of Chinese export ceramics discovered at Penghu, covering the period from the tenth century to the nineteenth century AD. One phenomenon needs explanation. While more than 3,000 items originally from the Wuyue State 吳越國 of the Ten Kingdoms 十國 have been discovered, Chinese export ceramics seem to have disappeared almost suddenly during the Northern Song period, only to reemerge in enormous quantity during the Southern Song and Yuan period.149 It seems that unified empires based in

147 For a general survey of the discovery of China’s export ceramics in Southeast Asia, Arabia and Egypt, see: Mikami Tsugio 三上次男, Tōji no michi: Tōzai bunmei no setten o tazunete 陶磁の 道：東西文明の接点をたずねて (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1969). 148 Lu Taikang 盧泰康, “Haiwai yiliu de Mingchu taoci yu Zheng He xia xiyang zhi guanxi 海 外遺留的明初陶瓷與鄭和下西洋之關係, ” in Chen Hsin-hsiung 陳信雄 and Chen Yuh-Neu 陳玉 女 eds., Zheng He xia xiyang guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwenji 鄭和下西洋國際學術研討會論文集 (Taipei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2003), pp. 219–257. 149 Chen Hsin-hsiung 陳信雄, Yue yao zai penghu 越窯在澎湖 (Tainan: Wenshan chubanshe, 1994); Chen Hsin-hsiung, Penghu Song Yuan taoci 澎湖宋元陶瓷 (Penghu: Pengxian wenhua, 1995); Chen Hsin-hsiung, “Yiliu zai Penghu de SongYuan he Wudai waixiao taoci 遺留在澎湖的 宋元和五代外銷陶瓷,” in National Museum of History ed., International Symposium on Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics: Collected Papers (Taipei: National Museum of History, 1994), pp. 253– 272. Large amount of celadon wares dated to the Southern Song and Yuan Dynasties were also found by Tsang Chen-hwa 臧振華. See: Tsang Chen-hwa, Archaeology of the P’eng-hu Islands

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north China downplayed overseas trade, while trade progressed in the south when China became divided. Maritime activities did not stop developing after the Yuan Dynasty. But the maritime policy swung between banning maritime trade and an open trade policy during the Ming and Qing. Various factors may have contributed to the constant alteration of policies, but the inability of land-based empires to accommodate the heterogeneity posed by maritime transport and the accompanying socio-economic system may be a structural reason. Whether this phenomenon can be explained by my “idol of origin” is open to scholarly discussions.

(Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, 1992), pp. 200–201. It should be noted that two coins respectively from the Xining 熙寧 years (1068–1077 AD) and the Kaiyuan 開元 years (713–741 AD) have been reported by Tsang Chen-hwa during his excavation at Nei-an in 1983. See: Tsang Chenhwa, Archaeology of the P’eng-hu Islands, pp. 181–186. Since coins can be used over many generations, their date of origin cannot be used as an indicator of the date of use or deposit. So far there is no evidence testifying to maritime activities on the Penghu Islands during the Northern Song period.

Kin Sum (Sammy) LI

4 Cultural Interactions throughout the Ancient South China Sea Introduction Understanding the activities of cultural exchanges between 2000 BC and AD 100 through the South China Sea will lay the foundation for the study of the history of the maritime Silk Road. Scholars currently focus on the post-Zheng He 鄭和 (AD 1371–1433/1435) period and do not possess a clear, holistic picture of the cultural exchanges before then. Scant evidence appears in various archaeological reports and do not convey a clear picture of the mechanism of these cultural exchanges. Recent archaeological excavations demonstrate that various forms of materials were exchanged through the South China Sea, in which imperishable objects such as jade, glass, pottery, and metal exhibit the magnificence of frequent and active cultural interactions between regions of the South China Sea. Jade forked blades, jade pendants, glass objects, bronze drums, mirrors, coins, pottery objects were exchanged and disseminated across these regions. Many objects were found on land, and so archaeological artefacts from Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia, among others, will be discussed in this article. We await future excavations of the seabed to reveal many other exciting archaeological stories. But current evidence suffices to delineate a magnificent picture of the active cultural interactions throughout the South China Sea.

Epistemological Hindrances Before delving into these cultural interactions, we will revisit some of the epistemological hindrances which have prevented us from obtaining a more holistic sense of the ancient cultural exchange activities throughout the region of the South China Sea. Evidence continues to be brought to light from regions around the Sea, but discussion is seldom directed to a comprehensive perspective which includes evidence from all the regions around the Sea. We will examine the epistemological and methodological problems that exist to prevent such a holistic investigation, and also question why scholars are paying more attention to the post-Zheng He period. Understanding these hindrances will shed light on how we handle research materials from ancient times. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-005

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Euro-centric Historiography Famous sea voyagers such as Christopher Columbus (AD 1450/1451 – 1506) and Ferdinand Magellan (c. AD 1480 – 1521) are two pioneering figures of pre-modern geographical exploration. Their voyages excited the European world and many similar voyages followed suit, which led to massive-scale geographic expeditions in later generations, and subsequent expansion of European powers in the global context. Many scholars were attracted by these examples of great discoveries and started studying the Oriental cultures; they soon realized the importance of Chinese products such as porcelain,1 tea, and silk in Europe and become interested in studying the means of conveyance and routes of exportation and importation. Studies of the South China Sea have, as a result, been established based on the interest in the Oriental cultures. Many research materials related to these studies have been discovered with the assumptions based in European discoveries of the globe.2 This is the first methodological assumption we have to bear in mind.

Sino-centric Historiography Although many scholars are proposing to study the history of the South China Sea and the maritime Silk Road and this endeavor seems to have avoided the epistemological pitfalls of a Euro-centric point of view, in fact, the materials and time period they propose to study reflect another academic stance, namely Sino-centric historiography. To counter-argue the discourse of European dominance and to prove that the Chinese were much advanced in sea voyage technologies, Zheng He has been elevated in the Sino-centric view to the level of a national hero whose achievements represent the contemporary national imagination of Chinese advanced sea voyage technologies. Without doubt, Zheng He’s voyages exhibited the great powers of the Ming 明 (AD 1368–1644) government, the present-day imagination of Zheng He’s achievement has been invoked in the discourse related to the dominance of the European powers. Since Columbus and Magellan’s achievements have been extolled in the modern world, the European power of dominance has been nurtured since the

1 Lothar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 101. 2 Gan Fuxi 干福熹, “Gudai Sichouzhilu he Zhongguo gudai boli” 古代絲綢之路和中國古代玻璃, Ziran zazhi 自然雜誌, 5 (2006), 257–9.

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period of the great geographic expeditions. The European sea voyage technologies, among others, were unanimously deemed the most advanced. In counterargument, evidence of the advancement of Chinese sea voyage technologies and achievements has been most useful. Historical records of Zheng He have been re-discovered and his deeds extolled in counter-response to the discourse of European dominance. Imagination of Zheng He and the Ming government’s sea voyage achievements has been invoked on this historiographical basis. We are, however, still trapped inside the loop of Euro-centric historiography. At the beginning, the discourse of European dominance prevailed. Later, scholars wanted to argue against this discourse, and collected evidence to construct a counter-point that favored Zheng He, contending that the Ming Chinese likely achieved a high standard of technologies. Simultaneously they have created a Sino-centric point of view favoring the power of Ming China to expand its colonies and potential to rule over the globe, eventually prevented from doing so only by choice. This manner of argument and the creation of an alternate Sinocentric historiography still present a colonialist discourse with merely a change of protagonists.

Geographical Concepts East Asia and Southeast Asia are geographical concepts established by the European to refer to continents and islands on one particular part of the globe. They are for modern geographers’ convenience of dividing the globe into conceptually recognizable components. These concepts did not exist in ancient times, and so in the study of ancient cultural interactions. We should not allow the concepts to impose any constraints upon us. At the same time, these present-day geographical divisions do impose multiple conceptual constraints upon scholars’ understanding of the South China Sea region. Frequently, scholars interested in East Asian archaeology will focus on artefacts unearthed in Mainland China; scholars interested in Southeast Asian archaeology will pay attention to artefacts from the so-called Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand, among others.3 Archaeologists focusing on one particular region would have mentioned the cultural exchanges between these several regions, but their point

3 Barry Rolett et al., “Early Seafaring in the Taiwan Strait and the Search for Austronesian Origins,” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 4.1 (2002), 307–19. Hung Hsiao-Chun et al., “Ancient Jades Map 3,000 Years of Prehistoric Exchange in Southeast Asia,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104.50 (2007), 19745–50.

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of departure remains tied to one particular region. Geographical division unnecessarily limits scholars’ scope to look beyond one particular region. We should not allow these unnecessary constraints to hinder our understanding of the South China Sea region as a hotbed of frequent and multilateral cultural interactions. To study the South China Sea region we should adopt a cross-continental scope.

Linguistic Boundaries Present-day linguistic boundaries similarly create many hindrances. These boundaries limit our holistic understanding of the cultural interactions through the South China Sea region. Scholars tend to collect research materials from a region where present-day inhabitants share similar languages or where people are believed to share similar cultural identities. For example, the Austronesian language family and Austronesian regions are well-known concepts in linguistics and geography. The Austronesian regions refer to present-day Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hawai’i, among others. Scholars interested in artefacts unearthed from this region tend to emphasize the cultural distinctiveness of the artefacts and are inclined to create a cultural framework within which to incorporate these artefacts. In so doing, they have created an Austronesian cultural sphere, which is thought to distinguish itself from neighboring spheres, such as the Mainland Chinese cultural sphere. Divisions of cultural spheres occasionally enable us to realize distinctions of material features, but at times also create conceptual hindrances that limit our understanding of the cultural similarities between different spheres. If scholars focus too much on the distinctiveness of the Austronesia cultural sphere, its cultural similarities with material cultures from Mainland China may be ignored. Similarly, the concept of a Mainland Chinese cultural sphere may also hinder our understanding of the cultural diversities of artefacts unearthed in Mainland China. It is not because the Chinese share the same writing system and Mainland China is an entire block of material culture. Dialects, which can sometimes be treated as languages, are spoken by many cultural groups in Mainland China. Different peoples might have shared, exchanged, and created their own materials. It is very dangerous to simply construe an equivalence between linguistic divisions and divisions of material cultures. We should not let present-day concepts created in linguistic and identity studies hinder our understanding of the cultural diversities and similarities of the excavated artefacts. Linguistic differences and similarities do not necessarily imply differences and/or similarities of material cultures. Ancient producers and

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users of the artefacts extant today would not necessarily live within our linguistic and identity boundaries. Besides, we are not confident whether we can impose today’s linguistic divisions upon the ancient inhabitants around the South China Sea. It is also probable that languages in antiquity were not divided in the way that we imagine today.

Scant Evidence The scarcity of evidence beyond doubt leads to our ignorance of the ancient history of the South China Sea. Many cultural activities might have taken place on the Sea, but these ephemeral activities are hard to reconstruct since we can only rely on currently preserved materials. To conduct a large-scale archaeological survey of the seabed is next to impossible with today’s technology; only incidental discoveries of shipwrecks that date to a much later period would be brought to public attention. Besides, the seabed is not an ideal environment for the preservation of materials. Nor are coastal areas ideal, since the acidity of the seawater and soil would have prevented the preservation of many types of materials. Perishable materials such as wood and bamboo are rarely found, and we accordingly lack adequate material records to reveal the history of exchanges of perishable materials. In terms of the records of imperishable materials such as pottery, metal, glass, and stone, we have limited amounts of artefacts to delineate the history of cultural exchanges. But they suffice to tell a very different story.

Unilateral Understanding It is understandable that scholars interested in the archaeology of one particular region would tend to delineate the cultural distinctiveness of the artefacts unearthed in that region. Occasionally, when scholars have found similar artefacts unearthed in a distant area, they have mentioned the cultural exchange between these two regions. For example, Han Huaizhun 韓槐準 found that the patterns of some pottery shards collected by local archaeologists in Johore Lama, Malaysia, resemble those of pottery objects produced in Mainland China.4 Therefore, he deduced that the ancient inhabitants of the two regions 4 Han Huaizhun 韓槐準, “Jiu Roufo zhi yanjiu” 舊柔佛之研究, Nanyang xuebao 南洋學報, 5.2 (1948), 5–25. See also An Zhimin 安志敏, “Malaiya Roufozhou chutu de gudai taopian” 馬來亞柔 佛州出土的古代陶片, Kaogu 考古, 6 (1965), 301–8.

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probably had some forms of cultural exchange. This type of discussion, based on an incidental discovery, is a form of unilateral understanding of cultural exchanges. It ignores the diversity of cultural exchanges and the possibility of multilateral exchanges among various regions, because of the lack of evidence. Limiting ourselves to this type of discussion will significantly reduce the scope for any holistic understanding of the multilateral cultural interactions around the South China Sea. We should not be only concerned with the exportation of Mainland Chinese materials to Malaysia, but also with the Taiwanese exporting materials to Vietnam, and explore the possibilities of Southeast Asian exports to Mainland China. Cultural exchanges through the South China Sea were not unilateral.

Dynastic Periodization and Textual History In terms of Chinese archaeology, periodization and dynastic eras recorded in textual history have significantly altered our understanding of artefacts. Sharp distinctions might have existed between the former and succeeding dynasties with regards to their political organizations and economic structures, but did not necessarily shape the differences of the material records. Dynastic periodization, demarcated as the periods of Spring and Autumn (770–476 BC) Warring States (475–221 BC), Qin (221–206 BC), and Western Han (202 BC – AD 9), did not necessarily prompt producers and users to change the ways they handled materials. However, textual historians have often borrowed the distinctions recorded in textual history and imposed them upon the material record and assumed sharp differences among artefacts that correspond to different dynastic periods. For example, an artefact dated to the Warring States period is assumed to be different from another artefact dated to the Western Han period. Material differences brought by dynastic periodization should not be assumed, they instead need to be delineated art historically.

Insurmountable Natural Barrier The South China Sea has often been deemed a natural barrier limiting the movement and transportation of ancient peoples. Present-day scholars have an unfounded belief that the sea voyaging technology of ancient peoples was naturally far inferior to that of later generations. This is invalid if we consider the evidence of extant material records. Frequent cultural exchanges already

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existed in ancient times; we simply lack sufficient evidence to illustrate the sea voyaging technology from those times. The sea might have been a difficult barrier for transportation, but this was clearly not an insurmountable challenge. Our assumptions in this regard should certainly be revisited. Before allowing such assumptions to take hold, the surest way forward is to first examine currently existing material records.

Methodological Approaches and Assumptions To study the ancient cultural interactions between various regions around the South China Sea will provide fresh perspectives to tackle the aforementioned epistemological hindrances. We will not be limited by either the Euro-centric or Sino-centric historiographies because our assumptions recognize that these historiographical points of view did not exist in the ancient time, which is the fact as well. The research materials we will handle far transcend the time limit set up by the Euro- or Sino-centric historians. Sea voyage achievements made by Zheng He and subsequent European discoverers were important, but our assumptions will present a very different picture of the ancient South China Sea. Our impression of the Sea will be significantly altered if we incorporate artefacts from the ancient time. The geographical concepts are not necessary assumptions either because ancient inhabitants around the Sea would not realize these concepts. Linguistic boundaries cannot be assumed confidently, and exchanges of artefacts would not necessarily be defined by linguistic differences. Cultural spheres are occasionally but not permanently useful. To study exchanges of materials would allow us to transcend the boundaries of cultural spheres and focus more on the comparisons of cultural similarities and differences. We should transcend the boundaries set up by later linguistics and geographers. We should adopt a multi-lateral point of view to investigate the cultural interactions because there would never be a unidirectional way for one region to exert influence upon another. Unnecessary dynastic periodization and assumptions given by textual historians should not be incorporated to the study of material cultures. We will not associate the dynastic differences with changes of artefacts. Last but not least, the concept of the natural barrier of the South China Sea should not be taken for granted. We are not assuming that the transportation ability of the ancient people was more advanced; rather, we should project our postulations upon evidence that exists currently to let it reveal to us the extent of the transportation abilities of the people from that time. The sea is not an insurmountable natural barrier, as we will investigate in the following section.

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One additional assumption we have to incorporate into this study is that incidentally discovered artefacts might have been independently invented and not have any relationship with something similar and found in other distant places. Our task is to delineate exchange networks and investigate the clusters in which the inhabitants interacted with others. Based on multi-lateral cultural interactions, we may be able to discover their exchange networks. But these networks will not guarantee that similar artefacts were necessarily culturally associated.

Cultural Interactions Along with the aforementioned methodological approaches and assumptions, we will investigate the history of cultural interactions by separately delineating how one region interacted with another. After we have explored the cultural exchanges through various directions, we will generate a summary of the holistic view of the multi-directional interactions. This holistic view will introduce the active exchanges between Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Persia, and Rome, among others.

Mainland China and Southeast Asia It is a well-known fact that beautiful stones had been treasured in ancient East Asia. The Chinese have been very familiar with jade, which can be mineralogically separated into jadeites and nephrites. Jadeites only became popular in the Qing dynasty in China, before then nephrites had prevailed for over five thousand years. At the same time other beautiful stones would have been treasured by the Chinese as well, such as soapstone and serpentines. The character that the Chinese use, yü 玉, at the present time refers to jades including jadeites and nephrites. Before the Qing dynasty it usually referred to nephrites, or simply beautiful stones. It is difficult to distinguish between nephrites and jadeites with the naked eye, and occasionally nephrites and other types of beautiful stones would have been mixed together, unless we use mineralogical detection equipment to analyze them. The mineralogical contents of many of the beautiful stones discussed here have not been scientifically examined, therefore, the term “jade” is not a scientifically precise term to be used here, and it could merely signify “beautiful stones.” Ancient East Asia had produced a massive amount of beautiful stones and disseminated this cultural taste to neighboring regions.

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Abbreviations: l. length w. width h. height t. thickness d. diameter Figure 1: Jade forked blade from Henan Yanshi Erlitou. Report no. 75YL IV M1: 3. L. 48, w. 7.9 cm. Ca. 2000–1600 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 187, fig. 270.

Jade pendants and forked blades are the most prominent objects indicating the Mainland Chinese disseminating their designs to the Southeast Asian region. According to many scholars’ research findings, these blades were disseminated widely in the Greater East Asian region.5 They might have originated from northern China since we have found many blades with more diverse designs there. Figure 1 shows a jade forked blade, dating to approximately 2000–1600 BC, excavated in Henan Yanshi Erlitou 河南偃師二里頭, China.6 Figure 2 shows a similar forked blade dating to the contemporary period, but unearthed at Xom Ren in Vietnam, over two thousand kilometers away.7 It is very possible that the two blades were produced within the same jade workshop. If they were produced in northern China, the Xom Ren blade might symbolize the Mainland Chinese interaction with the local elites. 5 Shang Zhitan 商志(香覃) and Wu Weihong 吳偉鴻, Xianggang kaoguxue xuyan 香港考古學敍 研, (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2010), 113. 6 Tang Chung 鄧聰, ed. East Asian Jade: Symbol of Excellence 東亞玉器, vol. 3, (Hong Kong: Centre for Chinese Archaeology and Art, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998), 187. 7 Ibid, 214.

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Figure 2: Left: Jade forked blade from Xom Ren XR26, Vietnam. L. 46.6 cm. Ca. 1800–1400 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 214, fig. 305. Right: detail of the blade on the right, after Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 215, fig. 306.

Figures 3 and 4 exhibit blades that might have been the Vietnamese local imitations of the northern Chinese blades.8 Their designs are comparatively simpler and rougher. But this is not sufficient evidence to prove that they were produced locally. An examination of their mineralogical contents in order to distinguish whether they were made from local jades is necessary. However, the similarities in design with the northern Chinese piece suggest that the Mainland Chinese were communicating with local Vietnamese with regards to the design of the jade forked blades. Another type of evidence is the production of jade pendants. Figures 5–7 demonstrate multiple jade pendants that might have been produced locally,9 8 Ibid, 210–1. 9 Ibid, 206, 162, 298–9.

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Figure 3: Jade forked blade from Phung Nguyen PN 51. L. 13.5, w. 9.4 cm. Ca. 2000–1300 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 210, fig. 301.

Figure 4: Jade forked blade from Phung Nguyen. Tomb no. not specified. L. 23.9, w. 5.2 cm. Ca. 2000–1300 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 211, fig. 302.

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Figure 5: Jade pendants from Dawan, Hong Kong. Measurement not provided. Ca. 1400–1300 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 206, fig. 298.

Figure 6: Jade pendants from Beinan, Taiwan. Measurement not provided. Ca. 1200–1100 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 162, fig. 230.

Figure 7: Jade pendants from Quy Chu 78QCH1M4, Vietnam. D. 1.51–7.62 cm. Ca. 700–500 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 298–9, fig. 414.

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but their design similarities show that the producers were constantly exposed to materials coming in from Mainland China. Ancient inhabitants of Dawan 大灣 in Hong Kong, Beinan 卑南 in Taiwan, and Quy Chu in Vietnam appreciated the jade pendants design, which originated from much earlier Neolithic cultures in northern China. The production technologies used to make the jade pendants constitute strong evidence of cultural connections between these regions and of the jade owners’ shared aesthetic taste. One might argue that the pendants were made locally and individually by workers who were not exposed to the jade pendants produced in Mainland China, but this conclusion fails to take into account the inherent difficulty of producing the jade pendants. First of all, the slicing of the raw material into the desired shape was determined by the techniques used by the jade workers; any mistake could have caused damage to the thin bodies of the pendants. The production of jade items in the desired shapes was not a mere matter of happenstance. Drilling a large hole required prolonged effort and highly sophisticated skills. Cutting the jade ring presented further difficulties, as the force of cutting might break the entire jade ring or cause a crack in the ring itself. Metal tools were virtually worthless when working with jade, as only abrasives and water prove effective in allowing the artisans to painstakingly slice, cut, and polish items like the jade pendants. If jade workers and owners did not have a set of similar techniques and aesthetic interests in common, jade pendants such as these could not have been distributed in such a wide area. Bronze drums, mirrors, and coins are famous examples showing the Mainland Chinese interactions with the Vietnamese. We know the earliest bronze drums were the Wanjiaba 萬家壩 type originating from Yunan Chuxiong 雲南楚 雄 at approximately 700–600 BC (Figure 8).10 Later bronze drum producers followed this drum design and developed many other new types (such as that in Figure 9). But the origin of the design still lies within the Mainland Chinese area. Bronze mirrors (Figure 10) and coins (Figure 11) are other prominent pieces of evidence.11 The bronze coins bearing the inscriptions of “wuzhu” 五銖, were definitely cast under the rule of the Han dynasty.

10 Li Kunsheng 李昆聲 and Huang Derong 黃德榮, Zhongguo yu Dongnanya de gudai tonggu 中 國與東南亞的古代銅鼓, (Kunming: Yunan Meishu Chubanshe, 2008), iii, xvi. 11 Miyamoto Kazuo 宮本一夫, “Yuenan Donghan muzang taoqi biannian – zailun Aoluofu Yangshi ziliao” 越南東漢墓葬陶器編年——再論奧羅夫‧陽士資料, in Tao li chengxi ji – qingzhu An Zhimin xiansheng bashi shouchen 桃李成蹊集——慶祝安志敏先生八十壽辰, eds. Tang Chung and Chen Xingcan 陳星燦, (Hong Kong: Centre for Chinese Archaeology and Art, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004), 349, 347.

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Figure 8: Bronze drum from Yunan Chuxiong Wanjiaba M23. Report no. M23: 161. H. 37, diameter of the top 41 cm. Ca. 700–500 BC. After Li Kunsheng and Huang Derong, Zhongguo yu Dongnanya de gudai tongqu, iii, pl. 6.

Figure 9: The Ngoc Lu bronze drum from Nhu Trac, Ly Nhan County, Ha Nam Ninh Province, Vietnam. Measurement not provided. Ca. 500–100 BC. After Li Kunsheng and Huang Derong, Zhongguo yu Dongnanya de gudai tongqu, xvi, pl. 45.

1

2

Figure 10: Bronze mirrors from Man Thon Tomb 1A (left) and 1B (right), Vietnam. Measurement not provided. Ca. AD 200–300. After Miyamoto Kazuo, “Yuenan Donghanmuzang,” 349, fig. 8.

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Man Thon 1A

Bim Son 4

Bim Son 7

Bim Son 10 Figure 11: Bronze coins cast in Mainland China and interred in tombs in northern Vietnam, unearthed by Olov. R. T. Janse. Probably housed in the Peabody Archaeology and Ethnology Museum, Harvard University. After Miyamoto Kazuo, “Yuenan Donghanmuzang,” 347, fig. 6.

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Figure 12: Pottery bowl from Indonesia. Measurement not provided. Ca. AD 1–300. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 69, fig. 2.17.

Figure 13: Pottery bowl from an Eastern Han tomb in Guangzhou, China. H. 9.9, diameter of the mouth 19.7 cm. Ca. AD 1–300. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 69, fig. 2.18.

Three pottery bowls, one from Indonesia (Figure 12),12 one from Guangdong Guangzhou 廣東廣州, China (Figure 13),13 and another one from Guangzhou Mayinggang 麻鷹崗 (Figure 14),14 reveal a clearer narrative. The Indonesian pottery bowl designer could have seen a similar design and adopted the design of the dragon-head handle. The Guangzhou bowls were contemporary products and thus they bear similar designs. 12 Joseph S. P. Ting 丁新豹, ed. The Maritime Silk Route: 2000 Years of Trade on the South China Sea 南海海上交通貿易二千年, (Hong Kong: Urban Council of Hong Kong, 1996), 69. 13 Ibid, 69. 14 Hong Kong Museum of History, Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb 李鄭屋漢墓, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of History, 2005), 31.

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Figure 14: Pottery bowl from an Eastern Han tomb in Mayinggang 麻鷹崗, Guangzhou, China. Measurement not provided. Ca. AD 1–300. After Hong Kong Museum of History, Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb, 31, no fig. no.

Figure 15: Pottery model of a boat from a tomb in Guangdong Deqing Xian Gaoliangguancun, China. 54 x 18.5 x 21 cm. Ca. AD 1–300. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 62, fig. 2.2.

We have not excavated a real boat that was suitable for sea voyages and date to the ancient period. But we did find pottery models of boats that might have imitated designs of the real sea boats. Figure 15 shows a pottery boat model unearthed from Guangdong Deqing Xian Gaoliangguancun 德慶縣高良官村.15 It contains a rising prow and stern, a front cabin, two middle cabins, and a rudder in the rear chamber. Whether the real boat that the model was based on was suitable for sea

15 Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 62.

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navigation or not remains a puzzle, but at least we know that we cannot assume that the ancient voyagers possessed inferior technologies and transportation abilities.

Taiwan and Southeast Asia Taiwanese interactions with the Southeast Asian region can be proved by evidence of exportation of nephrites. Hung Hsiao-chun’s research demonstrates that people living in the Philippines, east Malaysia, central and southern Vietnam, eastern Cambodia, and peninsular Thailand were importing nephrites from Taiwan from 500 BC to AD 500 (Figure 16).16 She used scientific equipment to

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Figure 16: Exchanges of jades through the South China Sea. After Hung et al., “Ancient Jades Map,” 19747, fig. 3.

16 Hung et al., “Ancient Jades Map.”

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analyze the mineralogical contents of the Southeast Asian nephrites and found that they are very close to the contents of nephrites from Taiwan. This type of nephrites can only be found in Taiwan, therefore, the nephrite raw materials that the Southeast Asian jade workers were using were from Taiwan. This new research has re-shaped our understanding of the cultural interactions between Taiwan and Southeast Asia. We used to think that the Southeast Asian jade workers would have preferred to use local raw materials since there were jade mines in the Malay Peninsula, but Hung’s analysis shows that the jade workers had other considerations that we do not know of. There is a need for a deeper scientific investigation into the mineralogical contents of the Southeast Asian jades. Perhaps a comprehensive database of the jade sources in the region will illustrate a more complete picture. Tang Chung’s research shows that a type of Vietnamese stone bark beaters were disseminated in the region. The Phung Nguyen 馮原 style beaters were used by people at Baishuixi 白水溪 and Zhongleng 中冷 in Taiwan, Go Bong in Vietnam, Kamassi in Indonesia, and Cebu in the Philippines (see Figures 17–18).17 Stone beater producers might not have traveled in person, but their designs of the beaters traveled. Design ideas were embodied on the materials. Sharing the designs  implied acceptance of the ideas. Cultural interactions took place in these ways. Among the various cultural interactions taking place in Southeast Asia, one was shared designs of animal pendants. Figure 19 shows an animal pendant found in Dai Lanh, Vietnam, which resembles another pendant from Duyong Cave, Palawan, the Philippines (Figure 20).18 Although they do not appear exactly the same and the Duyong Cave pendant is fragmented, there are still design similarities. The pendant shown in Figure 21, from Go Ma Voi, Vietnam, resembles two pendants shown in Figure 22, which are all from the Tabon Caves, Palawan, the Philippines.19 These connections show that cultural interactions were very active through the South China Sea. Other less well-known types of materials are pottery shards and bowls. The collected pottery shards bearing the geometric design, which were very popular

17 Tang Chung, “Taiwan chutu Fengyuan shi shipai de tantao” 臺灣出土馮原式石拍的探討, in Tao li chengxi ji, 259. 18 Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 304–6. 19 For the Go Ma Voi jade, see Nguyen Kim Dung 阮金容, “Yuenan chutu de yujue” 越南出土 的玉玦, in Dongnan kaogu yanjiu 東南考古研究, eds. Tang Chung and Wu Chunming 吳春明, (Xiamen: Xiamen Daxue Chubanshe, 2009), 147–52, see pl. 10-19 (no pagination). For the Tabon Caves jades, see Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 307.

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1

2 0

5cm

Figure 17: Phung Nguyen style stone bark beaters excavated in Taiwan. The top one is from Baishuixi, the bottom one is from Zhongleng. After Tang Chung, “Taiwan chutu Fengyuan,” 256, fig. 3.

in Mainland China during that period were found in Johore Lama, Malaysia (Figure 23).20 Therefore, Han Huaizhun proposed that Mainland China had certain cultural interactions with the Malaysian region.21 But An Zhimin 安志敏 cautions against using this single piece of evidence.22 It is not known yet whether the pottery shards were produced locally or imported from Mainland China because pottery is easy to produce. An Zhimin, however, believed that the Johore pottery

20 See An Zhimin, “Malaiya Roufozhou,” 303. 21 Han Huaizhun, “Jiu Roufo zhi yanjiu,” 24. 22 An Zhimin, “Malaiya Roufozhou,” 307–8.

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2

5 3

4

6 Figure 18: Phung Nguyen style stone bark beaters unearthed in various regions in Southeast Asia. No. 1 from Go Bong, no. 2 from Kamassi, nos. 3–5 from Phung Nguyen, no. 6 from Cebu. After Tang Chung, “Taiwan chutu Fengyuan,” 259, fig. 4.

shards might have been obtained by the locals through trade.23 Whether the design was a borrowed one or a local invention remains another mystery because the geometric design was not a particularly unique design, and might have been invented more than once. This implies that we will have to look for more evidence to prove Mainland Chinese interactions with the Malaysian region. 23 Ibid, 308.

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Figure 19: Animal pendant from Dai Lanh, Vietnam. L. 4.61, w. 5.45, t. 1.48 cm. Ca. 900–300 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 304–5, fig. 421 and fig. 422.

Figure 20: Animal pendant from Duyong Cave, Palawan, the Philippines. L. 4.2 cm. Ca. 200 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 306, fig. 423.

Figure 21: Pendant from Go Ma Voi, Vietnam. Measurement not provided. Ca. 500–300 BC. After Nguyen Kim Dung, “Yuenan chutu de yujue,” pl. 10–19, no pagination.

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Figure 22: Pendants from the Tabon Caves, Palawan, the Philippines. Ca. 500–200 BC. After Tang Chung, ed. East Asian Jade, vol. 3, 307, fig. 424 to fig. 425. Top: fig. 424, l. 3, t. 1.4 cm; bottom left: fig. 425, l. 4.2, t. 1.3 cm; bottom right: fig. 426, l. 2.4, t. 1 cm.

Rome, Persia, Africa, and Mainland China If we do not fully understand the role the South China Sea played in the history of the cultural interactions in the region, we would still be confused about how exotic items from Africa, Rome, and Persia came into China. Exotic soda-lime glass objects were widely disseminated in Mainland China during that period. When scholars found any soda-lime glass objects in the Guangdong and Guangxi 廣西 areas in southern China, they often question through which route the glass objects came into China. The northern Silk Routes were one possibility, but imports through the sea remain another. After we have discovered the active cultural interactions through the South China Sea, many exotic glass objects found in the greater Guangzhou area might have been taken into China through the

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7 8 12

10

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11 14

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Figure23: Pottery shards collected in Kota Tinggi, Johore Lama, Malaysia. Measurement not provided. Ca. AD 1–200. After An Zhimin, “Malaiya Roufozhou,” 303, fig. 1.

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Figure 24: Blue glass bowl from a tomb in the northern suburban area of Guangzhou, China. H. 4.8, diameter of the mouth 10.8 cm. Ca. 100 BC. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 69, fig. 2.19.

Sea. Figure 24 shows a blue glass bowl excavated in Guangzhou;24 it is a sodalime glass, different from the locally manufactured lead-barium glass. This type of soda-lime glass was likely to be from ancient Rome. Many other similar glass objects from the greater Guangzhou area reveal that Guangzhou was one of the most significant areas receiving the glass imports from the Roman empire.25 Mainland Chinese would have treasured exotic items from Southeast Asia. Figure 25 shows a string of etched beads unearthed again from Guangzhou.26 According To Joseph Ting’s observation, the etched design was probably caused by a type of corrosive vegetable extract, which might have been a technique coming into Mainland China from Southeast Asia.27 Zhang Zengqi 張增祺 has analyzed some etched beads from Yunan Jiangchuan Lijiashan 雲南江川李家山

24 Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 69. 25 There were three glass bowls discovered in Tomb 2061 in Guangzhou, which are believed to be from the Roman empire. See Guangzhou Shi Wenwu Guanli Weiyuanhui 廣州市文物管 理委員會 and Guangzhou Shi Bowuguan 廣州市博物館, Guangzhou Han mu 廣州漢墓, 2 vols, (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1981), 239. See also Quan Hong 全洪, “Guangzhou chutu Haishang Sichouzhilu yiwu yuanliu chutan” 廣州出土海上絲綢之路遺物源流初探, in Huanan kaogu 華南 考古, vol. 1, ed. Guangdong Sheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiusuo 廣東省文物考古研究所, (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2004), 140. An Jiayao 安家瑤, “Zhongguo de zaoqi boli qiming” 中國的早期 玻璃器, Kaogu xuebao 考古學報, 4 (1984), appendix I. 26 Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 70. 27 Ibid.

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Figure 25: String of etched beads from a tomb in Guangzhou, China. Measurement not provided. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 70, fig. 2.20.

Tomb 24 and 22.28 His conclusion of the origins of glass beads from this area points to Egypt, West Asia, Afghanistan, and India. Mainland China did not merely exert influence upon its neighbors, but also received goods from them. A pottery lamp supported by a human figure, found in a tomb in Guangzhou, reveals another story of cultural interactions (Figure 26).29 This human figure does not carry any feature of the East Asian physiognomy; rather, it represents a Central Asian or West Asian, or an indigenous Southeast Asian figure. It was very common for the Han dynasty Chinese to use clay human figures, imitating foreigners’ physiognomy, to serve as the support of daily necessities. This pottery human figure might have suggested that at least in the Han dynasty, foreigners with these faces had already appeared in Guangzhou. Materials and humans might have traveled into Mainland China simultaneously. Metal objects supplement these theories— Persian silver coins unearthed from Guangdong Yingde 英德, Suixi 遂溪, and Qujiang 曲江 (Figure 27) date to the Sassanian dynasty (AD 383–484).30 A silver box unearthed from the tomb of

28 Zhang Zengqi 張增祺, “Yunan Dianchi diqu qingtong wenhua neihan fenxi” 雲南滇池地區青 銅文化內涵分析, in Nanfang minzu kaogu 南方民族考古, vol. 1, eds. Sichuan Daxue Bowuguan 四川大學博物館 and Zhongguo Gudai Tonggu Yanjiu Xuehui 中國古代銅鼓研究學會, (Chengdu: Sichuan Daxue Chubanshe, 1987), 109-10. 29 Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 72. 30 Ibid.

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Figure 26: Lamp supported by human figure, from a tomb in Guangzhou, China. H. 30, diameter of the lamp 10.4 cm. Ca. 200 BC – AD 200. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 72, fig. 2.26.

Figure 27: Persian silver coins unearthed from Guangdong Yingde, Suixi, and Qujiang. Measurement not provided. Sassanian dynasty, AD 383–484. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 72, fig. 2.27.

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Figure 28: Silver box from the tomb of the King of Nanyue. Accession no. D2. H. 12.1 cm. Ca. 200 BC. After Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan, ed. Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan zhenpin tulu, 64, no fig. no.

the King of Nanyue 南越 in Guangzhou resembles fifth-century Persian silver boxes (Figure 28), in terms of their designs and production techniques.31 Other evidence in need of further exploration includes gold flower bulbs from the tomb of the King of Nanyue. They might have been made with techniques newly acquired by the Mainland Chinese goldsmiths by imitating techniques seen on exotic items (Figure 29).32 But we will have to examine the techniques carefully in order to reach a conclusion on this issue. A bronze incense burner might have contained incense exotic to the Mainland Chinese (Figure 30),33 but again the contents of the incense will have to be analyzed before reaching a final conclusion. Perishable materials including ivorys provide strong evidence as well, but they are scant and await future exploration and research. Ivories from the tomb of the King of Nanyue are believed to be from Africa.34 If this was true, the Mainland 31 Guangzhou Shi Wenwu Guanli Weiyuanhui 廣州市文物管理委員會 and Guangdong Sheng Bowuguan 廣東省博物館, Xihan Nanyuewang mu 西漢南越王墓, (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1991), 209-10. See also Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan 西漢南越王博物館, ed. Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan zhenpin tulu 西漢南越王博物館珍品圖錄, (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2007), 64. See also Anthony Barbieri-Low, “Roman Themes in A Group of Eastern Han Lacquer Vessels,” Orientations, May 2001, 52–8. 32 Quan Hong, “Guangzhou chutu Haishang Sichouzhilu,” 140. See also Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan, ed. Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan zhenpin tulu, 62. 33 Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 50. 34 Ibid.

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Figure 29: Gold flower bulbs from the tomb of the King of Nanyue. Accession no. D138. D. 1.1 cm. Ca. 200 BC. After After Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan, ed. Xihan Nanyuewang Bowuguan zhenpin tulu, 62, no fig. no.

Chinese might have established connections with Africa already, or they might have acquired brief knowledge of Africa. However, the ivories cannot reveal to us how they came into China and through what means. We can only assume that they might have traversed the South China Sea to reach Guangzhou.

Conclusion: An Exchange Network All of this evidence demonstrates active and frequent cultural interactions were taking place through the South China Sea in the ancient times. Ancient inhabitants

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Figure 30: Bronze incense burner from Guangzhou Xianlielu Huanghuagang Tomb 3, China. H. 17.6 cm. Ca. 200 BC – AD 100. After Joseph Ting, ed. The Maritime Silk Route, 50, fig. 1.22.

of Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, among others, had already created wide-reaching exchange networks among these regions. They might have traveled in person, allowed materials to travel, or simply let design ideas travel. The similarities between the material features of objects shown above prove this. By studying the South China Sea region and investigating how ancient people communicated through the Sea, we will be able to cultivate a new field in the history of cultural interactions across the boundaries of East Asia and Southeast Asia. Acknowledgment: The work described in this article was partially supported by grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. HKBU 12625716 and 12604017), the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (No. RG025-P-15), the Hong Kong Baptist University Faculty Research Grant Category II (HKBU no. FRG2/1516/045), and the Faculty Collaborative Research Grant (HKBU no. SOSC/16-17/ CRGID1).

HAN Xiaorong

5 The Role of Vietnam in China’s Foreign Relations Mainly due to its strategic location, the territory of present day Vietnam has always been an important link in the maritime and overland trading networks and other forms of communications between the East and West. Its proximity to China has allowed the two countries to develop close relations with each other since ancient times. For over one thousand years, present day northern Vietnam was ruled by successive Chinese dynasties, and in the entire premodern era, Vietnam served as a stepping stone in China’s maritime communications with Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa, and Europe. Vietnam’s role in China’s overland communications with neighbouring regions was less significant compared to its role in maritime communications, though by no means unimportant. Vietnam continued to play an important role in China’s foreign relations during the periods of colonial rule and Cold War. Colonial powers and post-colonial superpowers perceived Vietnam to be either a gate to the enormous market of China or a potential base or ally against China. In the post- Cold War era, Vietnam’s importance in China’s foreign relations appears to have decreased. Nevertheless, the role that Vietnam is able and willing to play in the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China will determine to a significant extent the future of Sino-Vietnamese relations, and the stability of East and Southeast Asia.

Vietnam and the Premodern Maritime Silk Road The earliest Vietnamese states, whether legendary or historical, were all closely related to China. The mythic Kinh Dương Vương, founder of the equally mythic Xich Quy state, was believed to be a descendant of the Red Emperor, a legendary ancestor of the Chinese. The Van Lang state, which succeeded Xich Quy, was believed to have been founded by a descendant of Kinh Dương Vương. Van Lang was later conquered by An Dương Vương, who was believed to be a prince of the Shu state based in Sichuan of China, although there have also been suggestions that An Dương Vương might have come from a place near Van Lang.1

1 Chen Zhongjin 陳重金, De Kelai, trans, Yuenan tongshi, 越南通史 (Tran Trong Kim, Việt Nam Sử Lược) (Beijing: Shangwu, 1992), p.17. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-006

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Viet Thuong was another semi-legendary state that possibly coexisted with Van Lang. According to some ancient texts, envoys of Viet Thuong brought a turtle that was over one thousand years old to China during the reign of King Yao. Later, in the era of the Duke of Zhou, Viet Thuong sent white pheasants to the Zhou court as tribute. Some believe Viet Thuong was based in present day southern China, but others have located it in present day northern or central Vietnam.2 Although the exact location of these legendary or semi-legendary states, as well as the related people and events, cannot be confirmed, the close relationship and frequent communication between Vietnam and China in ancient times can be verified with written evidence or other sources. For instance, there is no doubt that there were strong mutual influences between the bronze culture of northern Vietnam, exemplified by the bronze drums, and that of southern China as well as the Central Plains.3 The conquest and re-conquest of present-day northern Vietnam by the First Emperor, Zhao Tuo of Nan Yue, and Emperor Wu of Han brought the region under long term Chinese rule. As a result, there were increasing communications between the region and other parts of China, and China’s contact with present day central and southern Vietnam was also intensified. As Wang Gungwu has pointed out, the Kingdom of Nanyue operated a fleet that navigated frequently between Guangzhou and Hainan and between Hainan and Vietnam. By the second century BC, the Yue and Han navigators could sail regularly to the Gulf of Tonking and present day northern and central Vietnam. Although they probably had not acquired a good understanding of the monsoon, they should have already been able to travel to the Gulf of Siam and the Malay Peninsula by navigating along the coast of Vietnam.4 There exists sufficient archaeological, linguistic, historical and cultural evidence to prove that there were close connections between China and present day northern Vietnam during ancient and medieval periods, whereas present day central and southern Vietnam maintained a closer cultural relationship with India compared to China. The communications between northern, central and

2 Tao Weiying 陶維英, Yuenan gudaishi 越南古代史 (Đào Duy Anh, Cổ sử Việt Nam). Volume 1, pp. 60–69. Liu Tongwen & Zi Yue, trans. Beijing: Shangwu, 1976. 3 Tong Enzheng 童恩正, “Shilun zaoqi tonggu 試論早期銅鼓” (A Study of the Early Bronze Drums); “Zailun zaoqi tonggu 再論早期銅鼓” (Another Study of the Early Bronze Drum). In Tong Enzheng, Zhongguo xinan minzu kaogu luwenji 中國西南民族考古論文集 (Essays on Ethnoarchaeology of Southwestern China), (Beijing: Wenwu, 1990), pp. 163–199. 4 Wang Gungwu 王賡武, Nanhai maoyi yu Nanyang huaren 南海貿易與南洋華人 (The South China Sea Trading Network and the Chinese in Southeast Asia), (Hong Kong: Zhonghua, 1988), p. 20.

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southern Vietnam formed an important chain in the relations between China and India and between the East and West. One of the earliest recorded cases of East-West contact via Vietnam occurred during the Later Han Dynasty. The Book of the Later Han reported that in 166 AD, “King Andun of Daqin sent envoys to present ivory, rhino horns, and the shells of hawksbill turtle, and they arrived from places beyond Rinan. Thus began the communications between the Han and Daqin.”5 King Andun of Daqin is believed to be Emperor Anthonius Pius of the Roman Empire, and Rinan was the southernmost point of the Han Empire. The coins of ancient Rome discovered on the banks of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam serve to affirm Vietnam’s role as a middle point in the maritime trade between the East and West,6 and the excavations of the ancient city of Oc Eo in southern Vietnam confirm that it had become an important center in the East-West maritime trading network during the Later Han Dynasty at the latest.7 International maritime trade was an important economic foundation of the powerful Funan Empire based in the Mekong River Delta, and China was an essential source of trading goods passing through Funan.8 From Han to Tang, northern Vietnam, as a part of Chinese territory, remained a maritime trading center of southern China and a gateway to China for countries in Southeast Asia and beyond. During the Han Dynasty, the most important maritime trading centers in southern China included Panyu (番禺), Hepu (合浦) and Xuwen (徐聞) in Guangdong and Long Bien (龍編), Tư Phố (胥浦), Tây Quyển (西捲) and Thuong Lam (象林) in northern and central Vietnam.9 Han Shu contains a detailed description of maritime communications between Nhat Nam and other countries, which has been cited and studied by numerous scholars. According to this information, it normally took five months to sail from Nhat Nam, Xuwen and Hepu to a country called Duyuan (都元); it took four months to navigate from Duyuan to the state of Yilumei (邑盧沒) and over twenty days to sail from Yilumei to the Chenli state (諶離). From Chenli, it took a person over ten days to walk to the state of Fugandulu (夫甘都盧), and it took over two months to navigate from Fugandulu to the state of Huangzhi (黃支國). For the return trip, it took eight 5 Fan Ye 范曄, Hou hanshu 後漢書, “Xiyuzhuan 西域傳” (“Western Regions,” in The Book of the Later Han). 6 Keith Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam (University of California Press, 1983), p. 60. 7 Li Qingxin 李慶新, Pinhaizhidi: Nanhai maoyi yu zhongwai guanxishi yanjiu 頻海之地：南海貿 易與中外關係史研究 (The Coastal Land: A Study of the South China Sea Trading Network and China’s Relations with Foreign Countries) (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2010), pp. 19–20; pp. 389–392. 8 Kenneth Hall, A History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development, 100–1500 (Rowman & Littlefeild, 2011), pp. 49–59; p. 67. 9 Lu Shipeng 呂士朋, Beishu shiqi de Yuenan 北屬時期的越南 (Vietnam during the Period of Chinese Rule), (Hong Kong: New Asia Institute, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1964), p.38.

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months to sail from Huangzhi to Pizong (皮宗) and two months to navigate from Pizong to Nhat Nam and Thuong Lam. Envoys from Huangzhi travelled to China regularly during and after the reign of Emperor Wu and Chinese envoys also often travelled to Huangzhi, and there were “trading vessels of the barbarians” sailing between and among the various states.10 It has been suggested that the various ancient “states” mentioned in this paragraph were located in present day southern Vietnam, Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Myanmar and southern India, respectively.11 During the Later Han Dynasty, there were envoys from present day India, Cambodia and Java who arrived in Nhat Nam to visit China.12 After Nhat Nam became independent in the second century AD, Jiaozhi or northern Vietnam became the southernmost region in the Chinese empire and a point of entry for foreign merchants and envoys who visited China. The envoys and merchants mainly brought luxurious goods coveted by the emperors and upper class people to China proper from or through Vietnam. Part of the First Emperor’s motivation for conquering Lingnan, including part of northern Vietnam, was to acquire “rhino horns, ivory, emeralds and pearls.”13 During the Han Dynasty, “pearls, colored glazes, rare stones and exotic goods” were brought to China from Vietnam.14 The Book of the Later Han lists “shells of hawksbill turtle, exotic incenses and beautiful timber” as “precious goods” from Jiaozhi in addition to the items mentioned above.15 The fact that Empress Lu’s trade embargo against Nanyue caused serious problems for Nanyue but no real damage for the Han Empire confirms that in the trading relations between Nanyue and Han, Nanyue relied more on Han than vice versa, and that what China proper gained from Nanyue were mainly luxurious goods that did not meet 10 Ban Gu 班固, Han Shu 漢書, “Dilizhi 地理志 (The Records of the Han Dynasty: Geography). 11 Han Zhenhua 韓振華, “Xiyuanqian ershiji zhi xiyuan yishiji jian Zhongguo yu Yindu Dongnanya de haishang jiaotong----Han Shu dilizhi Yuedi tiao moduan kaoshi 西元前二世紀至西元 一世紀間中國與印度東南亞的海上交通----漢書地理志粵地條末段考釋” (The Maritime Communications between China, India and Southeast Asia from the Second Century BC to the First Century AD: A Philological Study of the Last Paragraph of the Entry about Guangdong in the Section on Geography of Han Shu). In Han Zhenhua, Zhongguo yu Dongnanya guanxishi yanjiu 中國與 東南亞關係史研究 (Studies of the History of Sino-Southeast Asia Relations) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin, 1992), pp. 1–52. 12 Wang Yankui 汪延奎, ed., Guangdong tongshi, gudai 廣東通史 ‧ 古代 (A General History of Guangdong, The Premodern Period) (Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu, 1996), Vol. 1, pp. 278–279. 13 Liu An 劉安, Huainanzi 淮南子, “Renjianxun” (Huainanzi: In the World of Man). 14 Ban Gu 班固, Han Shu 漢書, “Dilizhi 地理志” (The Records of the Han Dynasty: Geography). 15 Fan Ye 范曄, Hou hanshu 後漢書, “Jia Cong zhuan 賈琮傳” (“Biography of Jia Cong,” in The Book of the Later Han).

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essential economic needs of the general populace. In the early period, China’s exports to or through Vietnam probably had more economic importance than China’s imports from or through Vietnam. In addition to serving as an intermediary link in China’s global maritime trading system, Vietnam also played a significance part in China’s cultural exchange with other regions. Buddhism was brought to China through both the overland Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road, and northern Vietnam was an important stop on the southern route of Buddhist propagation. During the three Kingdoms period, several influential Buddhist monks who arrived in Jiaozhou from India or Funan turned northern Vietnam into a center of Buddhist studies and propagation, and some of them, including Kang Senghui, later moved to the north and contributed to the spread of Buddhism in China proper.16 Three significant changes took place in southern China and the maritime trading system centered around southern China during the period of national division from the third to the late sixth centuries AD. First, administratively, Jiaozhou and Guangzhou were completely separated; second, the Lingnan region experienced fundamental social and economic transformation, partially due to the immigration of large number of northerners into the region; third, there was impressive technological progress in the field of ocean navigation. Jiaozhou and Guangzhou were two major centers of maritime trade in southern China during this period. The prosperous Tang Dynasty witnessed intensive communications between south China, including Jiaozhou and Guangzhou, and foreign countries and regions. Records show that there were two important routes connecting southern China and countries in Southeast Asia, southern Asia, and Western Asia, and both routes involved Vietnam. The first was a maritime sea route linking Guangzhou, Annam (northern Vietnam), India, Sri Lanka, and the Persian Gulf; and the second consisted of two overland routes connecting southern China and India. One started from Jiaozhi and passed through the mountains of Vietnam and Laos, before reaching India, and the other reached India by way of Yunnan and Myanmar.17 Keith Taylor affirms that : “Giao was a major stop on the land and sea routes between the Tang Empire and lands beyond. The sea route to India was well traveled by merchants and by Buddhist monks on pilgrimage. Fortunes were 16 Ren Jiyu 任繼愈, ed. Fojiaoshi 佛教史 (A History of Buddhism) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 1995), pp. 101–102. 17 Zhu Yunying 朱雲影, “Yuenan yu Zhongguo de lishi guanxi 越南與中國的歷史關係” (The Historical Relations between Vietnam and China). In Guo Tingyi 郭廷以, et al. eds. Zhongyue wenhua lunji 中越文化論集 (Essays on Sino-Vietnamese Cultural Interactions) (Taipei: Zhonghua wenhua chuban shiye weiyuanhui, 1956), p. 77.

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made from trade in tropical luxury goods.”18 Those who travelled on those routes included not only merchants and monks, but also envoys from various countries. The dynastic records of the Tang reported that since the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, envoys from all the countries located to the south of Jiaozhou had to pass through Jiaozhou in order to visit China.19 However, it was during the Tang Dynasty that Guangzhou overtook Jiaozhou and became the most important maritime trading center in southern China. Several factors caused Guangzhou to surpass Jiaozhou during the Tang. The separation of Guangzhou and Jiaozhou into two equal administrative units benefited Guangzhou and weakened Jiaozhou, since Guangzhou had been subordinate to Jiaozhou before the separation. Guangzhou was also closer to China proper than Jiaozhou was, making it easier for foreign merchants to collect goods from China proper in Guangzhou than in Jiaozhou. Moreover, the frequent conflicts between China and Linyi and its successor Champa as well as piracy along the Vietnamese coast often forced foreign traders and envoys to bypass Jiaozhou. Furthermore, technological progress made deep ocean navigation possible. As a result, trading vessels could now sail to and from Guangzhou through the South China Sea, and they no longer had to move along the coast of Vietnam. By the eighth century AD, Guangzhou had overtaken Jiaozhou and emerged as the most important maritime trading center in southern China.20 It is certain that the Tang court established a Maritime Affairs Office in Guangzhou, but it is not equally certain whether or not there was also a Maritime Affairs Office in Jiaozhou.21 After Vietnam became independent in the tenth century, present day northern, central and southern Vietnam continued to play significant roles in the maritime trade between China and other regions. Li Tana argues that the ocean along central Vietnam remained an active trading zone dominated by Muslims from South, West and Southeast Asia till the fifteenth century. In fact, Li believes that even when northern Vietnam was a part of China, central Vietnam was a more important link than northern Vietnam between China and Southeast Asia. She further contends that northern Vietnam developed more intensive maritime

18 Keith Taylor, A History of the Vietnamese, pp. 37–38. Cambridge University Press, 2013. 19 Liu Xu 劉昫, Jiu Tang Shu 舊唐書, “Dilizhi” (Jiu Tang Shu: Geography). 20 Paul Pelliot 伯希和, Feng Chengjun 馮承鈞, trans., Jiaoguang Yindu liangdao kao 交廣印度兩 道考(Beijing: Shangwu, 1933), p. 3. 21 Shi Cunlong 施存龍, “Guangzhou shifou wei zhongguo zuizao he Tangdai weiyi shiboshi(si)shedi? 廣州是否為中國最早和唐代唯一市舶使(司)設地？” (Was Guangzhou the Birth Place of the Earliest Maritime Affairs Office of China and the only Maritime Affairs Office of the Tang Dynasty?) 中國評論學術出版社：http://bj.crntt.com/crn-webapp/cbspub/secDetail.jsp?bookid=10527&secid=10554

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connections with China after Vietnam became independent than before.22 Kenneth Hall argues that Linyi and Champa in central Vietnam was always an important trading station between China and the Malay world, and its importance increased after the collapse of the Funan Empire and the rise of the Srivijaya state.23 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Hoi An in central Vietnam emerged as an key international maritime trading center frequented by merchants from China, Japan, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and other places.24 After the founding of the Nguyen Dynasty in the early nineteenth century, Na Trang and Saigon became new centers of international maritime trade.

Vietnam and China’s Foreign Relations during the Period of Colonialism and Cold War For nearly two thousand years, from the time of China’s Qin and Han dynasties to the mid-nineteenth century, Vietnam was subordinated to China during most of the time. During the first one thousand years, northern Vietnam was ruled as part of China, and not long after Vietnam became independent in the tenth century, a tributary relationship was forged between the two countries. In economic and cultural aspects, Vietnam depended more on China than vice versa, and it served as an important channel for China in her economic and cultural communications with other countries. The relationship between China and Vietnam in the colonial period and the Cold War era is completely different from that in the previous period. Vietnam became the colony, protectorates, puppet states and sphere of influence of various countries and was no longer subordinated to China. As a result, Vietnam became a tool used by other countries to approach or dominate China. During the Cold War period, North Vietnam was an ally of China and to some extent reassumed a subordinate position to China, whereas South Vietnam was an ally of China’s powerful enemies. After the reunification of Vietnam in 1975, the relations

22 Li Tana, “The Rise and Fall of the Jiaozhi Ocean Region.” In Angela Schottenhammer and Roderich Ptak, eds. The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), pp. 125–139. 23 Kenneth Hall, A History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development, 100–1500 (Rowman & Littlefeild, 2011), pp. 71–76. 24 Li Qingxin 李慶新, Pinhaizhidi: Nanhai maoyi yu zhongwai guanxishi yanjiu 頻海之地: 南海 貿易與中外關係史研究 (The Coastal Land: A Study of the South China Sea Trading Network and China’s Relations with Foreign Countries), pp. 280–310.

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between the two countries deteriorated rapidly, and Vietnam became a junior partner of Soviet Union, China’s then arch enemy. From the Chinese perspective, Vietnam performed a very different role in China’s foreign relations in the modern period than in the premodern era. China was able to control and use Vietnam during most of the time before the French conquest of Vietnam, but the special relations between Vietnam and China were interrupted after the French conquest, and other powers, including France, Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union, attempted to use Vietnam as a channel to trade with China or as a tool to conquer, control or contain China. The dream of gaining a river route to Southwest China was a strong motivation prompting the French to initiate their conquest of southern Vietnam in the 1850s and 1860s. They believed that if the Mekong could connect southern Vietnam and the huge Chinese market, then they would be able to turn Saigon into an international trading center rivaling Singapore and Hong Kong.25 To their disappointment, they soon discovered that the Mekong River was not navigable. After that, the French began to conquer northern Vietnam, in the hope that the Red River could serve as a trading route between Vietnam and Southwest China.26 After occupying Vietnam, France began to expand its influence in China, using Vietnam as a base, and now what they wanted from China was more than just trade. Gradually, France was able to include Yunnan, Guangxi and the Guangzhou Bay in its sphere of influence, and it acquired special rights to open mines and construct railways in these places. In the early twentieth century, the Japanese militarists saw the occupation of Vietnam as a precondition for the complete conquest of China. The immediate motivation for Japan to invade Vietnam in 1940 was to cut off an important supply line for Nationalist China, with the aim of forcing Chiang Kai-shek’s government to submit. Before taking Vietnam, Japan had already managed to persuade the French to set restrictions on the trade between China and Vietnam. In addition to encircling China, Japan may also have been interested in launching attacks on Southwest China from Vietnam if the Nationalist government refused to surrender.27

25 Milton Osborne, River Road to China: The Search for the Source of the Mekong, 1866–73 (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996), p. 41; p.44; p. 46; p. 57; p. 92. 26 Ibid., p. 152; p. 197; pp. 199–219. 27 David Marr, Vietnam: 1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 14–17.; Stein Tonnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World at War (London: Sage Publications, 1991), pp. 36–38.

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After the defeat of Japan, the Allied Powers decided that northern Vietnam would be occupied by Chinese Nationalist troops, giving Nationalist China an opportunity to restore Chinese influence in the region, and the Nationalist government did try to make good use of that opportunity. However, the French soon succeeded in persuading China to withdraw its troops. The outbreak of the First Indochina War in 1946 caused the United States to offer support to France in its effort to recolonize Vietnam. After the defeat of France, the United States began to patronize the anti-Communist southern Vietnamese government, leading eventually to direct US military intervention in Vietnam. The domino theory, which was frequently used to justify US involvement in Vietnam, indicates clearly that the most important policy goal of US intervention in Vietnam was to stave off Chinese and Soviet influence in Southeast Asia. To American leaders, maintaining control over Vietnam was an essential step in containing Communist China, and it was this perception that turned Vietnam into the hottest battlefield during the Cold War. Although China was a strong ally of northern Vietnam during Vietnam’s resistance against the United States, the alliance between China and Vietnam broke down immediately after the fall of Saigon and the reunification of Vietnam. In the previous decades, the Vietnamese Communists had tried to maintain a neutral stand in the dispute between China and Soviet Union, but now they openly sided with the Soviet Union. In the perceptions of Chinese leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, Vietnam had turned itself into a tool of the Soviet Union in its effort to encircle China. The Cam Ranh Bay, which had served successively as a naval base for the French, Japanese and Americans in the previous years, immediately became a Soviet naval base after Vietnam and China became enemies. The French believed that conquering Vietnam would serve to expand their economic relations with China, and Vietnam under French did have more intensive economic relations with China than in the previous period, which partially caused a large number of Chinese to migrate to Vietnam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, from the outbreak of World War II to the end of the Cold War, when political-strategic factors became a more important motivation than economic factors prompting France, Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union to maintain or gain control over Vietnam, Vietnam often became an involuntary or voluntary obstacle in China’s relations with the world. It was an involuntary obstacle during the Pacific War, the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War because Vietnam was entirely or partially dominated by enemies of China during those wars and did not have the freedom to make its own choice. It was a voluntary obstacle during the period of the Third Indochina War because it was Vietnam’s decision to break up with China and side with the Soviet Union.

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Vietnam and the Maritime Silk Road of the Twenty First Century Since the normalization of bilateral relations between China and Vietnam in 1991, The relations between the two countries have greatly improved. Sino-Vietnamese relations in the post-Cold War era differ greatly from those of the premodern period in that Vietnam is no longer an unequal partner of China. In theory at least, Vietnam is now completely equal to China in all aspects. Post-Cold War Sino-Vietnamese relations also differ from those of the colonial period and Cold War era since Vietnam is no longer a colony, protectorate, sphere of influence, or junior partner of any third country. As a result, Vietnam is no longer a tool that can be used by a third country in dealing with China. After Vietnam joined the ASEAN, its Southeast Asian neighbors started to have some influence on Vietnam’s policy toward China. However, these neighbors are equal partners of Vietnam and do not possess the power to determine Vietnam’s foreign policy. Another special feature of the Sino-Vietnamese relations during the post Cold War period is that economic relations are now the most important tie binding the two countries together. Political factors are still important, but they are probably no longer as important now as they were during the Cold War period. The two governments have succeeded in eliminating numerous obstacles between China and Vietnam since 1991, including Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, Vietnam’s support of the Soviet Union, the issue of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, and the territorial disputes along their land border and in the Tongking Gulf.28 About the aspect of economic relations, China has been the largest trading partner of Vietnam for the past eleven years, and Vietnam has become the second largest trading partner of China among all ASEAN nations. The volume of trade between China and Vietnam grew from 32 million USD in 1991 to 65.5 billion USD in 2013, which represents an increase of 2000 times during 22 years.29 China has also been the largest source of tourists who visit Vietnam. In 2013, nearly 2 million Chinese tourists entered Vietnam, making up 25% of all tourists visiting Vietnam

28 Hemen Ray, China’s Vietnam War (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1983); King C. Chen, China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions and Implications (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987); Steven Hood, J., Dragons Entangled, Indochina and the China-Vietnam War (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992); Guo Ming 郭明, ed., Zhongyue guanxi yanbian sishinian 中越 關係演變四十年 (The Changing Sino-Vietnamese Relations in the Past Forty Years) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin, 1992). 29 Yin Hongwei 尹鴻偉, “Yuenan jingji rengran yanzhong yilai Zhongguo 越南經濟仍然嚴重依 賴中國” (Economically Vietnam is Still very much Dependent on China).

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during that year.30 The only remaining issue between China and Vietnam is their dispute over the islands in the South China Sea. The two countries have experienced long periods of tumultuous relations. Those were times when Vietnam was a tributary state of China, an enemy of China, or a brotherly and friendly ally. Since the 1990s, China has ceased to perceive Vietnam as a subordinate vassal state, an ally or an enemy. The traditional Chinese world order has long collapsed, if it ever existed, and China and Vietnam are now equal and independent nation-states in the international community. It is very unlikely that Vietnam will become a junior brotherly state of China again, like what happened during the dynastic periods and the Cold War era, and it is equally unlikely that Vietnam will become a voluntary or involuntary tool used by a third country for containing or controlling China. Although there might be countries that are interested in turning Vietnam into an anti-China ally in a possible future conflict between China and some other countries, assuming such a role will not necessarily serve Vietnam’s national interest. The Vietnamese government has responded positively to China’s proposals for the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Vietnam has already become a founding member of the AIIB and has pledged support for the Belt and Road Initiative. Vietnamese leaders obviously believe that participating in the two projects serves Vietnam’s national interest. Vietnam’s attitude will not have much impact on the results of the two projects. The ships navigating between China and other countries do not need to sail along Vietnam’s coast or make stops in Vietnam’s harbors, and even the railroad linking China and Singapore can easily bypass Vietnam. Vietnam is not a major power in AIIB either. Yet, for China it is still better for Vietnam to be a supporter rather than an opponent of the two initiatives. As early as May 2004, Phan Văn Khải, then prime minister of Vietnam, had proposed that China and Vietnam should jointly develop “two corridors and one circle”. One of the two corridors starts at Kunming and passes through the cities and provinces of Lao Cay, Hanoi, Haiphong and Quang Ninh, and the other corridor consists the cities of Quang Ninh, Haiphong, Hanoi, Langson and Nanning. The circle refers to the Beibu Bay. Together the two corridors and one circle cover ten coastal districts in Vietnam and China. Leaders of both countries believed that the development of these districts will serve to upgrade the economy of the border regions in both countries. Most recently, leaders of China and Vietnam 30 “Yuenan zongli Ruan Jinyong: xiangbanfa bimian guodu yilai Zhongguo jingji 越南總理 阮晉勇：想辦法避免過度依賴中國經濟” (Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Says, We Should Prevent our Economy from Becoming overtly Dependent on China), 《觀察者網》, 2014,6,17.

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have pledged their support to the integration of the “two corridors and one circle” plan and the Belt and Road Initiative. Such integration will help rebuild the China-Vietnam section of the ancient maritime silk road. The dispute over the South China Sea islands remains a major obstacle for the two countries to reach a higher level of cooperation. The disputes mainly involve the Paracel and the Spratly Islands. China and Vietnam are the only two countries that lay claims on the Paracel Islands, but at least six countries or regions have claimed part or the whole of the Spratly Islands. At least three proposals have been made for solving the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The first is to follow the principle of shelving differences and seeking joint development, and this has been the official position of China in the past two decades. However, this policy has failed to solve the disputes in both the East Sea and the South China Sea. The reason is simple: it is very difficult, if not impossible for the countries involved to shelve the disputes, and joint development is impossible if the disputes cannot be shelved. The second proposal calls for the various countries to share the sovereignty over the disputed islands. The shortcoming of this proposal is that joint sovereignty has never been experimented before, and even if the idea is accepted by all parties, it can become the root cause of future disputes. So far, none of the governments involved in the disputes has expressed interest in this proposal. The last proposal, which is possibly the most realistic one, suggests that all the countries concerned recognize the status quo, namely, they recognize one another’s right to own the islands under their respective control and then try to reach an agreement about how to divide those disputed islands that have not yet been occupied. During Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Vietnam, he suggested that China and Vietnam should solve their disputes over the South China Sea islands in the same way they have settled the disputes over their land border. This probably implies that it is possible for the two countries to adopt the third proposal. In solving the disputes over the land borders, both countries made concessions and compromises. The so-called nine-dot line, which has been supported by both the ROC and PRC governments, should not be used to tie the hands and feet of the Chinese government. If the original eleven-dot line could be changed to the nine-dot line, then there is no reason why the nine-dot line cannot be changed. The solving of the territorial disputes will not only eliminate the real danger of another round of Sino-Vietnamese military conflict, but also dissipate the ill feelings between the people of the two countries. Moreover, to put an end to the territorial disputes will also eliminate opportunities for other countries to manipulate the situation and try to benefit from the Sino-Vietnamese disputes. Finally, it can serve as a strong case to prove China’s intention of a peaceful rise.

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Conclusion China and Vietnam had experienced five different modes of bilateral relationship before the early 1990s. In the Chinese perceptions, Vietnam had been a part of China, a tributary state of China, a passive tool of a third country, a brotherly and friendly ally, and an enemy or a member of a hostile alliance at different time periods. Since the early 1990s, the two countries have entered a new mode of bilateral relations that is more compatible with international norms. The two countries are now both independent and equal, and they have maintained a peaceful relationship for the past twenty years. Besides, their relationship is now based on international laws and principles rather than the special bonds between the two countries. The unsolved disputes between the two countries over the South China Sea islands have often caused people to neglect the fact that the two governments have succeeded in reaching many important agreements through negotiation, including agreements about settling their disputes over their land borders and the Tongking Gulf. These agreements can serve as precedents for solving the remaining disputes between the two countries. Despite the ongoing disputes and mutual suspicions, the two countries have reached a high level of economic integration and developed close ties in multiple aspects. It is true that overall Vietnam relies more on China than vice versa, but that does not mean Vietnam is not important to China. Maintaining stable, peaceful and friendly relations with Vietnam will prevent Vietnam from becoming an ally of any hostile power, demonstrate China’s sincerity in pursuing a peaceful re-emergence, and contribute to the peace and stability of the region and the world.

Kuo-tung CHEN

6 Advantages of Chinese Navigators during the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries In the early fifteenth century, several giraffes arrived in China on board Chinese bottoms. Giraffes are large animals weighing over a metric ton and to carry them on a sailing junk from East Africa or West Asia to the Far East is not a simple matter. It is a testament to the superiority of the Chinese navigational capacity.

Chinese Activity in the Indian Ocean The early fifteenth century was celebrated for the Chinese expedition to the Indian Ocean led by Admiral Zheng He (1371–1435?). Thereafter, Chinese shipping disappeared from that part of the oceans and Chinese junks that sailed from China went no farther than the Malacca Straits. The opinion was that it was the decline of Chinese maritime development.1 However, this is not quite correct. A squadron of Zheng He’s fleet reached as far as East Africa. It demonstrates Chinese competence in navigation. However, it is also argued that Zheng He’s fleet was dependent on the Arab ways of sailing on the Indian waters. Therefore, there is not a Chinese contribution in the success of Zheng He’s expedition. Then, the question is how can one suggest that the Chinese have had their own advantages in maritime activities? The Chinese application of Arab navigational knowledge and skills in the Zheng He mission has been well studied by Miyazaki Masakatsu.2 It is without doubt that Arab devices and methods played useful roles in Chinese navigation. In fact, as early as a century ago, during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the government had tried to acquire knowledge related to navigation. For example, in 1287, the central government had ordered the officials of Fujian Province to

1 J. J. L. Duyvendak, “The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the Early Fifteenth Century,” T’oung Pao, 34:5 (1939), pp. 341-413. On p 395, he says: “But not only did the expeditions completely end, even their memory scarcely seems to have continued.” Cf. Moira Tampoe, Maritime Trade between China and the West: An Archaeological Study of the Ceramics from Siraf (Persian Gulf), 8th to 15th Century A.D. (Oxford: BAR, 1989), p. 120. 2 Miyazaki Masakatsu 宮崎正勝, Teiwa no nankai daiensei: eirakutei no sekai chitsujyo saihen 鄭和の南海大遠征――永楽帝の世界秩序 (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1997). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-007

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collect Muslim râhnamâ (回回文剌那麻). Râhnamâ is a Persian word, having the meaning of “guide”. In other words, the government intended to get Arab or other Muslim navigation guides for the improvement and enhancement of Chinese sailing capacity.3 Even though the Chinese adopted foreign navigational techniques, it does not mean that their own methods were not good enough for their seafaring requirements. In fact, early in the Song dynasty (960–1279), the Chinese has already sailed as far as Kozhikode (called Guli 古里 in ancient texts) in the west coast of India subcontinent with their own ships and their own methods of navigation.4 It would not have been difficult to extend the journey further to Hormuz. An extant stele of the Yuan Dynasty shows that an envoy of the Mongols went to Hormuz (Huolumosu 火魯沒思) in 1299.5 Two years later, financed by state capital, Yang Shu (楊樞) proceeded to the Indian Ocean. He happened to encounter an Ilkhanid envoy, who intended to go to China. Yang Shu went with him to China and later escorted him back to Hormuz by imperial order. In fact, during the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese has already gone westwards by sea beyond the reaches of Hormuz! According to an excerpt preserved in the Yongle Dadian 永樂大典 (an early Ming compendium), juan 19419, it is recorded that commissar Dashudin (答述丁) and others were dispatched to Mogadishu (in east Africa) and Tangier (in north Africa) to get lions, leopards, and other odd and uncommon animals.6 Although the imperial aims of sending provincial officials to collect Islamic râhnamâ cannot be ascertained, it might have something to do with sending personnel to Africa for animals. The Mongol empire’s territory covers a major part of West Asia and knowledge about Africa could have been easy to come by. As nomadic people, the Mongol rulers were naturally interested in wild animals and having them and their interest may have also passed to the Ming emperors. It is well known that a couple of giraffes were acquired by the Zheng He’s fleet. In fact, other animals never seen before by the Chinese were also introduced by 3 Wang Shidian 王士點 compiles, Mishujian zhi 祕書監志 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2014), p. 140; cf. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature (New York: Free Press, 2001), p. 385. 4 Bai Xiaoxia 白曉霞 and Zhang Qifan 張其凡, “Yuan Chao yü Yindu de haishang maoyi 元朝 與印度的海上貿易,” Journal of Inner Mongolia University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 36:6 (November 2004), pp. 73–78. 5 Wu Wenliang 吳文良 and Wu Youxiong 吳又雄 (revises and enlarges), Quanzhou zongjiao shike 泉州宗教石刻 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2005), p. 643. 6 Liao Dake 廖大珂, “Yuandai guanying hanghai maoi zhidu shulue 元代官營航海貿易制度述 略,” Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu, 1998:2, p. 98.

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Zheng He’s retinues. According to Yan Congjian 嚴從簡, a petite official working in the department in charge of foreign affairs, Zheng He’s men found zebras, Arabian oryx, as well as fat-tailed sheep etc. in Hormuz.7 We can suppose that a few were sent back to China. Carrying wild animals on board a ship for a long voyage must have caused a lot of difficulties, but the men definitely overcame the hurdles, proving Chinese sailing expertise. In Ming records, the location of Hormuz is not only called Xiyü 西域 (Western terrestrial land), but also Xiyang 西洋 (Western ocean). This clearly reflects Ming knowledge of that part of Asia. Hormuz could be reached overland, while Zheng He himself arrived at that port by sea routes in his fourth (1413–1415) and fifth (1417–1419) expeditions.8 In preparation of his fourth voyage, Zheng He went in person to Xi’an to procure the assistance of Imam Hasan (掌教哈三), who knew the language(s) of Islam and could serve well as an interpreter.9 Zheng He’s purpose was not procuring wild animals.Instead, he was to carry out some secret missions, most likely to conduct some negotiations with the Timurid leaders. There were intensive diplomatic intercourses between the Timurid and the Ming empires during the Yongle period (1403–1424). Probably Zheng He securing Imam Hasan’s help and going to Hormuz personally was to execute a diplomatic task. Although no extant materials disclose anything of his untold activities in Hormuz, including a possible audience with Shah Rukh (r. 1409–1447), the Timurid sultan, we can theorise about his reasons for visiting the empire. The mission was successfully completed in his fifth expedition. Around that time, Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh was sent by Shah Rukh, overland via central Asia to China. Apparently both Shah Rukh and Emperor Yongle were happy with the diplomatic results. Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh went back to Herat by land and Zheng He to Nanjing by sea respectively.10

7 Yan Congjian 嚴從簡, Shuyu zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 (Taipei: Huawen shuju, 1968), p. 451 (about Horrmuz); cf. A. C. Moule, “Some Foreign Birds and Beasts in Chinese Books,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (Apr., 1925), pp. 247–261. 8 Zhenh He uses Xiyü and Xiyang interchangeably in his writings. 9 Liu Xu劉序, “Wanli chongxiu qingjingsu beiji 萬曆重修清淨寺碑記,” in Zheng Hesheng 鄭鶴 聲 and Zheng Yijun 鄭一鈞 ed., Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian (zengbianben) 鄭和下西洋資 料彙編（增編本）(Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 2005), vol. 1, p. 14. 10 A diary of Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh was kept for the mission. The original is in Persian. Two modern Chinese translations are consulted: The full translated one is included in Gen Sheng 耿昇 (trans.), Sichou zhi lu: Zhongguo Poshi wenhua jiaoliu shi 絲綢之路：中國－－波斯文化交 流史 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1993), pp. 33–380. The other abridged version is included in He Gaoji 何高濟 (trans.), Haitun xingji, Eduolike dongyiulu, Shahalu qiangshi Zhongguo ji 海屯行紀• 鄂多立克東游錄•沙哈魯遣使中國記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), pp. 97–144.

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Anyway, during the time of Zheng He’s seven voyages (1405–1433), the Chinese plied Asian waters smoothly. One might be curious about the disappearance of Chinese shipping in the Indian Ocean after that period. However, Chinese were seen west of the Malay Peninsula. During the turn of the eighteenth century, when Xie Qinggao 謝清高 went on board Portuguese ships, he found Fujianese Chinese workers who lived in Kedah, coming thence to collect bêche-de-mer in the Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean!11

Division of Sailing Legs among Asian Navigators After Zheng He’s expeditions were over, the Ming government enforced a strict maritime ban, prohibiting its subjects from going to sea. Nevertheless, the laws were not always abided by, and smuggling and piracy did not stop completely. As for the overseas Chinese, the Ming government did not have any say in their activities. Now and then, these overseas Chinese even dared to return China as members of the embassy of foreign countries. In 1567, Yuegang 月港 (of Haicheng 海澄) in southern Fujian was opened for overseas trading, and Chinese subjects were allowed to go abroad. At that juncture, however, Chinese shipping did not go farther than the Malacca Straits. This is, in fact, caused by the arrangement of dividing sailing legs among Asian navigators, and not due to the regression of Chinese sailing. Asian shipping had been developed for centuries. Towards the ninth century, the Chinese junks had already reached Killah (around the vicinity of modern Kedah) on the northwest coast of the Malay Peninsula. Then, in the twelfth century, they arrived at the southwest coast of the Indian subcontinent (including Kozhikode and Kollam). On the outset, their disappearance (or near disappearance) from the Indian Ocean can be considered a sign of backwardness in maritime development.12 In reality, after a long period of development of maritime activities, the Asians had discovered and invented a suitable way of cooperation and division of labor for long-distance navigation. Chinese junks, commonly departing from the southeastern coast of China (say, Fujian and Guangdong), took advantage of the northeastern monsoon to go southward, as far as the Malacca Straits, staying there for a month or so, and then making use of the early southwestern monsoon to head back

11 An Jing 安京 ed., Hailu jiaoshi 海錄校釋 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2002), p. 113. 12 Cf. Zhou Qufei 周去非, Lingwai daida 嶺外代答 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), pp. 86–88 and 90–94.

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to China. The two legs of this trip were completed in half a year or so. If they went into the Indian Ocean, they would not be able to take advantage of the monsoons, and would have to prolong their journey to more than a year. For the western part of Asian sailing routes, the Arab and Indian navigators were all excellent seafarers. They were competent to make the voyages in those parts. Therefore, the Chinese could just sail to Malacca or other ports in the vicinity to sell their wares and to procure what they wanted. The Arabs and Indians followed a similar logic. All the parties, in this way, saved time and trouble involved in making protracted voyages.13 Therefore, the Chinese stopping at the Malacca Straits should be looked on as a progress of shipping arrangements, and a rational choice. The Chinese had long paid attention to the possibility of using the monsoon to aid their sailing schedule. During Zheng He’s voyages, his teams had set up a few rendezvous points along the sailing routes. These were the “guanchang 官廠,” or official warehousing quarters in certain ports of call. One of them is at Malacca, while the other was off the Pase River, near the northwest part of Sumatra. The warehousing quarters were all in the adjacent areas of the Malacca Straits, because their locations were suitable places for waiting for the change of seasons.14 Malacca benefited by serving as one of the “guanchang”. Its rise as an important place for the exchange of merchandise coming from the east and west was noted by Tomé Pires, the Portuguese traveler. He says: Cambay (Khambhat in northwest of India) chiefly stretches out two arms, with her right arm she reaches out towards Aden and with the other towards Malacca, as the most important places to sail to.

And also: The Cambay merchants make Malacca their chief trading centre… Malacca cannot live without Cambay, nor Cambay without Malacca, if they are to be very rich and very prosperous. All the clothes and things from Gujarat have trading value in Malacca and in the kingdoms which trade with Malacca; for the products of Malacca are esteemed not only in this world, but in others, where no doubt they are wanted.15 13 K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 41, “Map 9: The pattern of emporia trade in the Indian Ocean: the triple segmentation, c. 1000–1500”. 14 The two “guangchang” appear in the so-called “Zheng He Map” (Zheng He hanghai tu 鄭和 航海圖), see Xiang Da 向達 edits and annotates, Zheng He hanghai tu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000), pp. 50 and 53. Jin Guoping 金國平 and Wu Zhiliang 吳志良 suggest there has been a third one in Kozhikode. See Jin Guoping and Wu Zhiliang, Dongxi wangyang 東西望洋 (Macau: Macao Association for Adult Education 澳門成人教育協會，2002)，pp. 212–246, esp. pp. 223–228. 15 Armando Cortesao ed., The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515 and The book of Francisco Rodrigues: Rutter

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The Chinese Navigators— Sailing Along The Coast And At High Seas The Chinese navigators were used to sail along the coast because of which they are always criticized of lacking the courage to sail at high seas. This is a misunderstanding. The reason why the Chinese preferred coastal sailing was because they enjoyed the convenience of sending a dingy ashore for fresh food and water. By doing so, the loads of junks were lessened and the crew maintained good health. They did not stay for long periods in open seas far away from the coasts, and ensured they had access to provisions. Therefore, they did not suffer from scurvy as the Europeans did, whose voyages frequently did not touch land for months. The Chinese junks as a rule carried a certain quantity of water on board. Data show that a 200-ton junk of the eighteenth century might keep a tank with a capacity of containing 15 tons of water, which would be sufficient for the use of 50 men for a month. Besides, as mentioned above, they constantly got fresh provisions from the ports. By supplementing their supplies, they also had access to fresh vegetables or even meats. In addition, the Chinese crew always carried fresh, dried, or pickled fruits as snacks. These fruits, containing vitamin C, were beneficial in preventing scurvy.16 As for the argument, that the Chinese did not dare to sail on the high seas, there is evidence on the contrary. Undoubtedly, the Chinese knew how to save time and cost by taking short cuts. For example, when their junks arrived in the area of Pulo Condor in the southernmost tip of Vietnam, unless continuing to Siam (Thailand), they would take a straight route to Pulau Tioman off the southeast tip of the Malay Peninsula. It was a sailing route that passed through high seas without any land in sight. Long before Zheng He’s voyages, the Chinese had adopted the principle of sailing along the coast if possible, but entering into the high seas right away while situations demanded it. According to Wu Zimu 吳自牧, a Southern Song (1127–1279) writer, although the capital of that dynasty was in Hangzhou, junks of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, written and drawn in the East before 1515 (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1990), . Book I, pp. 42 and 45. 16 For a good discussion of the Chinese knowledge of scurvy, see Mathieu Torck, “Travel and the Question of Provisions and Scurvy in a Chinese Context,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, no. 23 (2005), pp. 54–78. The theme is further developed in his later work. Please cf. Mathieu Torck, Avoiding the Dire Straits: An Inquiry into Food Provisions and Scurvy in the Maritime and Military History of China and Wider East Asia (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2009), esp. Ch. III, pp. 105–209, “Of Junks and Compasses: Opening the Curtain on the Food Supplies of Pre-modern Chinese Seamen.”

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leaving there only went into the high seas after passing Quanzhou far to its south. During the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), Zhou Daguan 周達觀 was commissioned to lead a  diplomatic mission to Zhenla 真臘 (Cambodia). He embarked from Mingzhou 明州 (Ningpo) in 1296 and left the coast for the high seas in Wenzhou 溫州. Mingzhou is very close to Wenzhou, and hence Zhou Daguan did not need to sail along the coast. It is because his voyage was short and he did not have to worry about fresh water and victuals. In contrast, Zheng He’s fleet left China from Liu Jiagang 劉家港, on the river mouth of the Yangtze, but chose to keep to the pelagic routes until leaving Changle 長樂 in Fujian, using the advantages of keeping to the coast before the long overseas journey.17

The Chinese Used Multiple Sailing Devices Of course, the Chinese were also leaders in other aspects involving navigational arts. These include the application of compasses for determining direction and watching the stars, for example, the Pole Star, to help find direction. During Zheng He’s expeditions, records show that he and his men were also dependent on the device of “star tethering boards (qianxingban 牽星版) to ascertain the altitude of their location. Moreover, Chinese navigators also made use of maps  – such as the renowned “Zheng He Map” (Zheng He hanghaitu 鄭和航海圖). At a glance, crafts and sailing aids in China seem to lack precision. But the Chinese rarely relied on one device only. They used compasses, routers, coastal profiles, plummet, and the like concurrently, and checked and compared the data before choosing suitable routes to follow.18 In this way, a map used for sailing on the seas could contain a variety of information such as the“Zheng He Map”. It contains words and charts of the sea routes as well as coastal profiles or landmarks on the same map, all in one. For, nothing is more important than safety. The Chinese navigators were adaptive, keen to adopt new methods to improve their sailing methods. The vocabulary of the seamen contain quite a few loan words, implying that they were receptive to new things, an attitude that would have been beneficial for enhancing the security of sailing. 17 Wu Zimu, Menglian lu 夢梁錄 (Taipei: Guangwen shuju, 1987), juan 12. For Zhou Daguan, see Chen Zhengxiang, Zhenla fengtuji yanjiu 真臘風土記研究 (Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1975). 18 Pierre-Yves Manguin, Les Portugais sur les côtes du Viêt-Nam et du Campa : Étude sur les routes maritimes et les relations commerciales, d‘après les sources portugaises (XVIe, XVIIe, XVIII siècles) (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1972).

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The Sea-worthiness of Chinese Vessels The sea-worthiness of Chinese junks has been intensively studied. The successful voyage of the Keying from Hong Kong to London – visiting New York en route is an example. There were more than a few junks that successfully sailed across the Pacific in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Research was carried out on this topic in detail by Hans K. Van Tilburg a few years ago.19 In addition, we can also cite two instances of travelers who showed their appreciation of Chinese junks. One is an observation by Father Louis Lecomte, a French Jesuit. He went to China on a Portuguese bottom, and wrote the following comment about junks around 1690: Albeit they have not perfected the Art of Navigation, no more than they have done the Sciences, yet did they understand much more of it than the Greeks and Romans; and at this Day they sail as securely as the Portuguese.20

Portuguese boasted of being the best navigators during those days, but Lecomte admitted to the safe sailing standards of Chinese junks, when compared to the Portuguese standard. Another instance of research about Chinese junks was by G. R. G. Worcester. Worcester writes: … [W]e sailors of the West owe a debt of credit of inventing the water-tight compartment, the lug-sail, the balance rudder and many other nautical devices in common use today.21

These merits are well understood by concerned researchers.

Concluding Remarks In sum, before the advent of modern shipping (particularly the invention of steamships), the Chinese enjoyed their own techniques, skills, and arts in sailing. However, after the early fifteenth century, with the stopping of maritime

19 Hans K. Van Tilburg, Chinese Junks on the Pacific: Views from a Different Deck (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007). 20 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, pt. 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 603. 21 G. R. G. Worcester, The Junkman Smiles (London: Chatto and Windus, 1959), p. 10.

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expeditions, a maritime ban was proclaimed. The government did little to encourage maritime activities. Even after the maritime ban was lifted in 1567, the subjects of China had to count on themselves for a safe voyage. The indifference of the government was possibly a reason for the lag in maritime development in comparison with the Europeans in the premodern era.

Ronald C. PO

7 The Pearl by the Bohai Sea: Qinhuangdao in the Early Modern Period Introduction In an in-class survey I asked my students to select the most familiar port city of early modern China. About 45% of them chose Canton, 22% chose Shanghai, 9% chose Macau, and the remainder picked Fuzhou, Hong Kong, Suzhou, and Xiamen (popularly known as Amoy in the west). To be honest, these result did not surprise me at all. All were renowned port towns where Chinese and foreign traders fostered the exchanges of commodities and ideas since the late sixteenth century, which some scholars considered it the onset of globalization.1 These cities have been studied extensively by historians, anthropologists, social scientists, and even politicians over the past few decades, especially in the West. From John King Fairbank (1907–1991) to William Skinner (1925–2008) and then Leonard Blussé and Paul van Dyke, the significance and histories of these places have been beautifully delineated and analyzed.2 Without question, all of these sea 1 A significant group of scholars, influenced by Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel (1902–1985), date the beginning of globalization to the sixteenth century. They tend to believe that the discovery of America, the expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires and the rise of an essentially global trading network mark the beginning of the new era. See Geoffrey C. Gunn, First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500 to 1800 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefiled Publishers, Inc., 2003); Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson (eds.), Globalization: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); and Howard J. Erlichman, Conquest, Tribute, and Trade: The Quest for Precious Metals and the Birth of Globalization (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2010). In addition to the Euro-American achievements, some historians argue that China in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries also helped foster the wave of globalization. See, for instance, Serge Gruzinski, The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), pp. 1–6; Dennis Owen Flynn and Arturo Giráldez, China and the Birth of Globalization in the 16th Century (London: Ashgate Variorum, 2010); and Timothy Brook, Vermeers Hat: The Seventeenth Century and The Dawn Of The Global World (London: Profile Book, 2009). 2 See John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1953); George William Skinner and Hugh D. R. Baker, The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977); Leonard Blussé, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700–1845 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005). Of course, John E. Wills Jr., Franois Gipouloux, Angela Schottenhammer, and many other maritime historians also https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-008

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ports were remarkable hubs bridging China and the world within a trans-regional maritime context. A variety of factors, including geographical location, contributed to this rise. Attentive readers should have no trouble locating all of them on the map, situated as they are along the coast of southeast China (dongnan yanhai東南沿海). Due to its geographical proximity linking China to the Malay Archipelago, South Asia, and other international markets, the coast of Southeast China became a magnet that attracted overseas travelers from afar. These cities, especially Canton – the wonder of the Far East – became the nexus for foreign trade headquarters and offices to conduct business with Chinese and other Asian merchants.3 The vibrancy and promise of sea trade along the southeast requires little rationalization,4 but does it mean that the northeastern coast of China, referring to coastal area north of Shanghai, lay motionless during the rapid and extensive expansion of trans-regional sea trade of the early modern period? Had the northeast never participated in the process of proto-globalization during the long eighteenth century? Despite the disparity between sea trade in the southeast and northeast, would it be possible to have a comprehensive picture of coastal China while disregarding the latter? These are the questions that underlie this paper. To evaluate the significance of sea ports in northeast China during the long eighteenth century, this paper will examine the history and function of a port city in the Northeast called Qinhuangdao 秦皇島 as a case study. Compared to the more popular northeastern port cities of Tianjin and Dalian, Qinhuangdao is smaller in size and probably less known.5 Yet it was not inconsequential to sea trade and trans-cultural interactions in the early modern period. Over the long eighteenth century, it was one of the busiest seaports in Zhili 直隸 prefecture (now Hebei 河北 province), connecting the Bohai 渤海 market to the wider maritime world. The played an important role in the articulation of the studies of these port cities, see, for instance, John E. Wills Jr. (ed.), China and Maritime Europe, 1500–1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Franois Gipouloux (ed.), The Asian Mediterranean: Port Cities and Trading Networks in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th–21st Century (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2011); Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), Trading Networks in Early Modern East Asia (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010). 3 Valery M. Garrett, Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away: Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), back-cover of the book. 4 For detailed discussion, see Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 57; Craig Lockard, Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History (Stanford: Cengage Learning, 2008), p. 632; Takeshi Hamashita, “Editor’s Introduction,” in China, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives (Oxon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 1–11. 5 The size of Qinhuangdao is about 7,812 km2, while the size of Tianjin is 11,760 km2, Dalian 13,237 km2. For details, see Britannica Educational Publishing, The Geography of China: Sacred and Historic Places (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2011).

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port received and dispatched a constant flow of people and information as well as commodities and ships that circulated around the Bohai Sea and other maritime markets. The merchants from Zhili, and particularly Qinhuangdao, forged commercial ties throughout the Northeast, as well as the East and South China Seas. Unlike southeastern port cities such as Canton and Macau that fostered a “East-West global transshipment” across East and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe, Qinhuangdao served as a supporting, regional port city that consolidated the “NorthSouth maritime bond” linking Northeast Asia to Southeast China. This north-south bond was in fact an integral part of the process of proto-globalization with multiple and overlapping economic and cultural spheres in East Asia and beyond.

The Bohai Sea and the City If we focus upon the classic Skinner model mapping the nine loosely linked, but largely distinct, macro-regions of China, it is observable that 5 out of 9 regions are attached to the sea; whereas 2 out of the 5 coastal regions are in Northeast China (see Figure 1).6 Likewise, in Mark Elvin’s “Schematic Model of China” (see Figure 2), 5 out of 10 schematic regions are adjacent to the sea. In fact, if we move beyond the Skinnerian or Elvin paradigms, the Qing empire (1644–1912) during the early modern period also mapped the sea space according to their political concerns. One of the examples is that the Qing tended to divide its maritime frontier into separate yet connecting maritime sectors using the concept of dividing lines (fenjie 分界) in a set of haitu, literally translated as maritime diagrams but we might also name them as coastal maps. For instance, as illustrated in a rare scroll entitled the Qisheng yanhai tu 七省沿海圖 (a coastal map of the seven provinces), the northern and southern parts of the Bohai Sea were divided by the “Zhili-Shandong fenjie,” while the sea spaces off the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong by the “Fujian-Guangdong fenjie” (see Figures 3 and 4). According to this dividing model exemplified in the coastal map, three maritime sectors, namely the northern Bohai, southern Bohai, and Shandong sea space were three pieces of maritime territories attaching to the Northeast. Among these three maritime sectors, the Bohai Sea is of particular concern in this paper not only because it helps us shift our academic focus from south to north, but also because the Qing court valued this piece of maritime territory in a more deliberate and proactive manner than is commonly assumed. 6 William G. Skinner, “Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth Century,” in The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 212–215.

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Figure 1: The Skinnerian Model. Source: William G. Skinner, “Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China,” in Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), p. 215.

Also known as the Bohai Gulf or simply the Bo Gulf, the Bohai Sea is the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea in Northeast China, bordering the Liaoning peninsula to the east and the Shandong peninsula to the south. It covers an area of 823,000

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Figure 2: Elvin’s “Schematic Model of China”. Source: Mark Elvin’s Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 2.

km2, and the river basins that drain into it account for 1.6 million km2.7 In the Declaration on the Territorial Sea promulgated by the People’s Republic of China in 1958, the PRC government declared that the Bohai Sea was its “definite internal sea (wuke zhengyi de neihai 無可爭議的內海),” assertively avowing that the sea belongs to China since ancient times. Even though the Korean and other foreign

7 Alan E. M. Nairn, Francis G. Stehli, and Seiya Uyeda, The Ocean Basins and Margins (New York: Plenum Press, 1988), “Bohai Gulf”; David G. Roberts and A.W. Bally (ed.), Regional Geology and Tectonics: Phanerozoic Rift Systems and Sedimentary Basins (Asterdam: Elsevier BV, 2012), pp. 212–214.

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Figure 3: Zhili-Shandong fenjia (Qisheng yanhaitu; late 18th century version). Source: Library of Congress.

powers might not be entirely satisfied with the Declaration,8 the Chinese maintain significant national security interests in the Bohai Sea because it was the nearest maritime gateway leading to their capital region (in the past, the imperial belt [jingji 京畿]). In spite of its strategic preeminence, the Bohai area was also the center of the Northeast Asian economic sphere as well as the “middle ground” where Chinese (from both north and south China), Japanese, Korean, Manchu, and Russian traders exchanged goods and ideas. Even nowadays, the Bohai zone maintains a series of substantial links with the Yangtze region, the Pearl delta, and Southeast Asia to the south, and with the Korean Bay, the Sea of Japan, and the eastern part of Russia to the north.9 8 The Declaration was protested by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1958. See Keyuan Zou, Law of the Sea in East Asia: Issues and Prospects (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 145. 9 Kenneth Pomeranz, The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 38; Russell Ong, China’s Security Interests in the 21st Century (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 88–89.

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Figure 4: Shandong-Jiangsu fenjia (Qisheng yanhaitu; 19th century version). Source: Library of Congress.

There were approximately 20 port cities surrounding the Bohai Sea in the Qing period. Among them Qinhuangdao was one of the busiest due to its favorable harbour condition and strategic location. The shelter and the depth of water afforded in the Qinhuangdao harbour was suitable for large merchant vessels in the past and ocean liners in modern times.10 At present Qinhuangdao remains the largest coal exporting city in China, much of which is shipped to power plants elsewhere in the country. Its propitious conditions even attract overseas port operators such as the Richard Bay Coal Terminal from South Africa to further invest and expand its sea port capacity.11 In addition to its outstanding harbour condition, Qinhuangdao is a rising industrial city having the largest glass industrial manufacturing group, the most important aluminum processing base, as well as the leading factory for vehicle wheel in East Asia.12

10 Zhang Beili 張蓓莉 (ed.), Qinhuangdao: Bohai wan mingzhu 秦皇島：渤海灣明珠 (Jinan: Shandong huabao chubanshe, 2004), p. 1. 11 “Combined coal stocks at China’s key Bohai sea,” Port News (21 April, 2015) [http:// www.hellenicshippingnews.com/combined-coal-stocks-at-chinas-key-bohai-sea-ports-fall-6-5on-week-apr-19/]. 12 Qinhuangdao shangjian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 秦皇島商檢志編纂委員會 (ed.), Qinhuangdao shangjian zhi 秦皇島商檢志 (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2000), pp. 7–10.

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However, to most of the foreign visitors, Qinhuangdao may be less familiar than Suzhou or Guangzhou, the famed centers of Jiangnan and Guangdong cultures, which feature on so many tourist routes. But to people in northeast China and especially the natives in Hebei, Qinhuangdao carries rich historical associations and significance.13 A time-honored city named after the first emperor of China, Qinhuangdao had been visited by legendary monarchs such as Han Wudi 漢武帝 (r. 141–87BC), Wei Wudi 魏武帝 (155–220), and Tang Taizong 唐太 宗 (r.  626–649). Yet at that time, those emperors had to sailed across a narrow waterway to reach Qinhuangdao as it was an island located less than a kilometer off the coast of Zhili. As recorded in the Shanhaiguan zhi and the Chang’an kehua 長安客話, Qinhuangdao was originally “surrounded by waters (simian jie shui 四面皆水).” Geologists have proofs that it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that Qinhuangdao gradually became a peninsula through the processes of sediment exchange. Even if Qinhuangdao was an island in the eighteenth century, it did not diminish its importance as a port city within the Bohai region. Given its long history, some archeologists have argued that Qinhuangdao was first settled in the remote past.14 The discoveries of remains of Paleolithic men in the area testify to their footsteps of sheltered sites in the district, but little evidence exists to prove the presence of any other very early settlement on the island. But we are certain that, from the Han period (206BC–220), over the centuries geo-political factors became critical determinants of the historical development of this small port city. Its geographic position with regard to the main sea routes to the Bohai Sea allowed imports of tea, copper, silk, and pottery, which were balanced by exports of local produce such as fish, sea salt, and fruits. In fact, the coastal waters near Qinhuangdao have been described as one of the most important fishing grounds in China since the early imperial era.15 The importance of fishing and fish-drying products to countries including Korea, Japan, and the Ryukyu Kingdom should not be overlooked. Taking all these factors into account, the population of Qinhuangdao were forced and attracted to a seafaring life. The coastal trade of the Qinhuangdao vessels soon extended to the seawater south of Shandong and even further to Southeast Asia by the Tang period (618–907). The city in the Song era (960–1279), however, seems to have lost its importance in foreign sea trade. The Northern Song government banned foreign 13 Qinhuangdao shi wenhuaju 秦皇島市文化局 (ed.), Qinhuangdao mingsheng guji chuanshuo 秦皇島名勝古蹟傳說 (Beijing: Beijing tiyu xueyuan chubanshe, 1987), pp. 1–6. 14 Gao Yuan 高遠 and Yun Yi 允義, Qinhuangdao shihua 秦皇島史話 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2001). 15 Huang Jinghai 黃景海 (ed.), Qinhuangdao gangshi: Gu, Jindai bufen 秦皇島港史：古近代部 分 (Beijing: Renmin jiaotong chubanshe, 1985), pp. 107–108.

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vessels from landing in Qinhuangdao out of fear that the arriving merchants would support the expansive Liao state in the north by shipping weapons and other supplies through the city. In the southern Song period, the Song court kept banning maritime contacts between north and south out of fear that the Liao would attack the southeast using merchant vessels.16 Needless to say, the enduring war throughout the Song period must have had a serious effect on the port town. Even the fishing industry had declined. The means of livelihood for many of the people living in the city during troubled times was probably smuggling and pirating, though these activities later developed into quite an industry along the shore of Zhili and the Liaodong peninsula. During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), Qinhuangdao regained its importance in shipping and coasting trade. Its geographical location remained the magnet for overseas traders interested in the Northeast China market. Apart from fostering foreign sea trade between China, Korea, and Japan, Qinhuangdao served as a port for the transportation of grain boats from South China. Its location on the north-south coastal route made it the equivalent of Zhejiang and Suzhou for North China in the thirteenth century. This period saw the consolidation of the function of the town as a sea port of the Northeast.17 However, during the Yuan, Qinhuangdao was not the only sea port solely reinforcing the North-South bond. Together with the developments of Dengzhou 登州 and Jinzhou 錦州, the Bohai Sea was more than a contact zone and also a competing ground for these port cities. Each of the three had tended to keep its own individuality, and remained as the key trading hub. Qinhuangdao struggled for a while in order to better position itself in the Bohai market. By the Ming time (1368–1644), the trade of the port could probably be divided into three categories, firstly the supply of grain and military products to the dockyards in the Northeast; secondly, general supplies, mostly to and from the cities and its hinterland; and thirdly, the passenger traffic from Zhili to the Liaodong peninsula as well as to Korea and Japan. Fishing was now of minor importance; scattered along the shore of Qinhuangdao were the remains of numerous curing cellars which indicate a period of former prosperity. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that the city witnessed a temporary revival of its fishing industry. The above discussion, though admittedly brief, is sufficient to show that Qinhuangdao, despite its smaller size and population, was an important port town which played a major role in the maritime history of Northeast China in the pre-Qing 16 Zhang Zhaodong 張照東, Song Yuan Shandong quyu jingji yanjiu 宋元山東區域經濟研究 (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2006), pp. 175–180. 17 Qinhuangdao shi renmin zhengfu 秦皇島市人民政府 (ed.), Meili furao de Qinhuangdao 美麗 富饒的秦皇島 (Qinhuangdao: Dadi fazhan gongsi, 2001), p. 42.

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epoch. Qinhuangdao’s continuous economic development from the Tang to the Ming, due to a set of geo-political factors, is also observable. Now it is essential to discuss in more detail the means and extent to which Qinhuangdao was maintained as a significant sea port within the high Qing18 maritime governing policies during the long eighteenth century. Before we move onto the discussion of this port city in the early modern period, it is necessary to bring forth a theoretical approach with regard to port cities and their functions in the era of proto-globalization.

On Port City Since at least from the time of Christ, ports have been connecting bridges for the exchange of commodities. Chinese ports in the Qin-Han eras, for instance, had been key participants in trans-regional sea trade. Silk, porcelain, and other exports prized for their refined and sophisticated craftsmanship traveled as far as the shores of the Atlantic world.19 In exchange, China received spices, precious materials, and exotic merchandise from port to port along the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea.20 Within this trans-regional market, ports played an important role for centuries. Yet, beginning in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is worth noticing that there emerged port cities/ port towns. By and large, port and port cities did not mean exactly the same thing; or we may say that they did not look alike. As Frank Broeze insightfully points out that a port city may be a port, while a port may not necessarily be a port city.21 In the simplest sense, a port city isn’t only a connecting place where commodities are imported and exported, it is a contact zone where transcultural interactions take place. A port city also stands apart from a port due to its urban composition.22 The spatial structure and urban landscape of a port city are usually more layered and complicated owing to 18 Frederic Wakeman, Jr., “High Qing: 1683–1839,” in James B. Crowley (ed.), Modern East Asia: Essays in Interpretation (Harcourt Publishers Group Ltd., 1970), pp. 1–28. 19 See Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (New York: Norton, 2000); Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World-System, AD 1250–1350 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) and Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 20 Qiu Jin 丘進, Zhongguo yu Luoma: Handai zhongxi guanxi yanjiu 中國與羅馬：漢代中西關係 研究 (Guangdong: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1990), p. 2. 21 Frank Broeze, Brides of the Sea: Port Cities of Asia from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), pp. 1–18. 22 David H. Sacks and Michael Lynch, “Ports, 1540–1700,” in Peter Clark (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. II, 1540–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 379.

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the following features: First, the urban morphology of a port city has a cityscape with particular buildings or spaces that dominated the city, such as dockyards, warehouse, customs office, inns, and pubs. Second, a port city can also be identified by various group of sheltered socio-economic communities. The people that make up such a community can be very diverse, ranging from government officials, (local or foreign) merchants, agents, interpreters, shopkeepers, restaurant owners, shipbuilders, sailors, unskilled labourers, to even pirates and smugglers. Another symbolic feature that distinguishes port cities from ports is the interconnection between port cities and the hinterland. Throughout the early modern period, in China and elsewhere, most port cities were not able to maintain their importance without the hinterland. Hinterland referred to the rural area surrounding or attaching to the port city. Yet maritime historians have gone further from such a definition. Raymond Gillespie and David Ringrose have asserted that the hinterland is the space where a port city has exerted its influence via various conduits.23 As such, the hinterland area is not limited by a particular geographical confinement. To give an example, the “hinterland connection” of Canton in the early modern period might well expand to Jingdezhen, the manufacturing site of exported pottery, as well as to the Yunnan region, the basket of Dianhong tea. In spite of the interconnection between port cities and the hinterland, Rhoads Murphey reminds us that port cities are different from other inland and hinterland cities in terms of their economic, social, political and cultural developments. For Murphey, the difference between a port city and other type of cities is predominantly determined by the function of a port city. He defines “port function” as follows: The true port city by definition links very distant maritime spaces, and this is the reason for what is perhaps its most noticeable characteristic. Ports are inclusive, cosmopolitan, while the inland is much less varied, much more exclusive, single faceted rather than diverse… Port functions, more than anything else, make a city cosmopolitan…A port city is open to the world, or at least to a varied section of it. In it races, cultures, and ideas as well as goods from a variety of places jostle, mix, and enrich each other and the life of the city. The smell of the sea and the harbor, still to be found…in all of them, like the sound of boat whistles or the moving tides, is a symbol of their multiple links with a wider world, samples of which are present in microcosm within their own urban areas.24

23 Raymond Gillespie, “Dublin 1600–1700: A City and Its Hinterlands,” in Peter Clark and Bernard Lepetit (eds.), Capital Cities and Their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe (Brookfield: Ashgate Pub. Co., 1996), pp. 58–66; David R. Ringrose, “Metropolitan Cities as Parasites,” in Erik Aerts and Peter Clark (eds.), Metropolitan Cities and their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990), pp. 21–38. 24 Rhoads Murphey, “On the Evolution of the Port City,” in Frank Broeze (ed.), Brides of the Sea: Port Cities of Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1989), p. 225.

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Without question, the theoretical approach in regard to port function could make port cities stand out from other types of cities, and the theorization of Murphey is compelling enough for us to better situate port cities in the wider discourse of urbanization. Yet Murphey came up with his theory primarily by focusing upon port cities in Southeast Asia and Western Europe; he did not pay particular attention to the East Asian Sea, let alone the Northeast Asian seawater. In examining the differences between hinterland and port cities, his dichotomization also prevented him from integrating the importance of the “hinterland connection” entailed in port cities into his theory. Therefore, what I attempt to do in the following section is to problematize our understanding of this theoretical framework on port functions using the history of Qinhuangdao in the high Qing as an example.

Port Functions of Qinhuangdao The port function of Qinhuangdao is very much subject to its geographical and strategic location. First of all, it is noticeable that the city was situated close enough to the imperial belt and the homeland of the Manchu ruling elite. Therefore, the port function of Qinhuangdao was in fact more policy-driven and state-oriented than most of the other port cities, say, a typical port town along the Taiwan Strait. At the time when the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661) asserted the importance of the Bohai Sea and the Shenjing region in the Shandong, Zhili, Shengjing haijiang tu 山東直隸盛京海疆圖 (Diagram of the maritime frontier of Shandong, Zhili, and Shenjing; see Figure 5), the city was already considered to be one of the strategic corridors to the open sea and the sensitive region surrounding the Qing capital. All commercial activities within the city was strictly monitored and regulated by the imperial government. Unlike most of the port cities in the south, Qinhuangdao was guarded by a garrison of soldiers, mostly Manchu bannermen, and a navy. The city was hence not merely a trading hub but a military harbor (jungang 軍港); and perhaps this was the key feature that differentiated the city from those in the southeast during the long eighteenth century. Another port city in the Bohai sector holding both trading and military functions in a similar fashion was Dengzhou – another small city located in the northern part of the Shandong peninsula, even though the military importance of Dengzhou remarkably exceeded its economic importance in the high Qing.25 25 See Dengzhou gugang shi bianwei hui 登州古港史編委會, Dengzhou gugang shi 登州古港史 (Beijing: Renmin jiaotong chubanshe, 1994).

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Figure 5: Part of the Shandong, Zhili, Shengjing haijiang tu. Source: Library of Congress.

Qinhuangdao was not only politically and strategically important, it was also a port town tying up three provinces with distinctive cultural practices, namely Shandong, Zhili, and Fengtian. Many people are under the impression that these three provinces are very similar since we used to call them the Northeast (Dongbei 東北) in general, but in fact, if you have once visited these places, you will be able to realize that it is a kind of fallacy to lump these provinces together. Closely located near the coast of Zhili, Qinhuangdao was unquestionably and directly influenced by the Zhili (or Hebei) culture, which had a national reputation as “exporters” of talented generals, craftsmen, and merchants.26 Yet due to its favorable harbor condition, the city maintained a strong historical connection with both Shandong 山東 and Fengtian 奉天 (Liaoning 遼寧) since the Three Kingdoms period (220–280). From time to time, Qinhuangdao even acted as the springboard for internal migration from Zhili to the other two provinces, as well as the other way round.27 These particular hinterlands’ connections thus made the city more unique and diverse in its urban composition. It is, however, worth pointing out that Qinhuangdao underwent a series of ups and downs in the early Qing. When the sea blockade policy was promulgated by the central government during the Shunzhi and the Kangxi eras (1661–1722), the 26 See Han Panshan 韓盼山, Li Yuanjie 李遠杰 (eds.), Hebei ming ren xiao zhuan 河北名人小傳 (Shijiazhuan: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1984). 27 Huang Jinghai (ed.), Qinhuangdao gangshi: Gu, Jindai bufen, p. 106.

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city was no different from a wasteland. All commercial networks were forcefully wiped out and there was a massive decline in population. The sea ban strategy may have some positive outcomes, but the process entailed painful costs. Similar to the coastal area of Fujian and Zhejiang during the trying period, Qinhuangdao bore the consequences brought on by the embargo policy. It was not until the time when the Kangxi emperor decided to lift the ban in late 1683 that the vulnerability was remedied. Together with Tianjin in Zhili, Ningbo in Zhejiang, Yuntaishan in Jiangsu, Zhangzhou in Fujian, Qinhuangdao was one of the port cities in northeastern China that was (re)opened to maritime trade, where merchants were allowed to conduct business and reside in the city as usual (ti qiqing er xu qi lao, qie nanfang huowu jie ke pianji 體其情而恤其勞，且南方貨物皆可駢集).28 Although a distinct customs office was never established in Qinhuangdao, the Zhili governor was assigned to regulate and supervise all manner of trading activities. Compared to newly opened sea ports in the south, which attracted large numbers of western and Southeast Asian traders, Qinhuangdao had a smaller volume of trade. This is partly because it was not profitable enough for western and Southeast Asian traders, coming mostly sailing from the Strait of Malacca, to sail north if they could conduct their business in Canton. But this does not mean that Qinhuangdao lacked economic significance as a sea port in trans-regional sea trade at that time. As briefly introduced in the previous section, Qinhuangdao had the good fortune of being located at the nexus of numerous trade routes connecting the Bohai region and the northeast Asian market. The development of local commerce, grain trade, sea salt production, and transportation during the eighteenth century contributed significantly to sustaining Qinhuangdao during this period and combined to revive its economy after the economic downturn of the late seventeenth century. Emperor Kangxi’s lifting of the sea ban promoted the development of coastal ports by legalizing ocean shipping and permitting increased opportunities for maritime business. Kangxi’s proclamations also served to strengthen government control of trade and produce tax revenues. Among the new regulations, laws that monitored and taxed the newly legalized sea trade were rigorously enforced. The emperor issued this imperial edict in 1683, Without a regular means of collection, levying duties would trouble maritime traders, who would be subject to extortion from customs officials. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the same system in coastal regions as in inland regions and appoint special officials to deal with related affairs.29 28 Huang Pengnian 黃彭年, et al., Jifu tongzhi 畿輔通志 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1985), “caoyun 2,” “haiyun.” 29 Cited from Jin Duanbiao, Liuhe zhen jilue, in Zhongguo xiangzhen zhi jichen (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1992), juan 3, 14b. This passage is translated by Gang Zhao.

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The Kangxi Emperor thus appointed two Manchu officials, Igeertu and Wushiba, as the first heads of the Guangdong 廣東 (Guangzhou 廣州, Xiangshan 香山, and Macau) and Fujian 福建 (Fuzhou 福州, Nantai 南台, and Xiamen 廈門) commissions, while two more customs offices were established in Zhejiang 浙江 (Ningbo 寧波 and Dinghai 定海) and Jiangsu 江蘇 (Huating 華亭 and Shanghai 上海) over the subsequent three years. The establishment of the new customs structure suggests that the Qing was keenly aware that the trading patterns and dynamics of the maritime frontier were different from those of land and river regions.30 Even though Qinhuangdao was not one the four main customs bureaus opened in the Kangxi era, it was similar to the seaports where custom offices were located. The seafront was covered with warehouses encircled by storage yards. Surrounding them were competing companies established by Chinese managers and intermediaries serving other foreign traders. As shown in the Yongping Gazetteer, “[the Qinhuangdao harbor] anchored more than a thousand vessels yearly from Shandong, Liaoning, and other provinces.”31 Merchants from Qinhuangdao were also active in other port cities. As the Changli Gazetteer records, “merchants sailed and traded with us in Dengzhou from a place where is located 800 li away from us [indicating Qinhuangdao] (duian qiang fan babai li, youren polang dao Dengzhou 對岸檣泛八百里，有人破浪到登州).”32 In the Jifu Tongzhi 畿輔通志, it is clearly stated that “[Qinhuangdao and other Bohai port cities] were places supporting the Jiangnan-Zhejiang region; as a result, the customs offices can increase its revenue, this is hence the way to make our people affluent (kezai beihuo yi zi Jiang-Zhe, shangxia haiguan ju ke duozheng shuike, youyu guomin 可載北貨以資 江浙，上下海關俱可多征稅課，尤裕國民).”33 From this information gathered from gazetteers and regional chronicles, we can have a sense that the economy of Qinhuangdao was gradually reviving after the sea ban was lifted. Especially during the Qianlong period (r. 1735–1796), when the eight trade routes were found along the coast,34 the seafront of Qihuangdao was covered with both official and 30 See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean: China Maritime Policies, 1684–1757 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014); Yao Meilin 姚梅琳, Zhongguo haiguan shihua 中國海關史話 (Beijing: Zhongguo haiguan chubanshe, 2005), p. 108. 31 Huang Jinghai (ed.), Qinhuangdao gangshi: Gu, Jindai bufen, p. 106. 32 Chen Yushi 陳雨時 (ed.), Changli xian zhi 昌黎縣志 (Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 1992), p. 144. 33 Huang Pengnian, et al., Jifu tongzhi, “caoyun 2,” “haiyun.” 34 In his textured analyses of coastal sea trade in eighteenth century China, Huang Guosheng astutely identify the eight prominent regional networks in the mid-eighteenth century: (1) The first was from Fujian to Taiwan, dealing with the exchange of Taiwanese rice, sugar, oil, and deer products for porcelain, clothes, salt, and iron from the mainland. (2) The second was a short-distance route between Fujian and Guangdong, wherein Fujian traders, mostly from Futai,

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non-official merchant houses and storage yards. Surrounding them were Chinese businessmen and intermediaries from various huiguan 海關 serving Chinese from other provinces, and sometimes Korean, Manchu, and Japanese traders.35 Throughout the eighteenth century Qinhuangdao’s trans-regional sea trade was based on the following major commodities – grain, sea salt, fishery products, fruits, and walnuts – as well as small amounts of other agricultural products. Trade was volatile, and dependent on the interrelated factors of geopolitics and the vicissitudes of the North-South economy. Precise statistics are hard to come by, but the trade between Qinhuangdao and other cities was rather more constant during the second half of the eighteenth century, when it averaged 45% of the total volume of trade across Northeast China.36 According to gazetteers and local chronicles from Zhili, Fengtian, and Shandong, Qinhuangdao’s sea trade was highest between the 1770s and 1780s. In spite of these promising figures, the overall value of Qinhuangdao’s trade to the Bohai market reduced steadily throughout the

shipped rice, wheat, and ox-bones to Guangzhou in exchange for miscellaneous products. (3) The third route operated between Fujian and the Jiangzhe region, wherein Taiwan and Fujian traders carried sugar products to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and brought back olives, oils, fir, cotton cloth, silk, satins, and yarn. (4) The fourth route linked Fujian and the Bohai region, wherein southern traders transported sugar, paper, pottery, pepper, and wood products in exchange for bean dough, melons, red pears, yellow beans, medicines, and salt meat. (5) The fifth ran between Guangdong and the Jiangzhe region, wherein sugar products and pines from Guangdong were shipped to Jiangsu in return for cotton, local silks, and a quantity of bean dough (imported from Tianjin). (6) The sixth was from Guangdong to Shandong and Tianjin, the longest domestic maritime trade route, wherein traders from the north carried yellow beans, wheat, and bean dough to Guangdong in exchange for pottery, paper, and sugar goods. (7) The seventh connected the Jiangzhe coast (Jiangsu, Zhejiang) and the Bohai Bay (Fengtian, Shandong), wherein Bohai traders brought bean dough and wheat to Shanghai, and yellow beans, green cakes, pears, and melons to Ningbo and Zhenhai, in exchange for tea, cotton, and southern silk products. (8) The eighth and final route was the shortest sea route, linking Jiangnan and Zhejiang, which focused on the exchange of Jiangnan porcelain for Zhejiang pears, tofu, and walnuts. See Huang Guosheng, “The Chinese Maritime Customs in Transition, 1750–1830,” in Wang Gungwu and Ng Chin-keong (eds.), Maritime China in Transition, 1750–1850 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004), pp. 169–190. 35 For further discussion, see Ma Ye 馬野, Huan Bo Hai jingji yanjiu 環渤海經濟研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo jihua chubanshe), and Xu Tan, “Qianlong Daoguang nianjian de Beiyang maoyi yu Shanghai de jueqi,” Academy Monthly, vol. 11 (2011), pp. 147–154; Fan Jinmin 范金民, “Qingdai qianqi Fujian shangren de yanhai beicao maoyi 清代前期福建的沿海北漕貿易,” MinTai wenhua yanjiu 閩台文化研究, vol. 34 (2013), pp. 5–22; Zhang Haifeng 張海峰, Qingdai Shandong Shangren beifang shangmao huodong de lishi dili yanjiu 清代山東商人北方商貿活動的歷史地理研究 (Ocean Unviersity of China; Master Thesis, 2010). 36 See Xiao Yishan蕭一山, Qingdai tongshi 清代通史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), “gesheng guanshui biao.”

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1790s. Competing cities located in Northeast China, such as Tianjin 天津, Jinzhou, Niuzhuang 牛莊, and Jiaozhou 膠州, replaced Qinhuangdao in importance.37 For example, due to its rapid economic development, Tianjin gradually became the major port of entry and departure for products and coastal traffic in what is today the East China Sea region.38 By the early nineteenth century, Tianjin and Port Arthur also received imports from Korea and Japan.39 Beginning in the 1800s, the volume of trade in Tianjin surpassed that of Qinhuangdao and other smaller port cities in the Bohai region by a significant percentage. Yet due to its strategic importance and geographical location, Qinhuangdao was still considered a valuable, appealing pearl to the British, French, and Russian. The British Admiral George Elliot (1784–1863) began to survey Qinhuangdao a few years before the outbreak of the First Opium War,40 while the French and the Russian did not get tired of assessing this port city.41 Hence the history of Qinhuangdao in the mid and late nineteenth centuries significantly extended its transcultural interactions beyond the circle of trade with Korea and Japan to those of diverse and broad scope. The intercultural interactions that resulted from this Sino-European encounters are certainly worthy of investigation in future research.

Lighting the Bohai Sea The Bohai Sea experienced the explosive growth in shipping traffic following the abolishment of the embargo policy. Numerous sea charts and guidebooks to navigating the intricate waterways of the area appeared during this period, describing winds, currents, depths, storms, seamarks, as well as the locations of isles and reefs for the merchantmen and sailors.42 Some maritime writers and gazetteers’ 37 See Geng Sheng 耿昇, Liu Fengming 劉鳳鳴, Zhang Shoulu 張守祿, Dengzhou yu haishang sichou zhilu 登州與海上絲綢之路 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2009), “introduction.” 38 Hou Guoben 侯國本, Jiaozhouwan gangkou gongneng 膠州灣港口功能 (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1993), pp. 4–5. 39 Nankai daxue Jiaozhou lishi wenhua yanjiu zhongxin 南開大學膠州歷史文化研究中心, Jiaozhou lishi wenhua chutan 膠州歷史文化初探 (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 2007). 40 Wenqing 文慶, et al., Chouban yiwu shimo: Daoguang chao 籌辦夷務始末：道光朝 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1970), pp. 460–480; Chien-nung Li, Ssu-yu Teng, Jeremy Ingalls, The Political History of China, 1840–1928 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1956), pp. 35–40. 41 Jia Zhen 賈楨, et al., Chouban yiwu shimo: Xianfeng chao 籌辦夷務始末：咸豐朝 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1970), pp. 1564–1579. 42 For details, see Liang Erping, Haiyang ditu: Zhongguo gudai haiyang ditu juyao (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian (Xianggang) youxian gongsi, 2015); Hsu Mei-Ling, “Chinese Marine Cartography: Sea Charts of Pre-Modern China,” Imago Mundi, vol. 40 (1988), pp. 96–112.

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compilers also indicated how important maritime commerce became to people across the the Bohai region. The result was a milieu in which the “Bohai sea merchants,” including Qinhuangdao’s, were highly involved in maritime commerce. As discussed earlier, their vessels ran east to Japan and Korea, and south to the coast of Southeast China and the Malaysian archipelago. With the increase in traffic came an increase in maritime disasters, as more and more vessels foundered in these seaways. Across the Bohai area – which was considered one of the most dangerous sea zones in East Asia, it was documented that in the late Ming and early Qing, merchant ships were often wrecked on unseen rocks and reefs or ran aground off the coast.43 Even though disasters at sea involving storms, currents, and other mishaps remained common, poorly lit or scantily charted coasts caused most of the accidents. This was true both near large port cities and in more remote locales. Along the coastline of the Bohai Sea, accidents near Qinhuangdao were more frequent. In addition to the shallow water surrounding Qinhuangdao, accounts say that the seawater off the coast of this port city was misty and foggy. Assisting vessels during fog was a serious problem that had to be faced both by sea merchants and fishermen. In this period of shipping, the only information to assist a seafarer in finding his way from one point or another was using clearly defined coastal characteristics or observations of the sun, moon, and stars. Furthermore, the practice of navigation was different for the warship, with skilled personnel and elaborate instruments, compared to navigation for a mercantile vessel, with her not very well-trained crew members. A fishing vessel or a small local craft did not have access to operate or even know how to operate many of the fine instruments that could be obtained. From the information of those sea charts and guidebooks detailing most of the seamarks such as the Dongnan yang hanghai tu 東南洋航海圖 (see Figure 6), a seaman set down his proposed path across the seawaters, deciding where his course was to be changed and in what directions he was to proceed. When there was fog, all seamarks and indications were almost blotted out. As late as the Daoguang period, the Zhili official thus called the lighting situation along the coast of Qinhuangdao an alarming risk and asked how such a situation could persist when the Qing court sought to protect vessels in the sea.44 Better lighting of the chancy Bohai was therefore seen by both the Qing court and the merchants as an imperative act to be undertaken in the interest of shipping generally and empire specifically. The Bohai’s first light was thence erected in Qinhuangdao, in the 1820s, with others soon following on the coasts of the 43 Haiyang tuji bianwei hui 海洋圖集編委會 (ed.), Bohai, Huanghai, Donghai haiyang tuji. Shuiwen 渤海，黃海，東海海洋圖集：水文 (Beijing: Hai yang chu ban she, 1993). 44 Huang Jinghai (ed.), Qinhuangdao gangshi: Gu, Jindai bufen, pp. 112–114.

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Figure 6: Dongnanyang hanghai tu. Source: Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.

Liaodong and Shandong peninsulas. The Qinhuangdao lighthouse (“sea exploration light [tanhai deng 探海燈]”) was the first one constructed in the Qing and of which we have certain, though sketchy, description. It was built of wood, about 42 feet high, and a spherical navigation light was kept operating day and night on the summit (see Figure 7). The value of the “navigation light,” usually an oil lamp, alone was small but it was necessary for collecting and concentrating the rays of light to the eye of the seaman. The origin of the idea of building this lighthouse in Qinhuangdao is difficult to trace, but the proposal seems to have been put forward in the early nineteenth century. Yet the lighthouse was poorly built and designed, it only stood for several years and was finally swept off the rock in a storm. Soon after, the Qing court rebuilt it, raising it higher and increasing its diameter and durability. The new lighthouse was supposed to have a tougher conical outline

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Navigation lamp Patrolling area Axial pore

Wooden pillars

Wooden spoke

Patrolling area Axial pore Shaft Pivot Mortar

Figure 7: The Qinhuangdao’s Lighthouse. Source: Qinhuangdao gangshi (figure modified by author).

which offered little resistance to the sea, but unfortunately the structure did not prove so excellent that it lasted only for another few years.45 Even though these wooden lighthouses first erected in Qinhuangdao did not prove to be unyielding and long lasting, they were regarded a solution of the problem at that time of carrying on sea transport along narrow and tortuous waters liable to the absence of light and the presence of fog. Despite the question of its effectiveness, it is fair to take these lighthouses as indicative of a particular stage in the history of coastal

45 Ibid.

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illumination to assist shipping and navigation. This development also serves as a unique symbol of Qinhuangdao in the early modern period. The technologies employed in Qing lighthouses only experienced significant improvement after the second half of the nineteenth century, and these tools for navigation became ever more valuable to the Qing court in monitoring and channeling movement along its maritime frontier. Even though the Qing was considered “a passive victim of the sea” in the nineteenth century – especially after the two Opium Wars, improvements in lighting apparatus meant that the Qing was eager to better its abilities to cordon off and oversee the waters of its coastline. Technology, in this case, “went hand in hand with hegemony.”46 In collaboration with the Customs Office, the Qing court established advanced lighthouses in both the coastal areas of the Northeast and Southeast.47 Instead of using timber, a stone foundation was the preferred building method. Equipped with advanced coast-lighting technology, the Qing gradually lit a wide swath of its coastal area. Though this did not mean that all maritime blind spots disappeared at once, but it did indicate greater navigational safety, while the state was able to dictate the flow of maritime activity in a more comprehensive way. From the first lighthouse erected in Qinhuangdao to the technological breakthrough in the mid-nineteenth century, the designs of lighthouses in China continued to evolve over the years in the late nineteenth century, as engineers – both native and foreign, found new ways to reduce torque, strengthen foundations, and increase the lighting distance. In the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising, for instance, the Tianjin Commissioner of Customs helped establish a lighthouse at Qinhuangdao to facilitate the movement of maritime traffic.48 The very physical presence of lighthouse thus not only helped improve navigational conditions and bolstered trade, but also channeled commerce and movement into a regulated direction.

46 Eric Tagliacozzo, “The Lit Archipelago: Coast Lighting and the Imperial Optic in Insular Southeast Asia, 1860–1910,” Technology and Culture, vol. 46, no. 2 (April, 2005), pp. 306–328. 47 T. Roger Banister, The Coastwise Lights of China: An Illustrated Account of the Chinese Maritime Customs Light Service (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs, 1932). See also Hans Van de Ven, Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), pp. 83–88. 48 China No. 2 Historical Archives, Nanjing, series 679 (1), file 297, “Tientsin Commissioner to Coast Inspector, no. 96 [dated on 15th December, 1903].”

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Conclusion In studying the connection between China and the sea in the long eighteenth century, western historiography has long focused on port cities in southeast China. The scale of shipping along the northeastern coast was smaller than that along the southeastern coast because most of the East-West trans shipment took place in large coastal cities such as Canton, Amoy, and Fuzhou. Yet, to fully evaluate maritime policy during the high Qing and comprehend the coastal history of China, it is not enough to merely inquire into the significance of the southeastern region; the northeastern region, and the Bohai zone in particular, can hardly be ignored. Qinhuangdao is one of the cities in that zone that deserves attention. By the end of the early nineteenth century, Qinhuangdao was a port city open to the wider world, especially to the Northeast Asian market thronged with Chinese (from the north and the south), Korean, Japanese, Manchu, and sometimes Russian traders. Situated at the nexus of three important trade routes connecting Shandong, Zhili, Liaodong, and Korea, the seaborne economy of Qinhuangdao was deliberately monitored and supervised by the government. The development of grain trade, sea salt commerce, fishing industry, local commerce, and transportation contributed significantly to Qinhuangdao’s importance. Yet the dramatic rise of Tianjin and Port Arthur in the Jiaqing-Daoguang eras overshadowed the economic significance of Qinhuangdao. Even though European traders were still attracted by the urban setting of Qinhuangdao, the port city was no longer as eventful as in previous decades. However, it must be noted that Qinhuangdao was only one of the important port cities in the Bohai region, the histories of Jinzhou, Dengzhou, and Weihai, for instance, are equally worthy of investigation, especially now when the PRC government is earnestly developing the Bohai Seaway Strategic Project (BSSP; Huan Bohai jingji quan zhanlüe jihua 還渤海經濟圈戰略計劃). In order to get a relatively thorough picture of the history of Chinese port cities and China’s connection to the sea, it would be instructive to move northward in their research in order to better position the “north-south bond” within the process the proto-globalization. Arguably, it would be a constructive way to gain a better understanding of the history of coastal China as well as a more comprehensive picture of maritime Asia in the early modern period.

Philip THAI

8 Smuggling and Legal Pluralism on the China Coast: The Rise and Demise of the Joint Investigation Rules, 1864–1934 Introduction In August of 1931, a circular from the Chinese Maritime Customs Service notified commissioners at all treaty ports of a seemingly routine administrative change. The Joint Investigation Rules, which for decades laid out the procedures for domestic Chinese authorities to prosecute foreign nationals accused of smuggling, were “practically speaking…now in the discard.”1 In July of 1932, Nationalist China announced its intention to formally and unilaterally abrogate the Rules despite encountering vehement protests from other treaty powers.2 Two years later, it confirmed its decision by creating a new Chinese institution to adjudicate all cases of smuggling – regardless of the accused’s nationality. The move anticipated broader changes to come. Within a decade in 1943, Nationalist China secured the consent of the United States and Great Britain to abolish extraterritoriality, thereby eliminating the final vestiges of the “unequal treaties” ratified in the aftermath of the First Opium War (1839–42). The Joint Investigation Rules (Huixun zhangcheng 會訊章程) remain a curious footnote in the history of modern China. Compared to contemporaneous innovations of the treaty port legal order like the Shanghai Mixed Court, they have retreated from historical memory and attracted far less scholarly interest.3 Yet for 70 years from their promulgation in 1864 to their abrogation in 1934, the Joint Investigation Rules provided the legal framework under which foreign smugglers in China were adjudicated and penalized. Depending on the violation and the penalty, jurisdiction over the accused was divided between Chinese authorities and foreign consuls. Directly or indirectly, the Rules shaped the contours of anti-smuggling enforcement on the China coast. They also helped define the scope of Chinese sovereignty in the age of the unequal treaties. They were thus an important, if unrecognized, feature of the maritime Chinese economy specifically and modern Chinese history more generally. Tracing the rise and demise of the 1 SHAC, 679/26910, IG Circular No. 4285, 15 August 1931. 2 Kuan-wu Shu Dispatch No. 7753, 28 July 1932 in SHAC, 679/26911, IG Circular No. 4468, 13 August 1932. 3 One notable exception is Chen 1987. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-009

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Rules highlights how China’s torturous emergence as a nation-state in the early twentieth century was burdened by imperial legacies, both foreign and domestic, from the nineteenth century. This essay revisits the history of the Joint Investigation Rules and its intimate relationship with history of smuggling, interdiction, and law on the China coast. It first begins with an overview of the Rules’ origins, outlining the assumptions embedded in their provisions to split jurisdictions by type of smuggling and penalty. It then shifts from looking at the Rules in representation to looking at the Rules in operation by focusing on several smuggling cases. Quotidian though they were, these disputes were nonetheless significant in revealing both the ways the Qing Empire attempted to assert its treaty privileges as well as the limits of those attempts. Finally, the essay jumps forward to the Nanjing Decade (1928–37), when Nationalist China sought to expunge vestiges of unequal treaties like the Rules as part of its multi-front campaign to fight coastal smuggling, expand state capacity, and recover national sovereignty.

The Treaty Port Legal Order: Domestic Laws and Foreign Treaties Upon their successive ratifications after 1842, the unequal treaties delineated how and where foreign commerce was conducted in China for the next hundred years. This new economy pulled China into the ambit of Western capitalism and placed complex restrictions on domestic authority. Treaty provisions constrained central Chinese governments – imperial and republican – from introducing policies that would hinder foreign access to Chinese markets. The disintegration of the late imperial order and the instability of the early Republican era further fractured Chinese sovereignty until 1928, when the Nationalists nominally brought the country under central rule and proceeded to nullify unequal treaties. Meanwhile, Chinese control over foreign trade was primarily mediated through the new, foreign-staffed Chinese Maritime Customs Service. Established in 1854, the agency operated as a bureaucratic arm of successive Chinese central governments through 1949, monitoring and policing commerce at the treaty ports dotting the coast. The institution was headed by an Inspector General (Zong shuiwusi 總稅 務司), while each customs district at treaty ports was headed by a commissioner (shuiwusi 稅務司) nominally detailed to assist the local Qing superintendent (jiandu 監督). Commerce along the Chinese littoral during the treaty port area was active and widespread. So too was smuggling, which was illegal trade operating in the

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shadows of legal trade. Yet except for a handful of articles, smuggling was not particularly profitable. The unequal treaties forced China to surrender its tariff autonomy by maintaining a 5% ad valorem tariff on all foreign imports.4 The difference in prices between imports that paid duties and imports that did not, therefore, was 5% at most. And with other costs of smuggling factored – including transportation, evasion, bribery, and protection – this differential was even more narrow. A 1936 article from the Bank of China Monthly looking back at this period reiterated this point, noting that: “the burden on merchants was light, [and] while the risks taken by smugglers were great, the gains were often insufficient to compensate for potential losses[.]”5 To truly make smuggling pay, traffickers thus had to move goods that were heavily taxed or strictly regulated – namely opium, weapons, and salt. Besides the surrender of tariff autonomy, the other important feature of the unequal treaties was the introduction of extraterritoriality. Animated by the longheld belief that Chinese law was “barbaric,” foreign powers insisted on exercising consular jurisdiction over their nationals on Chinese soil. Extraterritoriality came to exemplify untrammeled foreign privilege in China, with foreign sojourners enjoying virtual immunity from domestic Chinese law. Yet it would be a mistake to assert, as popular narratives of Chinese history have done, that extraterritoriality was unilaterally imposed by Western powers onto a helpless, hapless, or ignorant Qing China. As historian Pär Cassel rightly notes, the multiethnic and legally pluralistic Qing Empire – like its counterparts around the early modern world – had long subjected different ethnic, social, and professional groups to different laws and jurisdictions. Jurisdiction over persons rather than jurisdiction over territory was an essential feature of legally pluralistic regimes. Extraterritoriality, in the minds of Qing officials, was to apply very narrowly to foreigners at treaty ports. Consular jurisdiction was entirely consistent with Qing legal tradition, which may account for why Qing negotiators so willingly acquiesced to it. The unequal treaties thus effectively extended the lifespan of legal pluralism in Qing China at the same time that states around the world sought to exercise jurisdiction over territory rather than jurisdiction over persons.

4 The Qing dynasty surrendered China’s tariff autonomy in successive stages. First, it agreed to the principle of maintaining a “fair and regular tariff” (yiding zeli 議定則例) in the Treaty of Nanjing (1842). Later, it acceded to the five percent ad valorem treaty tariff (xieding guanshui 協 定關稅) in the Treaty of Tianjin (1858). Although such concessions were initially made to Great Britain, they were soon granted to every foreign power due to the most-favored nation clause in the Treaty of the Bogue (1843). 5 Cai 1936, 2.

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Extraterritoriality for foreign nationals on Chinese soil added another wrinkle to interdiction efforts. In this legal context, “smuggling” was not defined by any single uniform set of statutes but a complex framework of domestic laws and foreign treaties. How individuals in China were punished for evading duties, running contraband, or violating trade regulations was highly contextual and depended on who they were, who caught them, and where they were caught. Chinese subjects within China proper formally remained under the jurisdiction of the Great Qing Code (Da Qing lüli 大清律例) until the twilight of imperial rule. The Code contained multiple provisions for “smuggling,” including evasion of duties, private trade of commodities in which the court held a monopoly (e.g. salt), and the trafficking of contraband (e.g. weapons).6 The Qing Code was stringent in the activities it restricted and severe in the penalties it levied. Punishments included confiscations, fines, strokes of the bamboo, and even execution. Yet many provisions were rarely enforced as strictly as they were written on the books. Indeed, offenses that did not directly challenge state authority were, on the whole, lightly dealt with. Chinese travelers caught passing off undeclared items at treaty ports by the Chinese Maritime Customs, for example, were usually punished with a fine or with a confiscation. No physical punishments were inflicted. Foreigners accused of smuggling, by comparison, were governed by treaty provisions after 1842. On paper, the treaties explicitly recognized the exclusive prerogative of the Qing government to combat smuggling in China. Article 12 of the Treaty of the Bogue (1843) gives Chinese officials the power to “seize and confiscate all goods…that may have been so smuggled [and] prohibit the Ship from which the smuggled goods were landed[.]”7 Article 44 6 The “Taxes” (kecheng 課程) chapter stipulated the collection of state revenues, with two statutes requiring merchants to pay duties on cargo to the local magistrate upon arrival at port (DC, 146-00, 147-00). Penalties for violators included one hundred strokes of the heavy bamboo and confiscation of cargo. Regulations at old Qing Guangzhou (Yue haiguan 粵海關) and Fuzhou (Min haiguan 閩海關) maritime tollhouses each modified this statute with different gradations of punishments to account for severity of transgressions (Huang 2000, 333–4). Other stipulations restricted the private trade of commodities in which the court held a monopoly (DC, 141-00, 14400, 145-00). The “Law of Control Posts” (guanjin 關津) chapter banned the flow of specific commodities deemed essential to internal security. The statute “Privately [Exporting] by Going beyond the Land Frontiers or by Sea in Violation of the Prohibitions” (sichu waijing ji weijin xiahai 私出外境及違禁下海) reflected the court’s fear of communities along continental and maritime frontiers “providing material assistance” (jieji 接濟) to pirates and other “treasonous bandits” (jiantu 奸徒). Along with its 44 substatutes, it enumerated articles prohibited from export – e.g. rice, timber, saltpeter, copper, iron, and precious metals – as well as articles prohibited from import – e.g. weapons and narcotics (DC, 225-00). Punishments for “violating the ban on commodities” (weijin huowu 違禁貨物) ranged from eighty strokes of the heavy bamboo for unwitting accomplices to execution by beheading for ringleaders (DC, 225-02, 225-03). 7 TCF, 1:395.

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of the British Treaty of Tianjin (1858) notes that “Chinese authorities at each port shall adopt the means they may judge most proper to prevent the revenue suffering from fraud or smuggling.” Article 14 permits British subjects to “hire whatever boats they please for the transport of Goods or Passengers,” but “[i]f any smuggling takes place in them the offenders will of course be punished according to Law.”8 In practice, however, foreign merchants and consular officials frequently disputed contentions by Qing officials of when “smuggling” has actually occurred and challenged the penalties levied. Foreign consuls also believed that punishments levied by Qing officials violated consular jurisdiction and the principles of extraterritoriality. British authorities, in particular, conceded that their Qing counterparts were within their treaty rights to confiscate smuggled goods, but they asserted that British nationals could only be fined – that is, punished – by their consuls. Qing officials and foreign consuls initially resolved disputes over smuggling in an ad hoc manner through mutual correspondence, but the growing volume of cases made the practice increasingly unwieldy. Moreover, the grumblings of foreign merchants on the arbitrariness and the lack of transparency in how penalties were imposed grew increasingly vocal.9 The Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Robert Hart, with the support of the Zongli Yamen, sought to streamline the settlement of such disputes. In 1864, he proposed a set of four rules that permitted foreign merchants fined for treaty violations to publicly challenge their penalty.10 After British and American officials insisted on the inclusion of four additional provisions covering confiscations, the final set of rules was promulgated in 1868 as the Joint Investigation Rules.11 Originally applicable only in Shanghai but later in force at all ports, the Rules outlined the procedures for adjudicating and penalizing foreign nationals accused of smuggling. Cases involving confiscations were adjudicated at the local customhouse, with a Qing official serving as judge and the foreign consul serving as assessor. Cases involving fines were adjudicated at the defendant’s consulate, with the roles of the Qing official and foreign consul reversed. Formally, the Customs commissioner attended the hearing to assist the customs superintendent. In practice, the former frequently served as the Qing representative in place of the latter. Both the Qing official and the foreign consul had to agree on the findings before any penalty – fine or confiscation – could be imposed with 8 TCF, 1:409,418. 9 See, for instance, the protest by the Prussian consul at Xiamen in DIO, 6: 217–22. 10 For the diplomatic negotiations behind the Rules’ formulation, see Chen 1987. 11 The original four rules were Rules II, III, IV, and V. The additional rules were Rules I, VI, VII, and VIII. SHAC, 679/26890, IG Circular No. 19 of 1868 (First Series), 15 June 1868. Full text of the rules (in Chinese and English) provided in Appendix.

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no possibility for appeal. If either side disagreed, the dispute moved up diplomatic channels to the Zongli Yamen and the diplomatic mission in Beijing for resolution. The division of jurisdiction by penalty remained a central feature of the Rules, even after the failed ratification of the Alcock Convention (1869) which would have formally recognized the practice.12 Although the Rules were intended to “be re-casted[ed], added to, and perfected” one year after promulgation, they remained unaltered until their abrogation in 1934.13 The Joint Investigation Rules were adopted during the same time other innovations of the treaty port system like the Mixed Court came into existence.14 Practices such as consular jurisdiction contained in the Mixed Court rules, as Cassel points out, were analogous to Qing legal traditions such as joint trials and personal jurisdiction.15 Indeed, division of jurisdiction in the Joint Investigation Rules had precedent within the Qing Code, which made explicit provisions for “joint investigations” (huixun 會訊). Cases involving a Mongol and a non-Mongol, for instance, were to be tried jointly by a local non-Mongol magistrate and a Mongol bannerman. For a Mongol committing an offense in China proper, the Qing Code would apply; for a non-Mongol committing an offense in Mongolia, the Mongol Code (Menggu lüli 蒙古律例) would apply.16 Moreover, the name of the Rules itself suggested links to this tradition. The full Chinese name of the Joint Investigation Rules was “rules for joint investigation of confiscated cargo” (Huixun chuanhuo ruguan zhangcheng 會訊船貨入官章程). “Joint investigation” was similar in meaning to “joint trial” (huishen 會審) in the Chinese name of the Mixed Court (Huishen gongxie 會審公廨, lit. “Court of Joint Trials”). The Mixed Court rules, in turn, were similar to rules on “mixed cases” (jiaoshe anjian 交涉案件) from the Qing Code.17 Thus, while the Rules were originally proposed by the foreigner Robert Hart, the

12 TCF, 1:481: “Article IX – It is agreed that in all cases of fines arising out of breaches of Customs regulations, the Superintendent or the Commissioner of Customs may have a seat on the bench and take part with the British Consul in inquiring into the case; and that in all cases of confiscations arising out of breaches of Customs Regulations, the British Consul may have a seat on the bench with the Superintendent or the Commissioner of Customs, and take part in inquiring the case.” The Rules were explicitly inserted in the Sino-German Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (1898). See Article VII in TCF, 2:224. 13 SHAC, 679/26890, IG Circular No. 19 of 1868 (First Series), 15 June 1868. 14 The final promulgation of the Joint Investigation Rules, in fact, actually predated the inauguration of the Mixed Court by about a year. 15 Cassel 2012. The tradition of allowing alien offenders in China to be punished by officials of their own nationalities stretches back to at least the Tang dynasty (618–907). See Edwards 1980. 16 “Mixed cases between Mongols and non-Mongols (lit. “people”)” (Menggu yu renmin jiaoshe zhi an 蒙古與人民交涉之案). DC, 34-03. 17 Cassel 2012, 69–73.

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Qing expected “joint investigations” to operate very much within its legally pluralistic order. Foreigners could be punished by officials of their own nationality if necessary, but they had to abide by Chinese laws while on Chinese soil. Qing officials, in fact, consistently stressed this principle in their dealings with foreign diplomats. In a 1864 message to the American consul Anson Burlingame, Prince Gong (恭親王, Yixin 奕訢) conceded that the Rules were needed to resolve the “confusion and pertinacious disputing [that] have arisen between foreign merchants and our own officers.” Nonetheless, he reaffirmed that “the right and power to punish all cases of smuggling by foreigners, either by fine or otherwise, is undoubtedly in the hands of this government[.]”18 In an 1878 exchange with the Marquees of Salisbury, Qing ambassador Guo Songtao (郭嵩 燾) echoed Gong: “What has been conceded in the Treaties…is merely that offenders shall be punished by their own national officials, in accordance with their own national laws.”19 In another exchange a decade later, Qing minister Xu Shoupeng (徐壽朋) explained his government’s position to United States Secretary of State T. F. Bayard: “[T]he jurisdiction to try and punish American citizens in China rests with the consul and the right to confiscate contraband goods under seizure rests with the [Chinese] customs authorities. If there be any case wherein some doubt and difficulty exist and which can not [sic] be decided without an investigation, then the rules of joint investigation should be appealed to[.]”20 From the perspective of Qing officials, then, China maintained exclusive prerogative to determine when a “smuggling” infraction occurred but outsourced the responsibility of punishment to the offender’s consul in accordance with both treaty and tradition.

Legal Pluralism to Legal Imperialism: The Joint Investigation Rules in Practice A key driver behind these consistent reminders was recalcitrance from foreign shippers. Sometimes acting with consular support, they challenged Qing interpretations of treaty provisions and attempts at imposing punishments. Just as they did in

18 Prince Kung (Gong) to Anson Burlingame, 13 June 1864, FRUS, 1864, 3:435. 19 Kuo Ta-jen (Guo Songtao) to Marquees of Salisbury, 8 June 1876, FO 371/19322. 20 Shu Cheon Pon (Xu Shoupeng) to T. F. Bayard, 2 July 1887, FRUS, 1887–88, 242–3. Bayard did not contest Xu’s interpretation: “The Government of the United States fully recognizes the principles herein set forth, and has no desire to encroach upon the jurisdiction of China in the administration of her customs laws in respect to opium or other contraband merchandise.” See T. F. Bayard to Chang Yen Hoon (Zhang Yinheng 張蔭恆), 30 August 1887, FRUS, 1887–88, 243.

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Mixed Court cases, Qing officials doggedly fought to assert their privileges in joint investigation cases based on their understanding of the treaties. One of the most sensational incidents that tested the prerogative of the Qing government to effect a confiscation involved the British steamship Carisbrooke. On 12 June 1875, the ship anchored off the east coast of Hainan Island to discharge passengers from Penang and Singapore before continuing its journey to Hong Kong and Xiamen. Soon after, two Chinese Customs cruisers pulled alongside, and their officers proceeded to board the steamship. Since it was anchored 70 miles away from the nearest treaty port of Qiongzhou and its passengers and cargo (which included 12 cases of opium) did not clear customs, the Carisbrooke violated Article 47 of the Treaty of Tianjin that prohibited foreign ships from “clandestine trade” at non-treaty ports.21 Customs officials informed Mr. Scott, captain of the Carisbrooke, that the cruisers would escort the steamer back to Guangzhou to settle the matter. Initially obeying instructions to follow customs cruisers north, the Carisbrooke later sailed for Hong Kong as it neared the British colony until it was fired upon by one of the cruisers after given no less than three warnings to change course. With its rudder disabled, the steamer – along with the captain – was finally brought to Guangzhou. During the joint investigation hearing convened the following week, both the customs commissioner and the British consul agreed that the Carisbrooke violated treaty provisions. The customs commissioner invoked Article 48 of the Treaty of Tianjin, which permitted Chinese authorities to confiscate goods from vessels caught smuggling.22 The British consul, however, urged for mitigation of penalty. Since the Carisbrooke regularly allowed passengers to disembark at Hainan for their convenience during its voyages between China and Southeast Asia, the consul argued, it was not willfully engaged in “smuggling.” Meanwhile, the treaty port press – Chinese and English – reprinted testimonies from the case and weighed in with their dueling opinions. Shen Bao described the Carisbrooke of “hiding smuggled goods” (cangni sihuo 藏匿私貨) in relaying initial news of the incident and described the ship’s discharge of cargo as “smuggling” (zousi 走 私) in subsequent coverage of the case.23 The North China Herald conceded that the Carisbrooke should not have anchored at a port not enumerated in the treaties 21 TCF, 1:418: “Article XLVII – British merchant vessels are not entitled to resort to other than the Ports of Trade declared open by this Treaty. They are not unlawfully to enter other Ports in China or to carry on clandestine Trade along the coast thereof. Any vessel violating this provision shall, with her cargo, be subject to confiscation by the Chinese Government.” 22 Ibid.: “Article XLVIII – If any British merchant vessel be concerned in smuggling, the goods, whatever their value or nature, shall be subject to confiscation by the Chinese authorities, and the Ship may be prohibited from trading further, and sent away as soon as her accounts shall have been adjusted and paid.” 23 SB, 18 June 1875, 2; 23 June 1875, 1–2.

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but agreed with the consul that full confiscation would have been disproportionate to the “technical” nature of the violation.24 The case was resolved in May 1876, after it was forwarded to Beijing for negotiations between the Zongli Yamen and the British Mission. Both sides reached an agreement whereby Qing authorities “confiscated” the vessel and cargo but sold them back to their original owners for 5,000 taels.25 The issue at stake in the Carisbrooke case centered on whether trading in an unauthorized locale constituted “smuggling.” The Joint Investigation Rules, however, were more commonly invoked in instances where a foreign shipper was accused of “smuggling” when submitting a “false manifest” (loubao 漏報) – i.e. when cargo onboard did not correspond to cargo listed on the shipping manifest. Article 37 of the Treaty of Tianjin explicitly notes that such violations are penalized with a 500 tael fine. Foreign shippers, however, initially resisted being held liable for smuggling by their crew and passengers by arguing that a manifest could only be “false” if there was willful intention to deceive Chinese authorities from the outset. An 1878 case that began as a minor incident eventually turned into a diplomatic precedent that settled this issue. On the night of 21 February, customs officers in Fuzhou boarded the British steamer Taiwan to look for smuggled opium from Hong Kong an informer had claimed was hidden on the vessel. The search party quickly uncovered 2.5 piculs covered by pillows and mattresses and arrested the culprit, a Chinese cook. The commissioner proceeded to fine the captain 500 taels for presenting a false manifest and called for a joint investigation hearing. When the trial was convened two weeks later, both the consul and the commissioner agreed that the opium was smuggled, but the former rejected the latter’s contention that the original manifest was “false.” The consul accepted the captain’s claim that he made a “diligent search on two occasions during the trip in question” and submitted a manifest at the start of his voyage that was accurate to the best of his knowledge. The original manifest was not willfully false, the consul ruled, and therefore the captain wasnot required to pay the fine and the Chinese cook who had been imprisoned was released with his wages forfeited. The commissioner in turn objected to the consul’s ruling and the case was forwarded to Beijing for resolution. Both the Zongli Yamen and the British mission held firm to their respective subordinate’s findings, and negotiations between the two sides over the case dragged on for another four years. At one point, the Chinese Maritime Customs consulted two London law firms on the merits of the case, and both firms issued opinions supporting the Chinese position.26 Finally 24 NCH, 10 July 1875, 33. 25 CG, April–June 1876, 116. 26 DIO, 6:467–74.

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in 1882, the British government agreed to settle the case by levying a mitigated fine of 100 taels on the captain and accepting the Qing government’s definition of a “false” manifest.27 In subsequent joint investigation cases, the Qing government successfully asserted that any discrepancies uncovered between the cargo listed and cargo onboard made a manifest “false” – regardless of the shipper’s original intent. In 1883, the Zhifu customs commissioner secured a favorable verdict in penalizing the captain of the steamer Woosung for presenting a manifest that did not list some assorted cargo uncovered (matches, sapanwood, and shark fins).28 In 1884, commissioner at three separate ports – Zhifu, Niuzhuang, and Fuzhou – also successfully employed the Joint Investigation Rules to fine British captains for presenting false manifests when they discovered smuggled goods including opium and sugar on the vessels. In each case, the commissioner levied a fine to mark the infraction but, with the superintendent’s consent, reduced the amount to anywhere between 25 and 200 taels to demonstrate leniency for what they viewed as “purely technical nature of the offence(s)”.29 Other cases were settled even before a joint investigation hearing convened. In two separate incidents in 1884, for instance, a British and a German shipper agreed to pay a nominal fine (50 and 25 taels, respectively) to the Shanghai customs in lieu of submitting to a joint investigation hearing for submitting false manifests.30 Such out-of-court settlements, in fact, eventually became common. Foreign shippers found that they preferred paying a penalty upfront rather than incurring the expense in time and money a formal appeal required. To take one year as a representative sample: of the 2,656 cases of fines and confiscations from 1885, none of the 180 cases involving a foreign national were settled using the Joint Investigation Rules. Individual fines for these cases usually ranged from five to ten taels, though heavier penalties were levied for more egregious instances of smuggling.31 For their part, customs officials also found that they were able to still hold foreign shippers accountable for incidents of smuggling without resorting to formal hearings by threatening to withhold privileges from shippers such as allowing vessels to be cleared before all import duties were paid; or loading

27 For description of the case along with relevant documents and correspondences between the parties up to September 1878, see Inspectorate General of Chinese Customs 1878. For resolution of the case, see Wright 1950: 452–3. 28 SHAC, 679/26892, IG Circular No. 247, 25 October 1883. 29 SHAC, 679/26892, IG Circular No. 290, 30 September 1884, enclosures 3, 4, and 5. 30 Ibid., enclosures 1 and 2. 31 CG, 1885 (all issues).

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and unloading cargo outside of business hours.32 This out-of-court arrangement held in subsequent decades, serving the interests of both foreign shippers and Chinese authorities. The Joint Investigation Rules remained in effect until their formal abrogation by the Nationalists in 1934. Though infrequently invoked during their 70 years of existence, the rules nonetheless formed the legal backdrop that mediated the reach of the central state in policing foreign trade. By splitting jurisdiction over incidents of smuggling, the rules effectively made administrative cases – i.e. disputes between the Chinese state and private parties – operate in a similar fashion as mixed cases. The prospect of foreign intervention in turn made adjudicating smuggling cases as much an act of international diplomacy as it was an act of domestic law enforcement. Conflicts over joint investigation cases thus reflect repeated efforts by the Qing to assert its treaty rights – as well as the resistance encountered in asserting those very rights.

Legal Imperialism to Legal Centralism: Nationalist China’s War on Smuggling Along with the unequal treaties, the Joint Investigation Rules remained virtually intact from the collapse of the Qing through the early Republic. Yet fissures in the treaty port system steadily emerged against the rising tide of Chinese nationalism and the inexorable transformation of the international order. Virtually every strata of Chinese society – from leading statesmen to the wider public – were united in their desire to abrogate extraterritoriality and recover tariff autonomy. China realized the latter goal first. At successive international conferences in Washington D.C. (1921–22) and Beijing (1925–26), foreign powers consented to eventually restore tariff autonomy to China. Yet no firm action was taken until 1928, when the Nationalist party defeated (or co-opted) major warlord rivals to place China under its nominal rule. One such rival was the Beijing-based Beiyang government, which had served as China’s de jure central government even as its de facto authority was severely circumscribed. Nationalist China first leveraged its self-proclaimed status as the country’s new central government by concluding a series of bilateral agreements with foreign powers restoring China’s tariff autonomy. It first ratified the Sino-American Tariff Treaty in July 1928 and concluded

32 SHAC, 679/26915, IG Circular No. 4913, 4 August 1934, 50–1.

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subsequent agreements with other European powers before year’s end.33 It also assumed tighter control over the foreign-operated Chinese Maritime Customs Service and gained access to the agency’s lucrative customs duties by appointing a new Inspector General more sympathetic to regime’s cause.34 Nationalist China subsequently raised tariffs over several rounds, the first of which went into effect on 1 February 1929. Average duties rose from 3.8% in 1928 to 27.3% in 1937.35 New tariffs created asymmetrical benefits and drawbacks. For the new regime, higher tariffs raised substantial revenues. Total duties jumped threefold from Ch.$128 million in 1928 to Ch.$385 million in 1931 before settling down to Ch.$343 million in 1937. Import duties grew even more rapidly, rising fourfold during the same period from Ch.$72 million to Ch.$315 million before settling down to Ch.$261 million in 1937.36 Tariffs soon represented the largest and most dependable source of central government income, averaging roughly half of annual revenues throughout the Nanjing Decade. Greater stability in finances, in turn, enabled the Nationalist government to become a more modern fiscal state by tapping capital markets and issuing public debt. For consumers, however, higher tariffs dramatically raised prices for imported goods ranging from luxury products to daily necessities. While average tariffs never rose above 30% during the Nanjing Decade, individual tariffs for imports rose much higher. Commodities such as rayon, sugar, and kerosene – which enjoyed strong, inelastic demand – were slapped with high double-digit and even triple-digit tariffs. In the face of prohibitively high duties, merchants soon realized that they stood to reap handsome profits if they could avoid paying duties and undercut competitors who did not (or could not) do so. Thus almost immediately after the introduction of higher tariffs, officials and media across China reported an alarming upsurge in illicit trade. Not surprisingly, the most heavily-taxed commodities quickly became the most frequently-smuggled, and their trafficking soon eclipsed the trafficking of traditional contraband like opium, weapons, and salt. One official surveying the situation concluded: “The incentive to smugglers to discard other forms of smuggling and engage in evading Customs duty is [now] very strong.”37 New tariffs, then, also transformed was once a chronic problem into a serious threat that undermined the central government’s authority and finances. An

33 Wright 1938, Van de Ven 2014. Japan did not acquiesce to restoring China’s tariff autonomy until 1930. 34 Van de Ven 2014. 35 Calculated from Hsiao 1974, 132–3. 36 All data from Hsiao 1974, 132–3. 37 SHAC, 679/20403, Memorandum to Shanghai Commissioner, 1 May 1935 in Shanghai Dispatch No. 27344, 12 June 1935.

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official issued an ominous warning: “[I]t is no longer possible to check the tendency of this illicit trade to grow, and it shows every sign of swelling eventually to very serious proportions.”38 Smuggling quickly overwhelmed existing law enforcement capacity and threatened to deprive the state of important revenues. In response, Nationalist China soon fought back by intensifying and militarizing interdiction – permitting the Chinese Maritime Customs Service to dramatically expand its anti-smuggling fleet and directing its agents to actively prevent trafficking.39 The government also promulgated new laws like the Customs Preventive Law (Haiguan jisi tiaoli 海關緝私條例), which raised the financial penalties for smuggling and clarified the authority of the Maritime Customs to operate in areas beyond its traditional jurisdiction at treaty ports. The law introduced procedural changes, authorizing customs agents to search homes and businesses suspected of harboring smuggled goods, investigate records for evidence of past duty evasion, and levy penalties well after the initial incidence of smuggling. It also explicitly stipulated that local authorities had to assist customs agents in any search and seizure operation.40 The new law thus clarified the chain of command by subordinating local state agents to central state agents. More generally, it formalized and affirmed the principle that the center possessed the authority to demand compliance from the local. One major obstacle, however, confounded such efforts. Extraterritoriality continued to constrain the jurisdictional reach of the Nationalists by preventing their agents from entering foreign concessions and prosecuting foreign nationals. Moreover, an ever-growing numbers of smugglers were exploiting China’s fragmented sovereignty by evading arrest and punishment. Press and government reports were replete with instances of foreigners engaging in various illicit activities such as smuggling under the umbrella of extraterritoriality. Even Chinese merchants who dealt in smuggled goods found refuge in extraterritoriality to gain favorable access to supplies and minimize the risk of prosecution: claiming multiple nationalities, moving their businesses to foreign concessions, or partnering with foreign nationals. Not surprisingly, Chinese officials like Finance Minister T. V. Soong (宋子文) often complained that Chinese authorities enforcing domestic anti-smuggling regulations were being prevented from entering foreign concessions and prosecuting foreign smugglers.41

38 SHAC, 679/27750, Antung Dispatch No. 3011, 20 May 1929. 39 For more on Nationalist China’s war on smuggling, see Lian 2005, Thai 2016, and Van de Ven 2014. 40 SHAC, 679/26915, IG Circular No. 4913, 4 August 1934. 41 Soong 1928.

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For Nationalist China, then, the fight against extraterritoriality was part and parcel of the fight against smuggling. Extraterritoriality in China would not be fully abolished until 1943, but the war on smuggling helped the Nationalists roll back the panoply of foreign privileges in the meantime. The Nationalists dispatched their agents into foreign concessions and assert exclusive jurisdiction over smuggling-related cases in China regardless of the individual participants’ nationality. More importantly, the government reformed its laws dealing with smugglers with an eye towards winning foreign acceptance. As the legal historian Lauren Benton notes, semi-colonial polities seeking to reverse extraterritorial arrangements often revamped their legal institutions in response to “inherently contradictory” claims by powerful outsiders that “militated for legal immunity and jurisdictional protections for their subjects while at the same time basing their claims on a critique of the failings of local justice and the weaknesses of local state sovereignty.”42 In the case of China, foreigners have indeed justified the necessity of extraterritoriality on the perceived “barbarity” of its legal system or “instability” of its government.43 To counter this discourse of deficiency, the Nationalists followed the lead of other semi-colonial polities by pursuing a dual strategy of formalizing and monopolizing domestic channels of legal authority. Standing at the intersection in the fight against smuggling and the fight against extraterritorially was none other than the Joint Investigation Rules. From one perspective, the Rules held little practical significance upon their promulgation; they had been infrequently invoked since foreign merchants often preferred paying a fine over incurring the expenses of appealing a penalty. From another perspective, however, they held great symbolic significance: what was once an acceptable accommodation within the nineteenth-century Qing Empire’s legal order became an unacceptable violation of the twentieth-century Chinese nationstate’s sovereignty. An important goal of Nationalist China’s drive to centralize its legal authority required abrogating the unequal treaties as well as repudiating Qing legal pluralism. The recovery of tariff autonomy in 1928 – along with the disinclination of Western powers to defend the vestigial treaty port order – provided the Nationalist government the opportunity to assert its exclusive claim to both police China’s foreign trade and adjudicate potential infractions. The announcements in August 1931 and July 1932 to abrogate the Joint Investigation Rules – the latter coming from a response to an American legation query – were part of Nationalist China’s agenda to recover territorial sovereignty by any means necessary. The Nationalists justified their actions through an expansive interpretation 42 Benton 2002, 211. For other cases of semi-colonial polities embarking on legal reforms to reverse extraterritoriality, see Kayaoglu 2010. 43 For a critical look at the origins of this discourse, see especially Chen 2009.

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of the Sino-American Tariff Treaty, which restored Chinese autonomy over tariffs and “any related matters.”44 As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Jingwei (汪精衛) later explained to American diplomats, “complete autonomy” encompassed not just the right to fix tariffs and collective revenue but also the right to fight smuggling by levying fines and confiscations. “Otherwise, if joint action with foreign countries in cases of confiscation and fine were still necessary,” Wang asked rhetorically, “how could it be called complete autonomy?”45 Consolidating its legal authority to prosecute smuggling was not the Nationalist government’s only goal; it also sought to expand its territorial jurisdiction to penetrate remaining foreign concessions. “Asserting sovereignty through policing,” the Nationalists continued late Qing law enforcement initiatives by “vigorously and aggressively” pursuing opportunities to supplant the jurisdiction of extraterritorial authorities with their own police force.46 Under the orders of the government, the Maritime Customs dispatched agents into various foreign enclaves – most notably the International Settlement and French Concession in Shanghai – to raid homes and businesses suspected of housing smuggled goods. It was also charged with patrolling the entire 5,000-mile Chinese littoral and the anti-smuggling zone twelve miles from the coast.47 In the name of fighting smuggling, Chinese legal authority was thus projected horizontally across a wider geography as well as vertically into more private spaces. Nationalist China’s aggressive anti-smuggling policing provoked widespread antipathy, with virtually all foreign powers objecting to the unilateral abrogation of the Joint Investigation Rules. The United States rejected the Nationalists’ expansive interpretation of “tariff autonomy” in the Sino-American Tariff Treaty and insisted that the United States Court for China continue to exercise jurisdiction over American nationals accused of smuggling. The treaty, in the reading of American diplomats, “did not accord to the Chinese Government any right to assume jurisdiction over the persons or property of American nationals.”48 Great Britain clung to the original interpretation of the Treaty of Tianjin, which recognized Chinese prerogative to confiscate smuggled goods but not to fine British

44 For text of the treaty, see TAC, 230–1. 45 Wang Ching-wei (Wang Jingwei) to Nelson T. Johnson, 7 March 1934, FRUS, 1934, 3:583. 46 Wakeman 1995. Lam (2010) convincingly argues that the link between policing and recovering sovereignty in China had its roots in late Qing state-building programs at the turn of the twentieth century. 47 SHAC, 679/26910, IG Circular No. 4241, 5 June 1931. 48 Nelson T. Johnson to Frederick Maze, 1 February 1934, FRUS, 1934, 3:579–81. See also William Phillips to Clarence E. Gauss, 5 November 1934, FRUS, 1934, 3:586.

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nationals.49 Japan had closely followed Nationalist China’s aggressive campaign at fighting smuggling, reporting on legislative efforts such as the promulgation of the Preventive Law.50 Its diplomats complained that Chinese actions like the abrogation of the Joint Investigation violated both the spirit and letter of existing treaty agreements.51 Japan’s success at centralizing legal authority and abrogating extraterritoriality at the turn of the twentieth century provided the template for semi-colonial states like China to rollback legal imperialism.52 But as the preeminent foreign power in China by the 1930s, Japan was most firmly committed to upholding the treaty port order and frequently contested Nationalist China’s anti-smuggling efforts. Meanwhile, a number of well-publicized raids within the International Settlement led foreign consuls to assert their nationals’ extraterritorial privileges and object to anti-smuggling operations within foreign enclaves.53 Articulating their complaints through the colonial discourse of deficiency, foreign consuls declined to assist the Chinese government in any anti-smuggling operation on the basis that China lacked an official law to deal with smuggling. Opposition was mollified only when the Nationalists promulgated the Customs Preventive Law. Finally, domestic Chinese merchants proved equally vehement in their opposition. In a series of petitions publicized in newspapers and forwarded to national government organs, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce objected to customs-led interdiction on behalf of its members.54 Other petitions complained of the discrimination against Chinese firms without extraterritorial protection, demanded the right of merchants to appeal penalties, and accused the Maritime Customs of “exceeding its authority.”55 Ignoring diplomatic and domestic protests, the Nationalist government moved to create an adequate replacement for the defunct Joint Investigation Rules. Companies or merchants who sought to appeal their penalties for smuggling were now required to deal directly with a new institution, the Customs 49 C. W. Orde to Alexander Cadogan, 8 July 1935, FO 371/19322. The British Foreign Office maintained this position on the Joint Investigation Rules as early as 1927 in a memorandum on anticipated treaty revision with China. See Memorandum on Treaty Revision, 6 January 1927, FO 371/12459. 50 Suma Yakichiro (須磨彌吉郎) to Hirota Kōki (広田弘毅), 2 June 1934, NGB, Showa II-1-3, 641. 51 Hirota Kōki (広田弘毅) to Ariyoshi Akira (有吉明), 22 August 1934, NGB, Showa II-1-3, 647. The Joint Investigation Rules were known as Kyōdō kaishin (共同會審, lit: “joint trial”) in Japanese. 52 For Japan’s abrogation of extraterritoriality, see Cassel 2012 and Kayaoglu 2012. 53 For sample of such cases: SHAC, 679/28138, Shanghai SR, August 1932, 2–3; and Shanghai SR, October 1932, 1–5. SB, 25 August 1932, 15; and 31 August 1932, 15. 54 SB, 12 October 1932, 10. 55 SB, 12 June 1933, 11.

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Penalty Board of Inquiry and Appeal (Haiguan faze pingyi hui 海關罰則評議會). Established in November of 1934 under the Preventive Law, the Board provided merchants a legal forum to appeal penalties levied by the customs. Consisting of senior-level officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Maritime Customs, the Board reviewed appeals and issued one of three rulings to uphold, modify, or reverse the original penalty. Appellants dissatisfied with the Board’s rulings could take their cases to the Administrative Court (Xingzheng fayuan 行政法院), the Nationalists’ highest legal body to hear cases regarding administrative agencies’ rulings. At least one senior customs official praised the Board’s efficiency and fairness, noting that its members are “always willing to see the Customs point of view but at the same time they require to be convinced of the justice of the Customs case.”56 In its review of 44 cases from November 1934 through June 1938, the Board upheld the original penalty 60% of the time, whereas it modified and reversed the original penalty 26% and 14% of the time, respectively.57 Modifications usually reduced or waived the original penalty. Combining such cases with reversals shows how the Board generally ruled in favor of appellants in 40% of the cases it reviewed – a bias towards upholding original penalties but not overwhelmingly so. Nationalist China intended anti-smuggling legal reforms to consolidate its legal authority. New institutions like the Customs Penalty Board of Inquiry and Appeal, with their formalized procedures of adjudication, helped China yet again showcase itself as a “modern” nation worthy of exercising full territorial sovereignty. As Li Chen notes, “attempts to abolish foreign extraterritoriality continued to be a most powerful rallying call among the Chinese to ‘modernize’/’Westernize’ their legal and political systems to regain sovereignty and international respectability.”58 One senior Nationalist official made this link explicit. With the creation of the Customs Penalty Board of Inquiry and Appeal, he proclaimed, Chinese citizens now could lodge appeals through a dedicated court to challenge decisions rendered by the customs – just as citizens in Europe and the United States could do with their own customs.59 Foreign Minister Wang Jingwei reinforced this point in a conversation with a British diplomat, noting that the new anti-smuggling regulations were promulgated “with the aim of bringing the provisions of Chinese law in this matter more into line with modern requirements, such as are adopted

56 SHAC, 679/3/27757, Memorandum for Mr. E. A. Pritchard, 20 April 1936, 17. 57 Data tabulated from: SHAC, 679/26919, IG Circular Nos. 5527, 1 July 1937; 5571, 20 August 1937; 5611, 27 October 1937; and 5694, 5 July 1938. 58 Chen, 2009, 2. 59 Zhang 1936.

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in other countries.”60 Creating Western-style institutions and procedures on par with their foreign counterparts was an important strategy for the Nationalists to deflect the colonial discourse of deficiency that maintained China could not effectively deal with smuggling because it lacked positive laws, “modern” laws, or a competent central government.61 Finally, the mandate that smuggling-related disputes had to be processed through new legal channels and institutions signaled the Nationalists’ intention to limit jurisdictional shopping by appellants. Smuggling, in the minds of Nationalist officials, would henceforth be a routine, domestic law-enforcement issue adjudicated exclusively by the Chinese central government, rather than a diplomatic issue subjected to external interference.

Conclusion The Joint Investigation Rules were originally forged in the crucible of foreign imperialism in China. The rise and demise of the former thus closely tracked the rise and demise of the latter. Promulgated during the formative years of the treaty port order, the Rules were intended to streamline the growing-volume of disputes over the definition of “smuggling” and enhance Qing prerogative to deal with treaty violations. Foreign merchants, shippers, and consuls, however, did not hesitate to exploit the Rules to their advantage, as they did in the Carisbrooke and Taiwan cases. Their challenges certainly circumscribed Chinese interdiction efforts by injecting foreign authority into an ostensibly domestic law enforcement matter. Yet the Rules were not, contra later assertions, simply a foreign product imposed de novo onto China. They contained provisions and practices analogous to Qing Empire’s legally pluralistic tradition. It was the rise of foreign influence and the concomitant decline in dynastic power during the final decades of the Qing that ultimately tipped the balance from legal pluralism to legal imperialism. Successive Chinese regimes during the twentieth century devoted their energies to unraveling such legacies while simultaneously building a modern state. Though infrequently invoked during its 70-year history, the Rules became a target of Nationalist China’s campaigns to reform laws, centralize authority, and fight smuggling on the China coast. Such reforms and discourse paralleled those in other semi-colonial polities that sought to reverse the extraterritorial privileges

60 R. G. Howe to Alexander Cadogan, 7 June 1935, FO 371/19323. 61 For overview of how nineteenth-century Western jurisprudence of sovereignty was linked to legal positivism, see Anghie 2005 and Kayaoglu 2010.

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of foreigners through legal reform.62 Measured against the Westphalian ideal of full territorial sovereignty, the Nationalists’ accomplishments in contesting extraterritoriality through aggressive policing appear modest, even unimpressive. Yet if we recognize that sovereignty has always been variegated, layered, and tenuous, then the progress made by the Nationalists in effecting the transition from jurisdiction over persons to jurisdiction over territory appears quite remarkable.63 This transition was never fully realized during the Nanjing Decade, but suppressing smuggling provided ample, consistent opportunities for the Nationalists to contest the legacies of legal imperialism and project their authority into foreign-controlled enclaves in ways their predecessors were unable to do. The abrogation of the Joint Investigation Rules was integral to this broader project heralding the eventual demise of the treaty port system and the creation of a more assertive central state that ultimately bore fruit after 1949.

Bibliography Archival and Published Sources DC

Xue Yunsheng. 1970 [Qing]. Duli cunyi (Lingering Doubts after Reading the Substatutes), ed. Huang Jingjia. Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center. Citation by serial number.

DIO

Inspector General of Customs, 1938. Documents Illustrative of the Origin, Development, and Activities of the Chinese Customs Service. British Foreign Office, National Archives Foreign Relations of the United States. Citation by year, volume, and page number. Nihon Gaikō Bunsho (Documents on Japanese foreign policy). Citation by collection, volume, part, and document number. MacMurray, John Van Antwerp. 1929. Treaties and agreements with and concerning China, 1919–1929. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Inspector General of Customs, 1917. Treaties, Conventions, Etc., Between China and Foreign States. (2nd edition.) Citation by volume and page number. The Second Historical Archives of China (Zhong guo di er li shi dang an guan)

FO FRUS NGB TAC TCF SHAC

62 Like other semi-colonial and native regimes, as Lam (2010, 885, n. 14) notes, China also “actively sought to remake [itself] by appropriating the logic and language of colonialism.” 63 Benton 2010.

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Newspapers and Periodicals CG NCH SB

Customs Gazette, Shanghai North China Herald, Shanghai Shen Bao, Shanghai

Other Works Cited Anghie, Antony. 2005. Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Benton, Lauren. 2002. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Benton, Lauren. 2010. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cai Zhitong. 1936. “Wo guo zousi wenti zhi jiantao” (“A Thorough Discussion of Our Nation’s Smuggling Problem”). Zhonghang yuebao 12 (5): 1–7. Cassel, Pär K. 2012. Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in NineteenthCentury China and Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chen, Li. 2009. “Law, Empire, and Historiography of Modern Sino-Western Relations: A Case Study of the Lady Hughes Controversy in 1784.” Law and History Review 27 (1): 1–53. Chen Shiqi. 1987. “Yingshang fouren haiguan yangyuan guanyu zousi weizhang chufen de guanxiaquan he ‘Huixun zhangcheng ruguan zhangcheng’ de zhiding.” Xiamen Daxue Xuebao 1: 101–133 + 155. Edwards, R. Randle. 1980. “Ch’ing Legal Jurisdiction over Foreigners.” In Essays on China’s Legal Tradition, ed. Jerome Alan Cohen, R. Randle Edwards, and Fu-mei Chang Chen. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. Hsiao, Liang-lin. 1974. China’s Foreign Trade Statistics, 1864–1949. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Huang Guosheng. 2000. Yapian zhanzheng qian de dongnan sisheng haiguan. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe. Inspector General of Customs. 1878. Foochow: “Taiwan” False Manifest Case: 21st February to 28th September, 1878. Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General. Kayaoglu, Turan. 2010. Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lam, Tong. 2010. “Policing the Imperial Nation: Sovereignty, International Law, and the Civilizing Mission in Late Qing China.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 52 (4): 881–908. Lian Xinhao. 2005. Shuike zoushui: jindai Zhongguo yanhai de zousi yu fan zousi. Nanchang: Jiangxi gaoxiao chubanshe. Soong, T. V. [Song Ziwen]. 1928. “The Economic and Financial Reconstruction of China.” The China Weekly Review 44 (May): 279–80, 292. Thai, Philip. 2016. “Law, Sovereignty, and the War on Smuggling in Coastal China.” Law and History Review 34 (1): 75–114. Van de Ven, Hans. 2014. Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China. N.Y.: Columbia University Press.

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Wakeman, Frederic. 1995. Policing Shanghai, 1927–1937. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Wright, Stanley F. 1938. China’s Struggle for Tariff Autonomy, 1843–1938. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Wright, Stanley F. 1950. Hart and the Chinese Customs. Belfast: W. Mullan. Zhang Lai. 1936. “Bianyan” (Forward). In Haiguan faze pingyi hui zhangze yi’an huibian (Compilation of the Regulations and Motions of the Customs Penalty Board of Inquiry and Appeal). Publisher unknown.

Donna BRUNERO

9 Beyond Tariffs and Duties: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service and its Representations of China’s Maritime World c.1912–49 From a nautical research point of view, it is disappointing to find how little is known of China and the Chinese junk, not only by the man in the street, but by literary giants, admirals and professors. … I say it is disappointing, for we sailors of the West owe a debt of gratitude to the seamen of China. To their countrymen goes the credit of inventing the water-tight compartment, the lug-sail, the balance rudder and many other nautical devices in common use today. G.R.G. Worcester, in the preface of The Junkman Smiles, 1959

In the preface to one of his many works on maritime China, former Customs River Inspector, G.R.G Worcester reflects on what he perceived as a failing on the part of Western scholars (among others) to recognize the cross-cultural exchanges relating to shipping technologies which had taken place over time, leading to Chinese maritime innovations being adapted and adopted in the West. This chapter examines attempts by Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) staff, such as Worcester, to interest and educate a Western public audience in China’s maritime heritage, its navigation innovations and traditional shipping. Arguably too often we overlook the maritime element in the CMCS; the Service performed important duties not only in terms of the regulation of maritime trade (such as shipping, preventing smuggling, harbor and port conservancy) but also in promoting the understanding of the Chinese maritime world through its formal and informal publications, exhibitions and research. Works by Worcester (as cited above) are representative of a type of scholarship which emerged out of the CMCS during the Republican era and demonstrate the value of re-examining CMCS publications as they indeed extend far beyond the expected trade returns and tariffs. In its publications and ‘public outreach’, through service such as participating in international exhibitions, and creating model collections, the CMCS could not only promote its own profile to an international audience but also contributed to knowledge of China; it is this creation of knowledge about maritime China that forms the focal point for this chapter. The Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) and its earlier incarnation the Imperial Maritime Customs Service (IMCS) is perhaps best known for its role in regulating and documenting the trade of China from the 1840s through to the1940s. The history of the IMCS and CMCS is chronicled in a recent book https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-010

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Breaking with the Past by Hans van de Ven and is described as the institution that modernized China.1 The CMCS is often most valued by scholars as a key means for studying Sino-Western relations during the era of the long nineteenth and early twentieth century; the age of new imperialism. Not only was the CMCS an institution established to collect tariffs and duties, it became an important source of information regarding trade, commodities, shipping statistics and on many topics beyond the imagined scope of this institution. By examining some of the less well-known works stemming from the Service, we can consider the value in a maritime institution which attempted to present the maritime world, in which it was enmeshed to a broader audience. While the impact of these works may have been muted, they remain a legacy of the breadth of interests and ambitions of CMCS staff and provide insights into how CMCS staff viewed their role in China. The CMCS grew out of the era of the Unequal Treaties, and throughout its almost 100-year history, it was a largely foreign run, yet Chinese institution. Hence, it is apt to describe the CMCS as straddling two worlds.2 This cosmopolitan service grew to manage over 40 customs stations, employing thousands of staff, the top echelons of which were dominated by foreign recruits. It was undoubtedly a cosmopolitan service, employing not only a substantial number of Britons but also Americans, Danes, Frenchmen, Japanese and Italians among others.3 These foreign staff in turn relied on Chinese staff as they possessed local knowledge and could act “as a bridge between the Chinese government and the gentry class.”4 Here was a Service that existed at the frontier of two worlds on both an institutional level but also in the sense of how it operated from day to day.5 The functions of this CMCS and its publications reflected this dual interest, producing knowledge on China for official purposes but also as a producer of knowledge directed to a foreign audience. While the opening of the Nanjing 2nd Historical Archives led to a flurry of publications and research projects on the Service in recent years,6 there has been

1 Hans van de Ven, Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 2 See Donna Brunero, Britain’s Imperial Cornerstone in China (London: Routledge, 2006) for an introduction to the CMCS. 3 See Catherine Ladds, Empire Careers: Working for the Chinese Customs Service, 1854–1949 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). 4 Henk Vynckier and Chihyun Chang, “Imperium in Imperio: Robert Hart, The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and its (self)representations.” Biography, 37.1 (Winter 2014). p. 70. 5 van de Ven discusses the CMCS as a ‘frontier institution’ in Breaking With the Past and I am making a connection to similar ideas here, that the CMCS was at the edge of empire or between two worlds. 6 See for example the Bristol University Chinese Maritime Customs Project 中國海關近代史研究 項目 http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/customs/ and the ‘Tianjin Under 9 Flags Project’ both of which stemmed from an opening of access to archival materials in China.

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a lacuna of scholarship assessing the publications produced by the CMCS. One exception is an article by Andrea Eberhard-Breard on the publications of the Statistical Department (Zaoce chu).7 In this article, Eberhard-Breard demonstrates that the publications of the Statistical Department were intended to not only provide a service to foreign powers, through the production of voluminous reports on China’s trade, but in time to present the Chinese government with a feasible model of administrative practices to adopt within their other institutions. Through producing accurate and standardized statistics on trade and commerce, the Statistical Department of the Service shaped the knowledge-gathering and producing systems traditionally employed by the Qing (but the Service was not credited for this).8 Far reaching reforms based on the Statistical Department’s model however, was not to be the case, as Eberhard-Breard argued that as Inspector -General (IG) Robert Hart’s own influence within the Chinese court diminished, so too did the attention paid to the work of the Statistical Department. Eberhard-Breard’s work is further developed in a paper by Vynckier and Chang, where the CMCS and its (self) representations are examined, with particular reference to the influence and legacies of the influential and legendary ‘I.G. in Peking’ Robert Hart.9 This article details the voluminous publications the CMCS produced and highlights the fact that many titles were of little immediate relevance to CMCS staff but were written with a foreign audience in mind, revealing a ‘public agenda’ for the Service.10 In both instances, the focus of attention is predominantly the Service during the Qing era and on works produced under the watchful guidance of IG Robert Hart. While these works are valuable, they do not address the publications of the Service in the Republican (post-Hart) era, nor is much attention given to the maritime aspect of the Service. This chapter casts new light on the knowledge creation of the CMCS in the Republican era by drawing on the maritime history or maritime-related scholarship of the Service as its basis. The image on the statue dedicated to Robert Hart captures something of the IMCS and CMCS’s aims – to spread light (and gather knowledge) on China and in particular to bring the maritime realm into focus (See Figure 1). In doing so, not only was knowledge systematically gathered on China but it was disseminated through the Service via formal and informal publications. This chapter demonstrates how the CMCS sought to achieve these aims through two case studies: the development of a collection of Chinese model ships (or ‘junks’) by IG Frederick Maze, and by examining the work of G.R.G. Worcester. 7 Andrea Eberhard-Breard, “Robert Hart and China’s Statistical Revolution.” Modern Asian Studies, 40.3 (July 2006), pp. 605–629. 8 Ibid., p. 622. 9 Vynckier and Chang, p. 76. 10 Ibid, pp. 75–6.

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Figure 1: A maritime feature on the statue in honour of Sir Robert Hart, Shanghai.11

In both instances the maritime world is utilized as a primary lens for promoting China and the role of the CMCS. Both case studies have their origins in the Republican era (and some publications date even a bit later) but arguably in these case studies we can see the tradition of scholarship on China which was fostered under Robert Hart, continuing as something of an ‘institutional legacy’ for the CMCS. 11

11 Plate insert facing the cover page of T.Roger Banister, The Coastwise Lights of China: An illustrated account of the Chinese Maritime Customs Lights Service (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1932).

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Scholarly Traditions and the CMCS When issuing a circular on the proposed development of meteorological stations in China in 1869, IG Robert Hart made the following observations: Our offices are now to be found at points along the coasts and banks of seas and rivers, embracing land and water extending without break over some twenty degrees of latitude and ten of longitude, and our present organization is such as will enable us to record meteorological observations without adding to our numbers…The worth of such observations to the scientific world, and the practical value they made be made to have for seafaring men and other on these Eastern seas will in due time be appreciated and acknowledged.

Hart elaborated that this project would have particular significance in “throwing light on natural laws, and in bringing within the reach of scientific men facts and figures from a quarter of the globe, which, rich in phenomenon, has heretofore yielded so few data for systematic generalization…”12 In this extract, the geographical reach and expanse of the IMCS is emphasized but so too, the belief that the service could cast light ‘figuratively’ onto aspects of Chinese history, society and maritime world that were relatively unknown. This sentiment typified Hart’s vision for the IMCS, that it represented an institution which could prove its value to not only the Qing but also to the foreign powers with interests in East Asia. In this instance, James Hevia’s work English Lessons makes a useful reference point for thinking about the larger ‘imperial projects’ in play in China of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Hevia’s monograph examines the pedagogy of imperialism and the mechanism through which locals were often ‘coaxed’ into joining this project, with the idea that it was a joint enterprise.13 Educational and other programmes, such as translations, were regarded as a valuable part of this imperial project and overarching everything was the idea that China could be improved through the efforts of foreigners.14 The IMCS under Hart and successive IGs exemplified this idea of contributing to China’s development via the use of ‘soft power’ as exemplified through studies of China, education and research. Chinese staff weren’t necessarily co-opted into the projects examined in this paper, but the foreign 12 Chinese Maritime Customs Project, Occasional Papers No 3, Robert Hart, “Documents Relating to 1. The establishment of Meteorological Stations in China; and 2, Proposals for Cooperation in the Publication of Meteorological observations and exchange of Weather News by telegraph along the Pacific Coast of Asia, 1874.” Edited by Robert Bickers and Catherine Ladds, Bristol, 2008 (web resource). 13 James Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 3. 14 Ibid.

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staff were arguably influenced by such ideas; the CMCS was in many ways then, a product of its times. As an institution, the IMCS and the CMCS excelled in producing voluminous reports. Official and semi-official circulars were part of the knowledge gathering and dissemination process for this highly centralized institution. The creation of a Statistical Department in 1873 is a testament to this concern with the gathering of knowledge.15 Through the gathering of information, the Service made China accessible to the world. IG Hart also ensured that information on China was ‘regularised’ within Western norms of reporting and record keeping; this was not dissimilar what Hevia describes as the work of diplomats and advisors who saw their role as guiding the Chinese to be able to operate in the Western imperial age.16 Within the institution itself, Hart utilized the process of information gathering and report writing as means to control and regulate the operations of his staff.17 In its reach and attention to detail, van de Ven describes the CMCS as being a Foucauldian panopticon.18 The CMCS certainly did produce voluminous reports on each Customs house, its trade and returns.19 In addition a special series focused on particular commodities and/or traditional crafts and industries. These publications served to satisfy a demand for information on the China market, on trading conditions and on the possible challenges encountered by traders, settlers and shipping companies. In addition, a series of special papers and miscellaneous papers dealt with a wide range of topics, all in aid of building a more detailed picture of China. For example, papers include reports on Tea production, conservancy and particular industries such as silk.20 Here it is worth noting that these publications were very much intended to cater to foreign interests. Vynckier and Chang go as far as to describe the CMCS as becoming an “informal research and publishing powerhouse” with a publishing output they described as being on a par with that of a “major modern academic institution” of the time.21 Topics relating to China’s maritime world also formed a part of these publications.

15 Breard, pp. 613–4. 16 Hevia, p. 13. 17 Breard, p. 617. 18 van de Ven, p. 65. 19 Work by Thomas P.Lyons, China Maritime Customs and Trade Statistics (Trumansburg NY, Willow Creek of Trumansburg, 2003) is a good starting point for understanding the statistical materials and roles played by the CMCS. 20 The Service participated in the Vienna exhibition of 1873 and featured silk. It received special commendation not only for the products it displayed but for the detailed information (statistics) it also presented to the public. Breard, p. 620. 21 Vynckier and Chang, p. 76.

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If the CMCS was adept at producing information on China, the Service also attracted employees who were interested and able to study, and write about China. The Sinologist Hosea Ballou Morse is a key example.22 Likewise, Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor, a Customs commissioner who earned acclaim for his translation work, particularly for a publication during his retirement years of the San Kuo Chih Yen-I or Romance of the Three Kingdoms in 1925.23 Historian Fan Fa-ti elaborates that the Victorian naturalists who visited China (or lived there) would draw on the expertise of the CMCS staff (and their superior access to China’s hinterland and waterways) to aid them in their pursuit of knowledge relating to China’s natural realm. And the ranks of the CMCS included naturalists such as William Hancock.24 These scholarly pursuits were supported by Hart and his successors, on the understanding that if Customs men could produce work that was deemed ‘meritorious’ it would find its way into print25; the Statistical Department in part served this role in publishing the diverse works produced as CMCS scholarship. This tendency towards scholarly pursuits is a reflection in part of the recruitment policies of the CMCS, the foreign service often attracting the most outstanding young candidates, but the CMCS able to secure many competent and intellectually curious employees.26 Successive IG’s also encouraged scholarship among their staff, a good example being Roger Banister’s The Coastwise Lights of China (1932) a project which IG Maze had initiated and the end product being a detailed account of CMCS involvement in regulating the lighthouse system along the China coast.27 It was clear to most Customs men however, that personal acclaim for their works was not to be expected but rather credit would be given to the CMCS, as the institution that provided the means and support for these publications. As Worcester relates he was told by IG Maze that he would receive little credit for his first ‘technical work on Chinese junks’ but that 22 See Fairbank, Coolidge and Smith’s work, H.B.Morse: Customs Commissioner and Historian of China (Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1995). 23 Isidore Cyril Cannon, Public Success, Private Sorrow: The Life and Times of Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor (1857–1938) China Customs Commissioner and Pioneer Translator (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Study Series, 2009). 24 Fan Fa Ti, “British Naturalists in Qing China: Empire and Cultural Encounter,” (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004). p. 8. 25 Vynckier and Chang, citing Statisical Secretary Edward B. Drew’s observations of Hart’s support of academic works, p. 76. 26 See Catherine Ladds, Empire Careers. 27 China, Inspectorate of Customs, The Coastwise Lights of China: an illustrated account of the Chinese Maritime Customs lights service. Written by order of the Inspector General of Customs by T. Roger Banister, (Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, Statistical Department, 1932). Robert Bickers has written about the lighthouse service in some detail: “Infrastructural Globalization: Lighting the China Coast, 1860s–1930s.” The Historical Journal, vol. 56 (June 2013), pp. 431–458.

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the CMCS, who had made the work possible, should receive full dues. Worcester agreed with this, commenting that “I could not have carried out the research I did without the financial backing of the Customs.”28 Here we have the impression that duty to the Service came before ego, or at least, this is how it appears in Worcester’s accounts of his research work in China. Accompanying scholarly works were the more personal writings; current or retired CMCS staff wrote memoirs of their China experiences, of pirates, smugglers and life in the treaty ports. Readers could follow the adventures of these Westerners in Chinese employ as they carried out their duties of adventured along the waters of China coast. Here again they provided personal reflections on life in China and also contributed to shaping public knowledge of China’s maritime world. Pirates and smugglers commonly feature in such works. Customs men such as, A.H. Rassmussen, Christopher Briggs, Paul King, and G.R.G. Worcester all shared something of their lives in China in a variety of memoirs or commentaries about the China coast.29 Note here that of these four, three were part of staff intimately involved with the maritime aspect of the service. It is possible that there was a tendency for those who were from the less ‘elite’ groups of the CMCS (i.e. not within the Indoor Staff) to write more freely of life on the ‘frontline’ of the coast. Also, it may reflect an audience with more interest in possible brushes with Chinese pirates than the more ‘humdrum’ experiences of the office routine of some of the indoor staff or interior (and remote) postings. As Worcester related: When my friends hear that I was in the Chinese Maritime Customs, they always assume that I examined people’s luggage. Actually my work was not as interesting as that: with others I was responsible for the surveying and marking of Channels, and the safe navigation of various types of ships, from aircraft carrier to sampan…30

While Worcester used humour to engage his readers, and is self-deprecatory about the type work his duties entailed, he nonetheless highlights the ‘foreign’ and exciting aspects of his work, particularly for maritime enthusiasts. Here is someone who is writing about a life on the China coast in the most literal sense by looking at maritime lives and shipping traditions.

28 G.R.G. Worcester, The Junkman Smiles (London: Chatto & Windus, 1959), p. 11. 29 A.H. Rassmussen, China Trader, (1954) C. Briggs, Hai Kuan: the Sea Gate (Cheshire: Lane, 1997), P. King, In the Chinese Customs, and Worcester, The Junkman Smiles. B.E. Foster Hall is another example, he published materials relating to the history of the CMCS and his own career as late as 1977. B.E. Foster Hall, “The Chinese Maritime Customs: An International Service, 1854–1949” (1977) The Chinese Maritime Customs Project, University of Bristol, reprinted in 2015, edited by Robert Bickers. 30 Worcester, p. 11.

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This study now directs attention to two case studies as a means of thinking about the production and promotion of materials relating to China’s maritime realm that were produced with Western audience in mind. The two case studies are the collection of model ships (under the direction of IG Maze) and the collected works of G.R.G. Worcester, arguably one of the most prolific writers from the CMCS, whose focus was heavily maritime and led him to hold the post of editor of the esteemed journal, Mariner’s Mirror for many years.

Frederick Maze’s Model Junks Frederick Maze, the sometimes controversial IG of the CMCS (1929–43) held a professional and personal passion for China’s maritime affairs. In addition to his numerous responsibilities at the helm of the CMCS he initiated a number of projects relating to maritime research. Upon his retirement, Maze continued this interest and published articles on maritime affairs with the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Mariner’s Mirror. These included articles on “Chinese Junks” (1952) and “Conservancy Operations in China” (1949) in the Far Eastern Economic Review. Maze’s proudest achievement, however, was the development and donation of a scale model collection of Chinese junks to the Science Museum in South Kensington in 1938 (this collection was designated as a gift to the nation in 1948).31 IG Maze initiated this project in 1929, funding it personally, as he was convinced that the advent of steam and steam vessels operating along the China coast and inland waterways was leading to the rapid demise of traditional shipping and ship-building practices.32 It was this concern (or romanticism) over the pending obsolescence of the Chinese ‘junks’ that formed the raison d’être

31 Donna Brunero, “To Capture a Vanishing era: The Development of the Maze Collection of Chinese Junk Models, 1929–1948.” Journal for Maritime Research, vol. 17.1 (May 2015). 32 Science Museum MS 2084/2/1 Letter Books Relating to the Maze Collection of Junks. Section1 Niuzhuang Junk, Maze to Tisdall, 8 November 1929, Section 2 Fuzhou Junk, Maze to A.H.Forbes 8 November 1929, no 3 Shantou Fishing Boat, Maze to A.Sadoine, 8 November 1929, No 4 Ningbo-Shandong Fishing Junk Maze to T.Ebara. Maze sent letters to many ports. Each request followed the same pattern. In each letter, Maze instructs that staff should enquire at local Chinese shipbuilding establishments if they can construct a ‘scale model, accurate in every minute detail’ of the particular junk in question. This construction must also be carried out in a meticulous manner, being ‘piece by piece, plank by plank, spar by spar’ with the intention that this should then be exactly the same as the vessel would be constructed with sails also complete.

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for this project.33 Maze was particularly spurred on by the fact that no accurate models existed in China, nor any paper plans so once the original vessels were gone there may be little opportunity to study or reconstruct these native craft. For IG for Maze, time was of the essence in ensuring China’s maritime heritage was documented and recorded. Maze reflected on the nature of ship building practices in China: Chinese Junk-builders [sic] do not prepare and leave on record detailed plans and specifications in the Western sense, but on the contrary work in a primitive manner, as it were, “from father to son, by rule of thumb”…34

So to ensure this project met both ‘academic’ and scientific standards, a shipbuilder needed to be identified who had made a particular craft and who also had the skill to make a model and was willing to make it to scale. This proved difficult; often model junks made were for symbolic significance and then found homes in temples or were treated and traded as souvenirs. Here however, Maze wanted to bring a ‘modern and scientific’ approach to a field which he considered undeveloped and decidedly unscientific in its methods. Maze’s reflection is useful as it gives insights into how traditional shipbuilding operated and the types of familial dynamics that were at play; the lament for present day scholars is that these ‘local voices’ were largely rendered silent in Maze’s project and the resulting collection of model ships. Despite Maze’s voluminous notes on the project and specifications on the various junks, we can glean very little of the model makers apart from business transactions; here ‘technique’, composition and scientific method was regarded as more important than the people who built and sailed these vessels. It is arguable that Maze’s project was also motivated by the desire to fill what he considered was a glaring gap in the London public’s knowledge of China and Chinese shipping. For the Western maritime enthusiast of the early 1900s there was little documentation of Asian vessels. There were only a few works on Chinese junks at that stage, the most notable being Ivon Donnelly’s 1924 work Chinese Junks and Other Native Craft.35 This sketchbook served to create awareness that there was more than one type of Chinese junk and also emphasized the quaint aspects of their design and decoration. Previous images of the Chinese junk had 33 Science Museum, Nominal File (Registry) 3699 Sir Frederick Maze KCMG, KBE. Part 3. Mackintosh in a Directors Note of 27 July 1937. Maze visited Mackintosh at the Science Museum and during this visit had outlined his rationale for having developed the collection. 34 Frederick Maze to O.M.Green, 10th June 1936 The Papers of Sir Frederick Maze, National Maritime Museum (NMM) MS79/165/2 35 Ivon A. Donnelly, Chinese Junks and Other Native Craft (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1924).

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been dominated by that of the Keying – the first Chinese vessel to visit British waters in the 1840s.36 Further afield, scholars like James Hornell were carving inroads into understandings of maritime ethnography with studies such as The Origins and Ethnological Significance of Indian Boat Designs (1920) and articles such as “The origin of the Junk and Sampan” (1934). Maze’s efforts found a place within a trend for the development of maritime ethnographic scholarship; with an Asian focus. This collection can be seen as a primary collection – built generally at the port with the ship builders using local construction techniques and specifically with future researchers in mind. It was this authenticity that led Maze to claim in relation to his Fujian sea-going junk which was ‘correct in every detail’: I believe I am justified, therefore, in thinking that it [the Fujian junk] is perhaps the most elaborate and largest model of a Chinese junk that has ever reached England – or even Europe!37

Maze was painstaking in his efforts to ensure the scholarly value of the models. A valuable addition to these models was the fact that most had detailed specification sheets prepared and provided by the shipbuilders for Maze’s approval. This added to the importance of the collection, particularly from a research standpoint.38 As for anthropological perspectives, or the cultures of those communities who used these vessels, this was largely absent; the vessels themselves were Maze’s primary interest. These models received a reasonable amount of press coverage in London. For example, in 1934 The Illustrated London News carried a two-page spread featuring a number of junks and a brief description of each under the dramatic title “Ancient and Picturesque Sailing Craft Doomed to an Early Extinction”. The Times, London ran an article in October 1938 on the “Models of Chinese Junks” and outlined the new exhibition of the ten models which had been donated by IG Maze to the Science Museum. In conjunction with this exhibition a private viewing of the collection was held and counted among guests were representatives from the Chinese embassy, British naval figures, former CMCS staff, maritime scholar Hornell, representatives of the press and some 20 Science Museum staff.39 This served to emphasize the significance of the collection and the fact 36 The Hong Kong Maritime Museum exhibits a detailed replica and discussion of the Keying and the interest it aroused in England during its visit. 37 NMM, MAZ/79/165/2, Maze to Green, 10 June 1936. 38 These documents are held in the library of the Science Museum, London. 39 Science Museum, Register File 3699, Part 4.

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that it had indeed received a certain amount of interest from the broader public – as Maze had hoped. Maze had visions of extending beyond this initial collection and creating a much more expansive body of work on Chinese shipping. To this end, a similar project was embarked upon in 1940 with a circular sent out to all ports regarding junks in the Yangzi requesting information, research, measurements and the like.40 However, the Pacific War put an end to these plans. The collection was displayed for close to 60 years at the Science Museum in London and is currently in storage awaiting an opportunity to receive public attention once again. This collection was predominantly focused on the building of model ships and the accuracy of replicas produced. This collection was designed to demonstrate the wide diversity of China’s sea and river going vessels and the people employed on this project were meticulous with their notes and measurements. What was lacking however, was the idea of maritime ethnography (the traditions informing how ships were made) and insights into the communities of shipbuilders and their response to an ‘impending obsolescence’. As a collection, these model crafts are valuable,considering the process of model making and also as a ‘snapshot’ of shipping operations in early twentieth century China. But accounts of the lives of those who lived on and used these ships are largely absent from Maze’s project. The end result of this project then is a technically ‘accurate’ model collection but one that arguably only served a limited role in shaping understandings of the Chinese maritime sphere. It is interesting that this collection was developed at a time when British interest in the CMCS was perceived as being very low, so this may in part have been a response to flag more interest for the Far East in the public mind.

G.R.G. Worcester: Maritime Historian and Amateur Ethnographer? George Raleigh Grey Worcester enjoyed a long career in the CMCS predominantly as an Assistant River Inspector (on Special Duty). His career spanned from 1913– 1943, and then he worked within the Statistical Department of the Inspectorate

40 Science Museum MS 2084/2/3 section 6. Letter re information on Junks in the Yangtze. Junks and Sampan information requested. Draft 20 August 1940.

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General from 1947–1948 at which point his contract expired.41 Worcester was involved in a number of maritime projects (namely the creation of the Maze Collection of Chinese Junk Models) and also wrote about Chinese shipping. As Worcester recounts, “altogether I produced five uninteresting technical books, now out of print, for the archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs” but alongside these works, were notes, sketches and ideas jotted down in a variety of places, “in trucks and cars, in junks, in sampans, steamers and aeroplanes; on the tracking path and in the rapid; on the sea and up the river.”42 These notes became the basis of many of Worcester’s publications following his retirement from the CMCS. He became a prominent figure in maritime history circles in the UK and was the editor of the well-regarded maritime history journal the Mariner’s Mirror for many years. Worcester was heavily involved in the Maze models project and corresponded with Maze in this regard. He also went on to produce the catalogue for the exhibition. In conjunction with the development of the model collection IG Maze appointed staff for a number of projects including river conservancy, chronicling the lighthouse service, and a manual for the identification of junks. Worcester was appointed to a number of such projects. He recounted: as it was discovered that I could write a bit and draw a bit, that I loved to travel in the interior, that I could put up with discomfort to achieve my object, and was prepared to take various personal risks, the Inspector-General of Customs, Sir Frederick Maze, took me off all Customs work and put me on to Chinese Nautical Research. And so it came about that I spent eight supremely happy years traveling about the interior of China, studying the boats, the people, and their customs.43

Worcester produced a number of significant works on Chinese shipping and lives. And with a keen eye to detail, we see a different aspect of Chinese maritime life being brought to public attention. This writing continued beyond Worcester’s employment with the CMCS, pointing to what would become a lifelong interest in the maritime realm. Worcester’s technical works, which he dismissed as ‘uninteresting’ were nonetheless very well-regarded as making good contributions to scholarship on maritime China. Worcester is often referred to as an eminent sinologist and his links to the CMCS are cited as a reason for the depth of his expertise on China.

41 “Database of Chinese Maritime Customs Staff” Department of Historical Studies, Chinese Maritime Customs Project, University of Bristol, Web, 10th Nov 2015. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ history/customs/resources/servicelists/databases.html 42 Worcester, Junkman Smiles, preface, p. 12. 43 Worcester, in the preface to The Junkman Smiles.

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A demonstration of the value of Worcester’s work is that it finds mention (and his illustrations are reprinted) in volume four of Joseph Needham’s classic work multi-volume work, Science and Civilization in China (1971). A review of Junks and Sampan’s of the Yangtze -a compilation of four earlier studies completed by Worcester by Edgar Wickberg (who is best known for his work on the Chinese in the Philippines) highlighted what he saw as the unique quality to Worcester’s scholarship: that he not only helped scholars to learn about boats “but also boatmen, trackers, fishermen.”44 In this, Worcester contributed to maritime ethnography with a particular focus on Chinese shipping and maritime practices. His works on Chinese shipping are still being cited by scholars in recent times, for example, Robert Langdon’s 2001 article on bamboo rafts cites Worcester’s work on Taiwanese bamboo rafts as a valued source.45 Here we can see that Worcester’s work was not only considered the notes of an ‘Old China Hand’ or a novice, but that he was well-regarded in academic circles for his substantial works on Chinese shipping. The Junkman Smiles (1959) is a good representation of the breadth and also depth of Worcester’s interest in China’s maritime traditions and the littoral communities. In this book, Worcester details at length his observations of traditional shipping, such as the ‘foot boat’ in use along Shaoxing’s river networks. In this he includes not only his experience of travelling along ‘robber infested’ waters in this vessel, but provided intricate details of the mechanism by which the boat was propelled – a four-foot paddle.46 Worcester also writes of his experiences in researching the many vessels he documented, for instance sometimes needing to disguise himself as a fisherman (and hiding his notebook out of sight) to evade bandits.47 Sketches and photographs accompany his work and the reader can appreciate Worcester’s eye for detail as well as his admiration for many of the vessels and people he was writing about. (See Figure 2) This sketch demonstrates for the reader not only the profile of the vessel on the waterline but the mechanism by which it was propelled through the water. Reviews of this work, echoed an appreciation of Worcestor’s scholarship and the accessible manner in which he presented his observations. For example, Anthony Christie’s review of The Junkman Smiles for Man (the journal of the Royal Anthropological institute of Great Britain and Ireland) reflected that the volume was not 44 Edgar Wickberg, Review of G.R.G. Worcester’s The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, in Pacific Affairs, Vol. 45.4 (1972–3), pp. 593–594. 45 Robert Langdon, “The Bamboo Raft as a Key to the Introduction of the Sweet Potato in Prehistoric Polynesia.” The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 36.1 (June 2001), pp. 51–67. 46 Worcester, The Junkman Smiles, pp. 25–7. 47 Ibid., p. 37.

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Figure 2: A sketch of a Foot Boat from The Junkman Smiles.48

a ‘profound’ book but rather “conveys something of the spirit which infected the nature of the Old China Hand who was genuinely interested in the country in which he worked.”489 In combining technical detail with a human touch, Worcester’s work engaged, informed and entertained the reader. As mentioned previously, most of Worcester’s publications were produced in his retirement, but even to a casual onlooker, the connection to his career in the CMCS is strong. Worcester published articles on numerous topics including: Fishing in China, the origins and observance of the Dragon Boat Festival in China, the Chinese War Junk and the coming of the Chinese Steamer.50 48 Worcester, The Junkman Smiles, p. 29. 49 Anthony Christie, Review of G.R.G. Worcester’s The Junkman Smiles, in Man, Vol. 61 (August 1961), p. 145. 50 Journal publications by G.R.G. Worcester included:  –“First Naval Expedition on the Yangtze River, 1842” Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 36.1, January 1950  –“Some brief notes on Fishing in China” Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 44.1 1958  –“Origins and Observance of the Dragon Boat Festival in China” Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 42.1, 1956  –“Six Craft of Kwantung” Mariner’s Mirror Vol 45.2 1959  –“The Coming of the Chinese Steamer” Mariner’s Mirror Vol 38, January 1952.

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Through these detailed studies of traditional ships and shipping practices, we can see that Worcester actively maintained the CMCS tradition of producing scholarly works on China. He continued to do so even when his career had ended and the CMCS ceased to function. In his preface to the Junkman Smiles he makes it clear that his research would never have developed without the support and opportunities made available through his work in the CMCS. Worcester produced a strong body of scholarship on Chinese shipping, and also glimpses into the lives of the people who used these vessels on a daily basis. Worcester even experimented with ship models, but in a different manner to that of Frederick Maze. Interestingly, Worcester made a model of the crooked stern junk to ‘entertain his grandchildren’ and had them act as trackers towing the model in the pond in his home! This allowed him to make further observations as to the attributes of this vessel and its usefulness in navigating difficult waters.51 Beyond this, Worcester contented himself with writing on Chinese shipping, rather than building collections of models. His focus was arguably on contributing to existing scholarly debates and not on creating a legacy for himself (or the CMCS) via a museum collection. Worcester’s scholarly approach to documenting Chinese traditional craft parallels the work of the much esteemed work of maritime ethnographer James Hornell (roughly a contemporary) who is viewed by many maritime historians as establishing the field and specialising in Indian shipping and Asian shipping. In a similar way Worcester made significant contributions to a growing body of Western scholarship on Chinese maritime history both during his time as a CMCS man and also a retiree and maritime China enthusiast. He provided a ‘human angle’ to his scholarship as he balanced an interest in the technical against that of the people and livelihoods intertwined with the coast and rivers of China.

Maritime History and the CMCS As this chapter has demonstrated, the CMCS produced many works encompassing numerous aspects of the maritime world of China, and with a foreign (western) audience in mind. It is very pertinent then to consider how we should value this

 –“The Chinese War Junk” Mariner’s Mirror, Vol 34.1, 1948  –“The Footboat of Shaoshing” Mariner’s Mirror Vol. 41.3 1955  –“The Amoy Fishing Boat” Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 40.4 January 1954  –“Four Junks of Kiangsi” Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 47.3 1961 51 The Junkman Smiles, p. 206.

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collection of model ships and these publications. We should recognize that while many of these publications (and the model collection in particular) have faded from the public eye, these works hold more than merely antiquarian interest. The many publications of the CMCS still deserve consideration as they exemplified the type of scholarship produced from China during the treaty port era. Also, we should note that more recent scholarship on Chinese maritime history will sometimes make reference to the works produced under the auspices of the CMCS; this is one of the legacies of this institution. It is noteworthy that Worcester was regarded as an eminent scholar of maritime China and not a novice. His work was considered unique because, just like the CMCS itself, he could straddle the ‘worlds’ of the technically inclined maritime ‘architect’ in his sketching and measurements of various vessels and their functionality, while also embracing the sensitivities of an ethnographer in capturing a sense of the people and communities whose livelihoods revolved around the water. By examining these publications then, we are also seeing a development of a field of studies; that of maritime ethnography. The projects on maritime China introduced in this chapter reveal something about the CMCS as an institution. It is informative for scholars today to consider what the CMCS regarded as important, of being worthwhile to document, particularly in the Republican era. This was a juncture at which the very fabric of this international service was under threat, both through internal dissension and also Sino-Japanese conflict, and yet the CMCS continued to produce a number of works on China, a number of which were maritime-oriented. It may be fair to imagine that IG Maze’s often turbulent experience in China spurred on his desire to create a legacy for the CMCS and himself, but arguably the works produced go further than this. Substantial funding and time was invested in producing the studies of Chinese shipping – Worcester’s diversion from regular duties being a good case in point – and even a collection of models. Within the CMCS there was an interest in seeing knowledge of China promoted; this reflects the idea of the Service representing a larger ‘imperial project’ in China. Despite a challenging socio-political climate, the CMCS continued to support research (scholarly and also statistical) on China and had a role in presenting the maritime sphere to a broader audience and it did this in a number of ways. The scholarship of the CMCS tended to reflect the larger interests of the time (for instance the Victorian naturalists, or interests in anthropology) and demonstrated an awareness that knowledge of the coast, waterways and local maritime practices was important to understanding China. The legacy of the CMCS as an institution comes to the fore, both through the types of publications it produced, and also through the many works published by retired CMCS men, such as Worcester who tended to produce scholarship derived from their experiences in China.

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As reflected through Hevia’s exploration of the ideas of pedagogy, culture and power in English Lessons, the scholarly traditions of the CMCS tended to mirror larger imperial trends of knowledge gathering and dissemination. It is not entirely clear whether the CMCS was consciously trying to emulate studies and publications that emerged from under the auspices of formal Empire and within the colonial territories of Asia (in places such as India for instance). But nonetheless, the institution was steeped in imperial rhetoric and this may well have subtly influenced the energies of CMCS staff to see their work as contributing to a larger body of knowledge on the Orient. Here perhaps the idea of lighthouses helps to serve as an illustration: in ‘lighting’ the darkness of the China coast, the CMCS could boast of introducing scientific methods, modernity and along with this, improvement. And here the improvement was intended to benefit shipping (predominantly foreign) and to reinforce (and possibly justify?) the continued purpose and usefulness of the CMCS to both the Chinese and foreign powers. So too, publications of the CMCS in a broader sense, sought to ‘cast light’ onto China and to reiterate the value and use of the CMCS to an increasingly modernized China. While the CMCS is an institution predominantly associated with the treaty port system and trade of China, its scholarship on the maritime world and shipbuilding traditions of China reveals that this institution was multifaceted in its interests and that over many years, it contributed to scholarly knowledge and projects on China’s maritime realm.

Part III: Migrations and the Travel of Ideas

Glen PETERSON

10 International Law and China’s Entry into the ‘Family of Nations’: The Question of Forced Migration and Refugees This chapter examines the role of forced migration and refugees in the process of China’s incorporation into the European-dominated “Family of Nations” from the 1840s through the 1930s. Until recently, scholars paid little attention to the question of human displacement and movement of refugees in China’s modern history. There are now several detailed studies of the massive internal refugee crisis that resulted from the Japanese invasion of China (1937–1945), in which as many as 95 million persons may have been displaced within China’s borders.1 There have also been a number of recent studies on the mass exodus to Hong Kong and Taiwan that accompanied the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.2 However, scholars have so far paid very little attention to the broader question of how forced migration and the related concept of the modern “refugee” became implicated in the process of China’s political and legal incorporation into the modern international system. The Chinese, with their long history of political unification and fragmentation, external invasions, and fragile eco-systems, were deeply familiar with experiences of human displacement. Indeed, the modern Chinese term for “refugee,” nanmin (難民), literally “people suffering calamity” has an ancient lineage. The character nan (難) meaning “calamity” or “disaster” first appeared in the Yijing (易經), a divination text written between the tenth and 1 Yankui Sun (孫艷魁). Kunande renliu: Kangzhan shiqi de nanmin (Refugees During the War of Resistance Against Japan) (Guilin: Shifan daxue chubanshe, 1994); Stephen R. MacKinnon, Wuhan 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); R. Keith Schoppa, In a Sea of Bitterness: Refugees During the Sino-Japanese War (Cambridge MA; Harvard University Press, 2011). 2 Chi-kwan Mark, “The ‘Problem of People’: British Colonials, Cold War Powers, and the Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, 1949–62” Modern Asian Studies vol. 41 issue 6 (November 2007): 1145–81; Glen Peterson, “To be or Not to Be a Refugee: The International Politics of the Hong Kong Refugee Crisis, 1949–55” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History vol. xxxvi, No.2 (June 2008): 171–195; Madeline Y Hsu, “Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc. and the Political Uses of Humanitarian Relief, 1952–1962” Journal of Chinese Overseas vol. 10 Issue 2 (2014): 137–164; Laura Madokoro, “Surveying Hong Kong in the 1950s: Western Humanitarians and the ‘Problem’ of Chinese Refugees,” Modern Asian Studies vol. 49 issue 2 (March 2015): 493–524; Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, “The Great Exodus: Sojourn, Nostalgia, Return and Identity Formation of Chinese Mainlanders in Taiwan, 1940s–2000.” Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-011

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fourth centuries BCE.3 Linguistic research has shown that nan (難) belongs the Sino-Tibetan language family and is related to the Tibetan mnar ba (“suffering;” “to suffer”) and na ba (“to be sick, ill”), as well as to the Burmese na (“to suffer pain, to be ill”) and nat (“spirit, evil spirit”).4 Recently, the historian Cai Qinyu (蔡勤㝢禹) has identified the range of refugee populations recorded in Chinese historical sources. They included victims of natural disasters (zaimin 災民) such as earthquakes, floods, drought, typhoons and insect plagues; homeless wanderers (youmin 遊民), who were often landless peasants, demobilized soldiers and unemployed city dwellers; religious refugees (zongjiao nanmin 宗教難民); persons or communities subjected to ethnic or “racial” stigmatization (zongzu 種族難民); political refugees (zhengzhi nanmin 政治難民); and war refugees (zhanzheng nanmin 戰爭難民).5 The Chinese thus possessed an understanding of human displacement that predated the introduction of a western legal definition of the “refugee.” The Chinese concept of nanmin (難民) was not a legal notion but a descriptive category encompassing all those who suffered displacement on account of natural and human-induced calamity. Western conceptions of the “refugee” began to enter China in the middle of the nineteenth century, as part of China’s incorporation into a European dominated international legal order. The Euro-American system of international law that was imposed on China after 1840 was primarily concerned with questions of territorial and extra-territorial jurisdiction, treaties, rules of conquest and warfare, and so on. The few historical studies that exist on the introduction of international law into China have also focused on these questions.6 However, there were two areas where the development of international law in the late nineteenth and 3 Nan (難) also appears in the late 4th century BCE text known as the Zuo zhuan (左傳) or “Commentary of Zuo,” which chronicles diplomatic, political and military affairs in China during the period from 722 to 468 BCE. In this text nan (難) has the meaning of “difficult” or “arduous.” 辭海 (Sea of Phrases) (Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe, 1999), 3 vols., vol. 1, p. 1430. 4 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ 難 Accessed 01 January 2016. 5 Cai Qinyu (蔡勤㝢禹), Guojia, shehui yu ruoshi qunti: Minguo shiqi de shehui jiuji 1927–1949 (國家、社會與弱勢群體－民國時期的社會救濟 1927–1949) (State, Society and the Vulnerable Masses: Social Relief in the Republican Period (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2003), pp. 11–15. 6  Gerrrit W. Gong, “China’s Entry into International Society” in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 171–183; Rune Svarverud, International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Turan Kayaoglu, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Par Cassel, Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth Century China and Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Wang Gungwu, Renewal: The Chinese State and the New Global History (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2013), chapter 3.

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early twentieth-century was concerned with the transnational movement and circulation of human bodies: forced migration and political refugees. This chapter examines the significance of forced migration and refugees as aspects of China’s incorporation into the modern international system by focusing on four themes. The first part of the chapter examines the introduction of international law with respect to the extradition of political refugees across national and colonial borders. The second part of the chapter examines the prevalence and significance of colonial practices of banishment, exclusion and deportation involving Chinese migrants. The third part of the chapter examines the significance of indentured labour migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The final part of the chapter looks at the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) after 1919, including Chinese delegates to the ILO, in revising international attitudes and practices with respect to forced migration and refugees. As we shall see, the development of international law surrounding political refugees and colonial practices of forced migration (including exclusion, banishment, deportation and indentured labour) worked to marginalize China and the position of Chinese migrants overseas within the European-dominated “family of nations.” Before proceeding, however, let us begin by considering the context in which European international law was introduced to China in the late nineteenth century. China’s incorporation into the European-dominated international system took place under the rubric of a series of “unequal” international treaties that the Qing government was pressured to sign following the Opium War (1839–42). Arguably the most significant event leading to China’s active engagement with the development of international law in China was the Anglo-French invasion and occupation of Beijing in 1860. During the invasion, the stated purpose of which was to force the Qing government to address British and French grievances with respect to trade and diplomacy in China, the Xianfeng (咸豐) Emperor fled the capital together with his family, leaving behind his 27 year-old half-brother, Prince Gong (恭; also known as Yi Xin 奕訢), to negotiate peace with the foreigners. The resulting Conventions of Beijing signed in 1860 between China and Britain and France, respectively, are significant treaties for several reasons, not least because they signalled a change in the balance of power at the Qing court, and the rise of a reformist faction under Prince Gong. Prince Gong and his chief ally at court, the Manchu official Wenxiang (文祥), became convinced that the most effective means of resisting further encroachments by western powers was to deal with them on their own terms, by turning their obsession with legality to China’s advantage. The result was the establishment in 1861 of a new, western-style foreign office for dealing with western countries, known as the Zongli Yamen (總理衙門) or “General Office for Managing Foreign Affairs.” The establishment of the Zongli Yamen marked the beginning of the introduction of modern

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international law into China. The Zongli Yamen and the Tongwen Guan (同文館) (Interpreters School), established the following year under the Zongli Yamen’s supervision, were tasked with grooming China’s first generation of diplomats and international lawyers.7 Wheaton’s foundational text, Elements of International Law, first published in 1836, became the first international law treatise to be published in Chinese. First published in 1836, it was translated into Chinese in 1863 by the American missionary W. A. P. Martin, who became head of the Interpreters’ College in 1869, under the title Wanguo gongfa (萬國公法) (The Public Law of a Myriad of Countries).8 The text soon became required reading in the Zongli Yamen, where it was scoured for knowledge that could be applied to strengthen China’s dealings with western powers. Wheaton’s Elements of International Law embodied the nineteenth century shift from natural law to positivist jurisprudence. Criticizing earlier natural law theorists like Grotius for failing to distinguish between different kinds of nations, especially between so-called “civilized” and “uncivilized” nations. “Is there a uniform law of nations?” Wheaton asked, rhetorically. To which he replied: “There certainly is not the same one for all the nations and states of the world. The public law, with slight exceptions, has always been, and still is, limited to the civilized and Christian people of Europe or to those of European origin.”9 Wheaton’s statement neatly sums up the culturalist assumptions that underpinned the positivist jurisprudence of nineteenth-century international law. In practical terms, non-European peoples were to be brought within the purview of European international law through a series of legal frameworks including international treaties, colonization and “protectorate” agreements. However, acceptance as proper members of the “family of nations” required meeting the elusive and shifting requirements of the European “standard of civilization.”10 Given the imbalance in power between China and Europe, China’s fledgling modern diplomats and reformers in the Zongli Yamen found themselves 7 On the Zongli Yamen, see Masataka Banno, China and the West, 1858–1861: The Origins of the Tsungli Yamen (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1964). On the Tongwen Guan, see Knight Biggerstaff, The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961). 8 Lydia H. Liu, “Legislating the Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century” in Lydia H. Liu, ed., Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 127–164. Martin translated the book’s 1846 edition. 9 Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 53–54. The quote from Wheaton appears on p.54. 10 Gerrit W. Gong, The ‘Standard of Civilization’ in International Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Anghie, Imperialism, pp. 52–56; 67–100.

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confronted with a kind of international knowledge that could be only challenged by accepting its truth claims. China, they soon concluded, had no choice but to play by the international rules laid down by more powerful European states. They set out with a determination to master the international rules of the game, and to prove to themselves and the world that China was indeed “civilized” by European standards.11 Let us now turn to an examination of the introduction of international law into China as it pertained to the concept of the political refugee.

The Concept of the Political Refugee and Political Asylum Although the European notion of “asylum” was originally rooted in notions of holy sanctuary, the modern concept of political refuge and political asylum entered the discourse of nineteenth-century international law in the context of political developments in Europe after the French Revolution. The French Revolution “furnished a moral basis” for political rebellion in the cause of liberty, one corollary of which was that rebels who failed in their quest required places of refuge outside their own countries. The French constitution of 1793 included a provision for granting political asylum to foreigners who had been exiled for opposing royal absolutism.12 The French Revolution also produced its own asylum-seekers, who fled the Reign of Terror and sought sanctuary outside France, especially in England, which opened its doors to displaced French aristocrats.13 The modern concept of political refuge was also shaped by nineteenth century debates over the problem of extradition. By the middle of the nineteenth century, extradition had come to be seen as an inevitable consequence of increasing transnational mobility and the need for effective international mechanisms for the repatriation of fugitive criminals.14 Extradition procedures were implemented on 11 Svarverud, International Law as World Order. The adoption of this worldview also gave rise to a domestic “civilizing mission.” See Tong Lam, “Policing the Imperial State: Sovereignty, International Law and the Civilizing Mission in Late Qing China” Comparative Studies in Society and History vol. 52 issue 4 (October 2010): 881–908. 12 S. Prakash Sinha, Asylum and International Law (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), p. 171; Greg Burgess, Refuge in the Land of Liberty: France and its Refugees, from the Revolution to the End of Asylum, 1787–1939 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 13 Kirsty Carpenter, Refugees of the French Revolution: Émigrés in London, 1789–1902 (Houndmills and London: Macmillan Press, 1999). 14 Rygiel, “Does International Law Matter? The Institute de Doit International and the Regulation of Migration Before the First World War” Journal of Migration History vol. 1 issue 1 (2015): 1–25.

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the basis of bilateral treaties or, in the absence of such treaties, by formal requests by one state to another. Starting in the 1840s, the U.S. signed extradition treaties with a number of European and other states, and by the 1880s international treaties and laws on extradition were common throughout Europe.15 However, the extradition of persons for political offenses was controversial, especially for liberal states that had championed the idea of political freedom. US extradition treaties excluded extradition for political or military offenses, while Wheaton, writing in 1866, observed that Britain “steadfastly refused to surrender political offenders, or to deny them asylum.”16 Indeed, by the mid-1800s, London had become a centre for political exiles from all over continental Europe. Karl Marx is perhaps the best-known nineteenth-century political figure to seek asylum in England, arriving in London in 1849 after he was expelled, first from Prussia, and then from France.17 The principle of not extraditing persons for political crimes, and of granting asylum to victims of political persecution, was not an absolute one however  – not even for the liberal states that had been the first to champion the principle following the French Revolution. The principle was upheld – unless it was deemed politically expedient not to do so, which was often the case. Increasingly, European states took the view that the decision to grant asylum to foreign political offenders had to be weighed against the likely impact of such a decision on its relations with other state. There was also the question of whether the asylum-seeker’s political views were shared by the country in which s/he sought asylum.18 By the 1880s, even liberal states that were formally committed to the protection of personal freedoms were increasingly worried by the rising popularity of socialists and anarchists – whose goal was to overthrow the liberal order. By the late 1800s, European states were increasingly likely both to sanction the

15 Extradition treaties were signed between the US and Britain (1842); France (1843); Prussia (1845); Swiss Confederation (1850); Bavaria (1853); Hanover (1855); the Two Sicilies (1856); Austria (1856); Baden (1857); Norway and Sweden (1860); Hawaiian Islands (1849); Venezuela (1861); and Mexico (1862). See Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law 2 vols., 8th edition (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Company, 1866), vol. 1, pp. 190–191. 16 Wheaton, Elements, pp. 182, n. 73; 191. 17 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/marx/eng-1869.htm accessed 06 January 2016. 18 For instance, while the French Emperor claimed to respect England’s right to grant asylum to political offenders, he claimed that French refugees in England were plotting to assassinate him, and requested that England punish such conspirators. In response, the Prime Minister at the time, Lord Palmerston, introduced a bill to Parliament “to punish conspiracies formed in England to commit murder beyond Her Majesty’s dominions.” Wheaton, Elements, p. 191.

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extradition of foreign socialists and anarchists, and to refuse them sanctuary when they were expelled from their own countries.19 What did such developments mean for the introduction of international law to China and the non-western world more generally? In the first place, it is worth remembering that nineteenth century political liberalism and racial particularism were not opposed to one other; on the contrary, the two were mutually constitutive. The European international lawyers who championed personal freedoms and supported granting asylum to political refugees believed that the laws and legal principles they crafted were applicable only to the “civilized world” of European states, and they saw no contradiction between their advocacy of liberal principles at home while adamantly denying those same principles to colonized peoples in Asia and Africa. In the case of China, however, European powers had no choice but to negotiate with a state that was, at least in theory, a sovereign political entity. Extradition provisions were thus included in the very first international treaties signed between China and the various European powers following the Opium War of 1839–42, which forcibly “opened” China to western commerce and diplomacy. In 1843, barely a year after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the Opium War, Britain concluded a “supplementary” treaty with China, the purpose of which was to clarify issues not addressed in the Treaty of Nanjing. Article IX of the “Treaty of the Bogue,” as it is usually referred, provided that: If lawless Natives of China, having committed crimes, or Offences, against their own Government, shall flee to Hong Kong or to the English Ships of War or English Merchant Ships for refuge, they shall, if discovered by the English Officers, be handed over at once to the Chinese Officers for trial and punishment…in like manner, if any Soldier or Sailor or any other person – whatever his Caste or Country – who is a Subject of the Crown of England of England, shall from any cause, or on any pretence, desert, fly, or escape into Chinese Territory, such Soldier or Sailor, or other person, shall be apprehended and confined by the Chinese Authorities and sent to the nearest British Consular, or other Government Officer. In neither case shall concealment or refuge be afforded.20

19 Rygiel, “Does International Law Matter?,” pp. 12–14; Frank Caestecker, “The Transformation of Nineteenth Century West European Expulsion Law, 1880–1914” in Andreas Fahrmeir, Olivia Faron and Patrick Weil, ed., Migration Control in the North Atlantic World: The Evolution of State Practices in Europe and the United States from the French Revolution to the Interwar Period (New York: Oxford, 2003). 20 “Supplementary Treaty Signed His Excellency Sir Henry Pottinger and Ki Ying Respectively on the Part of their Sovereigns of Great Britain and China at the Bogue, 8th October, 1843.” Full text of the treaty available at www.Chinaforeignrelations.net/node/141 accessed 29 December 2015. An extradition clause was also included in the 1858 Treaty of Tianjin between China and Britain, which essentially repeated the provisions contained in the Treaty of the Bogue. The 1689

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Likewise, the first US treaty with China, signed in 1844, also contained an extradition clause which focused on the rendition of military deserters: The local authorities of the Chinese Government will cause to be apprehended all mutineers or deserters from on board the vessels of the United States in China, and will deliver them up to the Consuls or other officers for punishment. And, if criminals, subjects of China, take refuge in the houses or on board the vessels of the citizens of the United States, they shall… be delivered up to justice, on due requisition by the Chinese local officers addressed to those of the United States.21

The main concern behind these provisions was to secure the rendition of European military deserters and Chinese colonial subjects of Hong Kong who fled to China to escape criminal prosecution in the colony. Neither treaty contained provisions intended to exclude the extradition of political fugitives. Within the space of a few decades, however, the question of political asylum in relation to China’s international treaty obligations quickly became a focus of legal debate in both China and Hong Kong. The question of political asylum and the right of states to refuse the extradition of political offenders also became a topic for debate in the pages of China’s nascent commercial press.22 Perhaps most important, it was not long before specific test cases arose involving questions of political asylum and the extradition of political offenders to and from China. These test cases showed that political and diplomatic calculations pervaded the question of political asylum in Asian international contexts, just as they did in Europe. The following three examples serve to illustrate how the politics of asylum was imprinted on China’s early experience with international law. The first example is from 1896 and involves perhaps the single most well known political figure in modern Chinese history: Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙). Widely recognized as the “Father of Modern China” for his leadership of the movement to overthrow the Qing dynasty and replace it with a modern republic, Sun became the first President of the new Republic of China when it was inaugurated on January 1, 1912. Sun launched his first armed plot to overthrow the Qing government in 1895. When the uprising failed, Sun was forced to flee the country. In October the following year, while he was in London on one of his numerous political and fund-raising tours, Qing agents kidnapped Sun. He was held in the Qing legation

Treaty of Nerchinsk between China and Russia also contained an extradition clause (Article IV in the Russian-language version). www.chinaforeignrealtions.net/node/200. 21 “Treaty of Wang-Hea, 1844. The United States of America and the Ta-Tsing Empire.” Full text of the treaty available at www.Chinaforeignrelations.net/node/205 accessed 29 December 2015. 22 Svarverud, International Law as World Order, p. 48.

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while they prepared to extradite him to China to face execution for his treasonous attempt to overthrow the government. However, the British government insisted that it would not allow Sun to be extradited for a political offense, and demanded that he be released to British authorities.23 In the end, Sun was released after nearly two weeks in detention. The second example involves Chinese communists who sought political refuge in British Kong. Over the course of several days in December 1927, the military and police forces of Sun’s Nationalist Party carried out a brutal massacre in the southern city of Guangzhou, in which more than 5700 suspected communists were slain, many of which were executed with their hands tied or put on boats and towed into the Pearl River to be thrown overboard.24 In the days following the massacre, around 300 Chinese leftists attempted to flee to Hong Kong. Nearly all of them were refused entry and turned back at the frontier. Accusations soon appeared in the British press and were lodged with British MPs that the “Red refugees” had been “sent back to Canton to be slaughtered.” The unwanted publicity prompted a flurry of correspondence between the Colonial Office, Foreign Office and the Hong Kong government over what happened, and how to justify it.25 The colony’s Chinese Extradition Ordinances of 1889 and 1927 explicitly 23 The event is briefly described in Svarverud, International Law as World Order, p. 213. The Qing position was that Britain had violated Chinese sovereignty by demanding Sun’s release, since Sun was being held in the sovereign space of the Qing legation. Sun subsequently wrote a book (In English) about his experience, which he titled Kidnapped in London: Being the Story of My Capture by, Detention at, and Release from, the Chinese Legation, London (Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1897). The book amounted to a plea for foreign support for Sun’s quest to topple the Qing dynasty and establish a republic in China. 24 Zhonggong Guangdong shengwei dangshi yanjiu shi (中共廣東省委黨史研究室), ed. Guangdong dangshi yanjiu wenji (廣東黨史研究文集) (Collected Documents on Guangdong Party History), vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo dangshi chubanshe, 1993), p. 12; Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei dangshi yanjiu shi (中共廣州市委黨史研究室), ed., Zhonggong Guangzhou difang shi (中共廣州 地方史) (A Local History of the Chinese Communist Party in Guangzhou) (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 161–165. On 17 December 1927 the North China Daily Mail reported that “A city of the dead describes the condition of Canton [Guangzhou] … photographs secured of the ruthless slaughter show goods trucks loaded with bodies of Communists piled 3 and 4 high driven off the public thoroughfares for burial. In other places long rows of dead line the sides of streets…” Another wrote, “the number of bobbed-haired Chinese girls executed has risen to more than 50, bobbed hair being regarded by the Chinese as a symbol of Bolshevism.” “Communist Outbreak at Canton: Treatment of Political Refugees in Hong Kong” Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 129/508/1. Information cited above appears on pp. 19–20. The American Consul in Guangzhou at the time, Earl Swisher, described “boatloads of Reds” towed into the Pearl River and thrown overboard. Kenneth W. Rea, ed., Canton in Revolution: The Collected Papers of Earl Swisher, 1925–28 (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1977), pp. 96–98. 25 “Communist Outbreak at Canton: Treatment of Political Refugees in Hong Kong” CO 129/508/1.

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forbade extradition for political offences.26 The Secretary of State for the Colonies affirmed “it would be contrary to British traditions to deny the hospitality of the Colony to political refugees.” But, he said, he was also of the view that “the interpretation of this policy must to some extent depend on the degree of good relations existing between Hong Kong and Canton” (emphasis added). The fact that Chinese communists were seeking political sanctuary in the colony had “rendered impossible the strict interpretation of the sanctuary principle,” according to another official.27 In the end, the British resorted to a legal argument that the suspected communists had been refused admittance to the colony on the grounds they “were likely to be a danger to the peace and good order of the colony,” as specified under an Emergency Regulation Ordinance issued in 1922. Since the suspected communists had not been allowed to enter the colony in the first place, there could be no question of having violated existing laws and traditions by “extraditing” them back to China.28 However, the real determining factor behind the decision not to allow the suspected communists refuge in Hong Kong was Britain’s keen desire to improve relations with the newly established Nationalist government in China and its local authorities in Guangzhou. Once again, when it came to political refugees, political calculations trumped legal principles. The third and final example also involves colonial Hong Kong. In this case, however, the individual seeking political refuge was not a Chinese national but a Vietnamese subject of France. He had been arrested and detained in Hong Kong in the summer of 1931 at the request of the French government (via a letter delivered to the UK Foreign Office by the French Ambassador in London). The French government described him as “a threat to all European possessions in the Far East,” and requested that he be quietly put onboard a ship bound for Saigon, where he was to face prosecution for political crimes. The wanted man, for his part, admitted to Hong Kong authorities being closely involved with the revolutionary movement in French Indo-China, and claimed that he would face certain execution if he were to be deported to Vietnam, the crime he was accused of (plotting against French rule) being punishable by death under French colonial law.29 26 In the words of one Hong Kong official, “These ordinances do not permit of extradition for political offences, and persons abusing the hospitality of the Colony to conspire against the Chinese authorities would not be arrested and handed over to the Chinese authorities but would be required to leave the Colony.” Hong Kong Government House to Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 28 May 1928. CO) 129/508/1 27 George Moumsey, Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office 21 December 1927, CO 129/508/1. 28 Memo, S. Carrie, FO. 21 December 1927, CO 129/508/1. 29 Telegram from Colonial Office to Hong Kong Governor 7 August 1931; The China Mail 24 August 1931 and 25 August 1931. CO 129/535/3.

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Knowing, perhaps, that British laws did not permit the extradition of political offenders, the French government had chosen not to file an extradition request, but had instead requested the British to simply deport the wanted man. However, this request placed British authorities in an awkward position, for the simply reason that the man had not committed any offence in Hong Kong for which he could legally be deported. Nonetheless, first response of the Hong Kong government was to comply with the French request by issuing a deportation order along with an accompanying “shipping order” to ensure the man would promptly be put on a ship for Saigon. The wanted man was not about to give up his struggle so easily, however. He hired an English lawyer in the colony with an expert knowledge of Britain’s domestic and colonial laws on deportation and extradition. The man’s lawyer publicly accused the Hong Kong and British governments of hypocrisy and of willing the wanted man’s execution at the hands of the French authorities. The deportation order, he said, was “a sham in that under the cloak of deportation the Executive is in truth attempting to surrender the applicant to the French authorities for an offence of a political character.” In court the man’s lawyer argued that there was “no power vested in the Hong Kong legislature, or that of any colony, to order the deportation of political offenders.”30 The colony’s own Attorney General agreed and opposed the deportation order, “on the grounds that it was for all intents and purposes extradition in a case where no extradition proceedings lay.” The measures taken to deport the man were, he said, being “adopted in deference to the wishes of the French authorities.”31 A major legal battle ensued. The Hong Kong courts found that the deportation and shipping orders were “valid,” but granted the accused leave to appeal the case to the Privy Council. Fearful of the consequences of a precedent-setting decision that might tie the colonial government’s hands in future, Hong Kong’s Governor wrote to the Colonial Office to explain that the accused’s lawyer had proposed that the accused be allowed to simply leave the colony of his own accord, thereby ending the matter so far as the British and Hong Kong governments were concerned. However, the Foreign Office was anxious to fulfill the French deportation request, and worried about the effect on British-French relations if the accused were simply allowed to slip out of the colony of his own accord. “It would be embarrassing to have to explain to the French government,” wrote the Foreign Office, “that of the various alternatives available His Majesty’s government had selected the one least calculated to meet their wishes.” Moreover, there was the

30 F. C. Jenkins writing in The China Mail 24 August 1931 in CO 129/535/3. 31 CO 129/535/3.

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question of whether Britain’s own colonial interests might best be served by complying with the French request. “The decision to be taken regarding this man’s fate depends largely on political considerations and upon our general attitude as regards communist agitators in the Far East,” wrote the same Foreign Office official. “In other words, whether we regard such persons as a danger to European powers with possessions in that part of the world, so that the powers in question ought to help each other in dealing with them.”32 In the end, the deportation order was not executed, and the accused was quietly allowed to leave the colony in January 1933, eighteenth months after his arrest. From Hong Kong he travelled to Moscow. Throughout the proceedings, he had been known by one of his several pseudonyms. The pseudonym was Nguyen Ai-Quoc or “Nguyen the Patriot” (although the British, apparently unaware that “Nguyen” was his surname, referred to him erroneously throughout the proceedings by his first name, “Quoc”).33 He is better known to most of us as Ho Chi Minh. It is worth pondering just how different the history of Asia might have been, had Sun Yat-sen been extradited to China and executed by the Qing government, or had Ho Chi Minh been deported to Vietnam and guillotined by the French.

Exclusion, Banishment, Deportation The politics of asylum and the fate of the political “refugee” were not the only areas where the Chinese drew lessons about the nature and workings of the European-based modern international system. Perhaps even more important is that from the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War, international approaches to human displacement were shaped by a series of assumptions about the nature of international society and the distinctions that were drawn between states and peoples in terms of race, degree of “civilization” and other markers of difference. These inclusions and exclusions were elaborated – and, increasingly, as time went on, contested – in multiple realms of social, political and cultural life. Taken together, they formed a kind of matrix for interpreting the nature and shape of the broader human world. Most importantly, for the purposes of this paper, these forms of inclusion and exclusion were also “hardwired” into international political and legal institutions and structures.

32 Victor Wellesley, FO to J. E. Shuckburgh, CO 15 October 1931. CO 129/535/3. 33 It is clear from the correspondence surrounding the case that the British were not well informed about Ho, who was just beginning to acquire international notoriety after founding the Vietnamese Communist Party (later renamed the Indochinese Communist Party) in 1930.

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Nineteenth-century international jurists sought to resolve the contradiction between the Westphalian principle of a state’s sovereign right to exclude external forms of authority, on the one hand, and the reality of European territorial expansion and colonization, on the other, by drawing a distinction between so-called “civilized” and “uncivilized” states and peoples. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Euro-American juridical discussions, shaped by the rising influence of legal positivism, coalesced around the notion of a “standard of civilization” as the basis for an “international society” made up exclusively of European states that deemed themselves “civilized.”34 In the absence of a supranational sovereign authority, legal positivists turned instead to the notion of a “family” or a “society” as the legitimate basis for international law. As Antony Anghie has pointed out, this marked a crucial shift away from earlier principles of natural law because implicit in the idea of “family” and “society” was the question of membership and belonging. The concept of an international “society” and the range of ideas associated with it enabled jurists to link legal status with cultural distinctions as the basis for membership. And once such distinction that was drawn was “completely different standards could be applied to the two categories of people.”35 The predominant view among nearly all late nineteenth century Euro-American international jurists was that “international law has no place for rules protecting the rights of backward peoples.”36 As the British jurist John Westlake put it, “international law has to treat natives as uncivilized,” and therefore “leaves the treatment of the natives to the conscience of the state to which the sovereignty is awarded.”37 The positivist legal distinction between “civilized” and “uncivilized” had profound implications for the way that international law regarded issues of forced migration and forced labour in the colonial world and has seen very little research interest. In the first place, the distinction meant that colonial states, whatever they did, could not produce refugees in international law. It was widely assumed, as the above quotations suggest, that colonial states could more or less do as they wished with the people under their control, subject only to the constraints imposed by the “moral conscience” of the colonizer. So if what colonial

34 Gong, The ‘Standard of Civilization.’ 35 Anghie, Imperialism, pp. 30, 37. 36 M.F. Lindley, The Acquisition and Government of Backward Territory in International Law: Being a Treatise on the Law and Practice Relating to Colonial Expansion (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), reprint; original 1925. 37 John Westlake, Chapters on the Principles of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894), pp. 137–138, 140, 143.

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powers did was inherently permissible, then the “uncivilized” were inherently incapable of becoming “refugees.” Beginning in the late 1800s (and in some cases much earlier),38 Chinese migrants became deeply familiar with various legalized forms of race-based discrimination and persecution, including organized pogroms and mass expulsion from their countries of residence.39 The term paihua (排華) referred to both border exclusions and forced expulsions, which were permanent features of Chinese migrant life from the Dutch East Indies to South Africa, Cuba, the west coast of North America and Mexico.40 The expulsion of Chinese from Mexico in 1931, in the name of nationalizing local commerce and eliminating racial and cultural contagion, represented the culmination of anti-Chinese measures introduced in Mexico since the turn of the century and attracted widespread attention in China, as did similar anti-Chinese movements elsewhere.41 Just a few years earlier, in 1929, China’s delegate to the League of Nations conference on minority rights had called upon the League to extend the twenty-four minority rights treaties that had been created for countries in central and eastern Europe after World War One on

38 The earliest recorded instances occurred in the Spanish Philippines and Dutch East India. Chinese uprisings against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines in 1603 and 1639 resulted in the massacre of 20,000 or more Chinese. Further revolts and massacres took place in 1639 and 1660, while a large number of Chinese were expelled from the Philippines in 1755 and 1766. In 1740 the Dutch Governor of Batavia was responsible for allowing the massacre of up to 10,000 Chinese residents of the city. Lynn Pan, The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1998), pp. 188, 152. 39 Huang Tsen-ming (黄正銘), The Legal Status of the Chinese Abroad (Taipei: China Cultural Service, 1954), reprint (originally published 1936); Harley Farnsworth McNair, The Chinese Abroad: Their Position and Protection, A Study in International Law and Relations (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1933). 40 Shen Yiyao (沈已堯), Haiwai paihua bainian shi (海外排華百年史)(A Century of Chinese Exclusion Abroad) (Hong Kong: Wanyou tushu gongsi, 1970). 41 “Moxige paichi huaqiao” (墨西哥排斥華僑) (Mexico expels Overseas Chinese) Dongfang zazhi (東方雜誌) vol. 30 no. 11 (June 1, 1933): 2–3; Qiu Hanping (丘漢平), “Meiguo paihualu zhi guoqu ji xianzai” (美國排華侓之過去及現在) (The past and present reality of U.S. anti-Chinese exclusion laws) Dongfang zazhi (東方雜誌) vol. 31 no. 12 (June 16, 1934): 61–72. An open letter from the Mayor of Guaymus in Sonora state, where many Chinese were concentrated, to his constituents in 1919 outlined the case for erecting a legal “barrier” against the “infusion of the sickly blood of the yellow race”: besides “absorbing the commerce of the State and consequently its riches, they have come to be one of the most serious menaces to the healthy preservation of our race.” The British Legation in Mexico forwarded the letter to the Foreign Office, which in turn forwarded the letter to Hong Kong. As a result, the Hong Kong government introduced measures to ensure that labourers recruited in the colony for Mexico were “fully approved” by the Mexican government. Under Secretary of State for Colonies to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office. CO 129/465.

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a global basis, in order that minority rights would become “essentially international and world-wide.” However, the proposal was roundly rejected.42 The legal status of Chinese migrants abroad was made complicated by the 1909 Nationality Law enacted by the Qing Dynasty and renewed by the Nationalist government in 1929.43 The Law defined Chinese nationality according to the principle of jus sanguinus (“right of blood”). The resulting problems of dual nationality, evident by the 1930s, continued to affect China’s relations with other states – and the treatment of Chinese minorities within those states, well into the 1950s.44 The British accused the Chinese in Malaya of forming “imperium in imperio” (state within a state), and used every means at their disposal to dispose of troublemakers, which in many cases meant forcefully removing them from the colony. Colonial powers like Britain relied heavily on the draconian powers of banishment and deportation to evict political opponents and other undesirables from their colonies.45 The earliest legislation in Hong Kong for deporting undesirable Chinese was enacted in 1849, just seven years after the colony was established.46

42 Cited in Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 337. 43 Shao Dan, “Chinese by Definition: Nationality Law, Jus Sanguinus and State Succession, 1909–1980” Twentieth-Century China vol. 35 issue 1 (November 2009): 4–28. 44 Qiu Hanping (丘漢平), “Huaqiao guoji wenti zhi taolun” (華僑國籍問題之討論) (A Discussion of the Overseas Chinese Nationality Problem) Dongfang zazhi (東方雜誌) vol. 34 no. 1 (January, 1937): 157–169; Cheng Xi (程希), Qiaowu yu waijiao guanxi yanjiu: zhongguo fangqi “shuangchong guoji” de wenti yu fansi 僑務與外交關係研究: 中國放棄“雙重國籍”的問題與反思 (Research on the Relations between Overseas Chinese Affairs and Foreign Policy: Reflections on China’s renunciation of the “Dual Nationality” Problem) (Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe, 2005). 45 The tools of banishment and exile were used throughout the British Empire and well into the 1950s to deal with dissidents, rebels and other recalcitrants. A. W. Brian Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 75–77. 46 Article XIV of Anno Duodecinmo Victorie Reginae, No. 1, 1849, passed by the Colony’s Legislative Council on 22 February 1849 provided that “any Native of China, or any Chinese Native of any other place” considered to be a “Suspected Person apparently frequenting the Colony for felonious purposes or who shall be a public Beggar” could be dispatched “in custody to the nearest Chinese Magistrate residing on the Mainland of China” and “prevented from returning to the said Colony.” Hong Kong Public Record Office, HKRS 101 1-4-1, Correspondence Related to the Magistrate’s Court, Police and Prisons. On the 14th of November 1886 one Li A. Chiau was charged with creating a “disturbance” at the Ko Sing Theatre, as a result of which a Magistracy official recommended the man be deported “as there would appear to be little doubt that the prisoner is decidedly dangerous to the peace and good order of the Colony.” G. G. Mitchell-Innes, Magistracy to Acting Colonial Secretary of the Colony. Hong Kong Public record Office, HKRS 101, Correspondence Related to the Magistrate’s Court, Police and Prisons. C. S. O. No. 2653, 1886.

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The colony’s Deportation Ordinance of 1917 empowered the Governor to deport from the colony “any person who in his opinion is an Alien, if he deems it to be conducive to the public good…”47 The first Banishment Act was introduced into Malaya in 1864. According to C.F. Yong, most of the Chinese who were deported from Malaya before 1911 were convicted criminals, but “from then on criminality became increasingly and often inaccurately defined in political terms.” Banishment functioned, in combination with various labour ordinances, as a kind of “makeshift immigration control” for deporting persons whom the colonial authorities had labeled as political agitators, criminals, and secret society members.48 The practice of banishing political “subversives” to China increased dramatically in the 1920s with the rise of Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party activities in Malaya. It grew exponentially during the early 1950s when more than 10,000 ethnic Chinese were deported to China in 1950–51 alone, as part of the colonial government’s “Emergency” measures to quell the uprising led by Malayan Communist Party.49 Virtually all of the instances described above involving expulsion, deportation and flight on the basis of race and political allegiance took place outside the radar of international refugee law. In the final analysis, international refugee law could not prevail against the far more powerful legal identities that were ascribed to Chinese migrants during the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. The real driving identities ascribed to the migrant Chinese throughout the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century were that of economic actor-labourers (hence histories of indentured labour migration) and security threats (hence expulsions and exclusion).

47 CO 129/526/4 “Extracts from Deportation Ordinance of 1917, No. 25, 1917 (12 October 1917). The power to deport Chinese undesirables was further expanded in 1922 during the Hong Kong seamen’s strike, which crippled the colony’s economy. Emergency Regulations on Deportation, 1922, CO 129/508/1, “Communist Outbreak at Canton: Treatment of Political Refugees in Hong Kong,” p. 4. 48 C.F. Yong and R.B. McKenna, The Kuomintang Movement in British Malaya, 1912–1949 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), 56–58. 49 Nanfang ribao (南方日報) 18 June 1952, 26 June 1952. According to Simpson, more than 4,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Malayan insurgents in one year alone (1952), while somewhere between 14,000 and 26,000 ethnic Chinese were deported to China during the course of the Emergency. Simpson, Human Rights, pp. 74, 833.

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Indentured Labour Migration China’s nominal sovereignty distinguished it, in important ways, from the international position of other, formally colonized Asian societies. However, the size and global scale of colonial labour migrations after 1850 meant that Chinese migrants were often at the centre of the growing international debates over forced migration and forced labour. Following the abolition of the slave trade, colonial powers looked primarily to China and India for cheap, indentured labour to replace African slaves on sugar plantations in the Caribbean and South Pacific.50 Increased colonial expansion after 1880 was accompanied by a corresponding surge in Chinese and Indian labour migration, which peaked in the late 1920s. Excluded from present and former white settler colonies, Chinese and Indian migration took place primarily within the global circuits of European colonial empires to supply cheap labour for the rapidly expanding extractive economies in the non-settler colonies in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Here are some examples from the 1920s. A representative from the government of Samoa arrived in the colony “with the hope” of recruiting 500 indentured Chinese workers for the island’s sugar plantations.51 The same year Cuban companies began recruiting labourers in the colony after the Cuban government relaxed its Chinese exclusion laws in order to meet its international contracts for sugar production.52 The Deli Planters Vereeniging also requested permission to establish a recruiting agency in Hong Kong to secure Chinese labourers for Sumatra.53 And no sooner had the British assumed the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine than a certain “Major A. J. Love of Haifa” wrote to the Governor of Hong Kong in 1920 requesting indentured labour for Palestine (his request was turned down).54 In 1922 the Phosphate Commission of Nauru requested permission to recruit indentured labour for the island’s guano plants.55 Lastly, in 1928 the Spanish Consul General at Manila granted Power of Attorney to one Mr. Juan Mencarini, a Spanish resident of Manila who had been employed for more than 40 years by the Chinese Maritimes Custom Service, to recruit indentured Chinese labour for coffee plantations and timber extraction on the island of Fernando Po (present day Bioko) in Spanish New Guinea (today Equatorial Guinea) on

50 David Northrup, Indentured Labour in the Age of Imperialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 51 CO 129/460, pp. 69–73; 309–13, 364–369. 52 CO 129/462, pp. 452–458. 53 CO 129/462, pp. 150–152. 54 CO 129/464, pp. 354–356. 55 CO 129/475, pp. 362–368.

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the Atlantic coast of central Africa. The Spanish wanted permission to charter British ships based in Hong Kong to transport up to 10,000 Chinese annually to Fernando Po, where they were to replace “native labour” which, according to the British Vice-Consul at Fernando Po (a man named C.H. Chow) was “falling off” because the island was ravaged by sleeping sickness (the colonial authorities had set up a “Sleeping Sickness Concentration Camp” at Santa Isabel on Fernando Po to contain the disease).56 The shadow of slavery loomed large over the question of international traffic in Chinese (and Indian) labour. Labour migration had to be shown to be “free” and not coerced. For instance, Hong Kong law prescribed that “no emigrant ship shall carry any emigrants but free emigrants” and defined a free emigrant as “an emigrant who is not under any contract of service whatsoever.”57 In many instances, however, it was clear that the “free” labour migrant was an elaborate fiction maintained by various disguised forms of coercion. After Britain officially abolished the system of indentured labour in 1917, Hong Kong’s colonial government was under strict instruction not to allow the recruitment of indentured labour in the colony or to permit the use of British shipping to transport indentured labour.58 Officially, the colonial government’s position was that it could not “in any circumstances agree to the recruitment of indentured labour” in the colony, and that “in reality, there is but the thinnest of dividing lines between ‘assisted’ [the term increasingly used by labour recruitment agencies following the British abolition of indenture] and ‘indentured” emigration.”59 However, many officials were of the view that “there is no accurate definition of ‘indentured’ as distinguished 56 CO 129/509/6. The comments of the British Vice-Consul at Fernando Po were contained in a telegram dated 9 November 1928 to the British Consul General in Monrovia (Liberia). Some British officials were opposed to the proposal on account of the poor working conditions and risk to health from sleeping sickness, as well as the risk of returning labourers introducing Yellow Fever to Asia. Others, however, were prepared to countenance the trade, so long as no contracts were signed before the recruited labourers set sail from the colony. The Hong Kong government could then rightfully claim that what happened to the labourers after leaving the colony was beyond its jurisdiction. Office of Attorney General, Hong Kong, “Recruitment of Immigrant Farmers for Spanish New Guinea” 16 May 1928; minute by J. Flood, 27 July 1928. CO 129/509/6. In the end, the first 2000 labourers bound for Fernando Po were recruited from Tianjin under a contract signed between the Spanish and Nanjing governments. Office of the Attorney General, Hong Kong to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 17 September 1928. CO 129/509/6. 57 Ordinance No. 30, 1915, section 2 (f) and section 17. Cited in T.M Snow, FO to His Excellency deMerry del Val, Spanish Ambassador to Britain, 15 October 1928. CO 129/509/6. 58 All such requests made to Hong Kong had to be forwarded to the Colonial Office for approval. 59 E. Boyd, 30 January 1928. CO 129/503/7; Secretary of State for Colonies to Governor of Hong Kong, 24 March 1920. CO 129/460; Governor of Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 20 October 1920. CO 129/462. Under some “assisted” labour schemes, migrants were not required to sign contracts

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from ‘free’ labour,” and even the colonial government itself was eager not to take too firm a stand, given the profitability of the coolie trade to the colony.60

The International Labour Organization and the Question of Universality In the late 1920s, the International Labour Organization (ILO), a specialized agency established in 1919 under the League of Nations, began to play a significant role in focusing international attention on colonial labour practices and making them, for the first time, subject to a limited form of international scrutiny. The ILO drew its authority from Article 421 of the Versailles Treaty, which required member states to extend the application of international labour conventions “to their colonies, protectorates and possessions” unless “local conditions” dictated otherwise.61 In 1926 the League of Nations adopted the Convention to Suppress the Slave trade and Slavery, which also focused attention on the related question of “native labour” in colonial territories, and whether their widespread use of forced labour amounted to a veiled form of slavery. The League instructed the ILO formally to take up the question of forced labour and “conditions analogous to slavery” in colonial territories. The ILO Governing Body then appointed a

before leaving the colony, thereby not violating the prohibition on indenture, but were instead required to sign contracts upon arrival at their destinations. 60 This sometimes placed the Hong Kong authorities at odds with those in the Colonial and Foreign Office, who were, on the whole, far more mindful of the effect of such practices on Britain’s international image and reputation. For instance, when the government of Sarawak, a British protectorate, requested permission to recruit Chinese labour for its coal mines under a form of “assisted passage,” the Hong Kong government announced that it was “prepared to acquiesce in the proposal” even though admitting that “the system is more the less practically equivalent to indentured labour.” In defence of its decision, the colonial government listed all of the other British, Dutch and French possessions to which Chinese labour was currently being recruited and shipped from the colony under similar conditions including British North Borneo, Christmas Island, New Caledonia and New Hebrides, Ocean Island (Nauru) and Samoa (all of which were British); Tahiti and Makatea (French); and Banka and Billiton, Balikpapan, Sumatra, Singkep Island and East Borneo (Dutch). However, the Colonial Office responded that the Governor’s proposal was “politically unwise” and that it did not “want to give Nationalist China a fresh cause of complaint against Hong Kong Kong or a fresh opportunity of raking up all the scandals connected with emigration of Chinese labour to British territory.” Gilbert Gringle, Colonial Office, 6 June 1927. CO 129/503/7. 61 The full text of the treaty is available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/parti.asp Accessed 23 September 2015.

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“Committee of Native Experts” (made up primarily of colonial administrators) to enquire into the conditions of “native labour.”62 The following year, in 1927, the Tenth Session of the International Labour Conference adopted a resolution moved by the Indian Workers’ Delegate, which noted the appointment of the Committee of Experts and expressed its hope that “as a result of the work of the Committee, it will be possible to place the question of forced and indentured labour on the agenda of the Conference at an early date.”63 The ILO decision produced consternation in colonial circles since, as one Colonial Office official put it, “it was expected that the practice of the British Colonial Governments in the East in the matter of recruiting Chinese labour under the indenture or contract system will come in for the most searching enquiry by the International Labour Conference.”64 When the question of forced labour was raised at the ILO’s 1929 International Conference, the reaction of the colonial powers was hostile. Many government and employer delegates defended forced labour on the grounds that it was not only economically “necessary” but in the public interest of the colonized, and that, furthermore, such practices were in accordance with “local custom.”65 Colonial powers that depended upon 62 Daniel Maul, “The International Labor Organization and the Struggle against Forced Labor from 1919 to the Present” Labor History 48, 4 (November 2007): 477–500; Susan Zimmerman, “ ‘Special Circumstances’ in Geneva: The ILO and the World of Non-Metropolitan Labour in the Interwar Years” in ILO Histories: Essays on the International Labour Organization and its Impact on the World During the Twentieth Century ed. Jasmien van Daele et al. (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 221–250. 63 The full text of the resolutions adopted at the Conference is available at http:// socserv.mcmaster.ca/oldlabourstudies/onlinelearning/article.php?id=1210  Accessed 11 January 2016. The ILO’s unique tripartite structure includes representatives from government, employers and workers who meet annually at the International Labour Conference to set the organization’s broad policies. Policy decisions are the responsibility of the Governing Body, which functions as the ILO’s executive council. It was up to the colonial powers to appoint worker and employer delegates from their colonies. The Indian workers’ delegate to the Tenth Session Conference also submitted the following resolution, which the Conference decided to refer to the Governing Body for consideration: “The Conference also draws the attention of those nations which are Members of the International Labour Organization, and in which the white people are the ruling class, but in which the natives and the coloured people are either the majority of the population of that country or form a substantial portion of the population, to the desirability of the representatives of the native and coloured workers attending the International Labour Conference as a part of the delegation from those countries.” 64 E. Boyd, Colonial Office 30 January 1928. CO 129/503.7. In March 1928 the Colonial Office convened a conference on Chinese labour recruitment practices in Hong Kong to prepare for the ILO investigation. CO 129/509/6 “Chinese Labour Recruitment in Hong Kong.” 65 Anthony Alcock, History of the International Labour Organisation (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 83–84. Forced labour also included compulsory labour for public works. By the late 1920s

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indentured labour, which frequently involved Chinese and Indian migrants, claimed that the contracts were voluntary and that such labourers were therefore “free.” For instance, the Dutch East Indies employer’s delegate claimed that since “every care [was] taken” to ensure that those who signed long-term contracts were aware of the terms before signing, there could be no analogy to “forced” labour.66 However, the government and workers delegates from China and India, whose countries supplied the bulk of indentured labourers, disagreed and called for stricter regulations. The ILO Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour was eventually adopted in Geneva in June 1930. As the leading colonial powers, Britain and France played a major role in drafting its provisions. Although the Convention pledged to suppress “the use of forced labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period,” its immediate aim was to not to abolish forced labour but to “regulate” and place certain limits upon its use in colonial territories.67 For instance, the Convention studiously avoided any reference to “indentured” (contract) labour, preferring instead the terms “forced” and “compulsory” labour. When it appeared colonial powers were responding to the Convention’s attempt to suppress the use administrative coercion to obtain native labour by shifting to contract-based recruitment on the grounds that the latter was voluntary, the International Labour Conference adopted a resolution in 1932 calling on the ILO’s Governing Body to place the question of indentured labour on its agenda. However, although a report on the subject was presented to the International Labour Conference in 1935, it was not followed by an official ILO convention aimed at suppressing the practice.68 Instead,

the use of corvée had been largely abolished in most British colonies, although some colonial powers, such as the Netherlands, still relied extensively upon the practice. 66 International Labour Office, Twelfth Session, 1929, Committee on Forced Labour. Report by M.J.J. Schrieke, Netherlands Government delegate. 15 June 1929, p. 17. In 1935 the Dutch East Indies government recorded some 379, 341 persons working under conditions of forced labour in Java; a further 1.5 million in the Outer Islands that were under direct colonial administration; and an additional 1.3 million in Outer Islands that were under “autonomous native administration.” Annual Statistical Review of the Netherlands Indies cited in Industrial and Labour Information (Geneva) vol. LX111, No. 13 (27 September 1937): 417–418. 67 Full text of the Convention is available at http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C029 Accessed 23 September 2015. 68 The Report of the Committee on the Recruiting of Labour in Colonies and in other Territories with Analogous Labour Conditions, presented to the 19th Session of the International Labour Conference, Geneva, 1935. International Labour Office, Series NL, File no. 1–25.12. Native Labour – Non Metropolitan Territories Division – Correspondence with UK Colonial Office; International Labour Conference, XIX Session, Geneva 1935, Final Record (Geneva: ILO, n.d.), pp. 854–855.

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other forms of migration gradually supplanted indentured labour migration in the colonial world.

Conclusion Viewed from a European perspective, the history of the international system over the past century and a half is a story about the gradual expansion of a Europe-centred “international society” into a truly global society.69 From a Chinese perspective, however, the history of China’s incorporation into the modern world order is a story about how international law and colonial practice served to marginalize China within the international system. Previous studies have described this process of marginalization with respect to “legalized erosion” of sovereignty through the unequal treaty system, extra-territoriality and other forms of foreign privilege. This chapter has shown that international law also worked to marginalize China’s position and that of Chinese migrants with respect to the two areas where international law concerned itself with transnational human mobility: refugees and forced migration. The effects, moreover, were hardly transitory or ephemeral. The various themes raised by this chapter – the origins of the concept of political asylum and the political refugee, colonial practices of exclusion, banishment, and deportation, and indentured labour migrations – continued to shape China’s international experience of, and approaches toward, the international system well into the post World War Two era. The international politics of political asylum reached its apogee during the Cold War, when each side in the Cold war divide employed the practice of granting political asylum to dissidents from the other side as a means of embarrassing and scoring political points against the other side. According to one leading historian of the UNHCR, the persecution-centred definition of the refugee that was enshrined in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention was primarily aimed at “escapees” and “defectors” from communist states.70 As Wang Tieya (王鐵崖), one of China’s leading scholars of international law, has put it, “capitalist countries and socialist countries have fundamentally different views of what kind of person can be considered a

69 See Gong, “China’s Entry.” 70 Gil Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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so-called ‘political refugee’ (政治避難者).”71 Indeed, the first constitution of the People’s Republic of China, promulgated in 1954, included (Article 99) the right of asylum for “any foreign national persecuted for supporting a just cause, for taking part in the peace movement or for engaging in scientific activity.”72 The giving or withholding of asylum for political dissidents in Asia and elsewhere in the world remains as enmeshed in the political calculus of realpolitik today as it was a hundred years ago. Similarly, many of the discriminatory and exclusionary practices instituted by colonial powers against the ethnic Chinese populations in their colonies were perpetuated and and even expanded by successive post-colonial states in the name of nation building.73 Questions of citizenship and national belonging that have been at the heart of the politics of some postcolonial Southeast Asian states for the past five decades had their origins in the colonial constitutional reforms of the 1930s. These reforms opened the political process to limited participation by Asians for the first time and, in the process, set the stage for a larger debate over who should be allowed to participate in the politics, the answer to which came to turn on the meaning of nationhood and “the status – indeed the very definition – of ‘indigenous’ and ‘immigrant’ groups.”74 Although easily forgotten now, it is worth remembering that until the 1980s, the refugee problem across much of East and Southeast Asia was for the largest 71 Deng Zhenglai (鄧正來) ed., Wang Tieya wenxuan (王鐵崖文選) (Selected Works of Wang Tieya) (Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe, 1993), p. 231. 72 Full text available at www.hkpolitics.net/database/chicon/1954/1954ae.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2016. “Taking part in the peace movement” referred to supporting the “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence” which China championed at the 1954 Bandung Conference. The phrase “engaging in scientific activity” may have been in reference to the US-trained Chinese rocket scientist Qian Xuesen (錢學森) who was accused of having communist sympathies during the McCarthy period. When Qian attempted to return to China in 1950, he was detained under house arrest and held for five years until his release in 1955, at which point he returned to a hero’s welcome in China. See Iris Chang, Thread of the Silkworm (New York: Basic Books, 1995). On Qian’s return to China, see Glen Peterson Overseas Chinese in the People’s Republic of China (New York and London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 104–105. 73 M. Barry Hooker, ed., Law and the Chinese in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002); Frank Golay et al, eds., Underdevelopment and Economic Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969); Lu Minghui (盧明輝), “Zhanhou dongnanya guojia paihua yuanyin zhi fenxi” (戰後東南亞排華原因之分析) (An analysis of the reasons behind the Chinese exclusion policies of postwar Southeast Asian states) in Pudie yanjiu yu huaren (yanjiu taohui lunwen ji) (譜牒研究與華人 [研究討會論文集]) (Genealogical research and Ethnic Chinese [Collected Research Workshop Essays]) (Xiamen: Xiamen daxue nanyang yanjiu yuan, 2005), pp. 129–135. 74 Sunil Amrith, Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 95.

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part a “Chinese problem,” involving mass flight from communist China; political dissidents on both sides of the Taiwan Strait; and ethnic Chinese minorities excluded wholly or partially from citizenship and full economic participation in their countries of residence.75

75 Many postwar Chinese “refugees” did not move through internationally recognized and constituted refugee channels, so any examination of the phenomenon that is limited to the actions of the UNHCR or the refugee resettlement activities of individual states is bound to miss much that is of significance. Many ethnic Chinese “refugees” from Southeast Asia instead found refuge in China and Taiwan, where they were welcomed on the basis of co-ethnic solidarity as “returned overseas Chinese,” rather than as refugees per se. Others quietly relocated family and financial resources to Singapore and Hong Kong, where they were welcomed and permitted to settle without fanfare. Still others moved from mainland China to Hong Kong and Taiwan, where they were accorded status as illegal squatters, legal immigrants, or Guomindang loyalists, but not as officially recognized “refugees.” Only a relatively small proportion moved through official refugee channels, mainly in the 1950s in the case of third-country resettlement from Hong Kong, and in the late 1970s and early 80s during the mass resettlement of the initial wave of Vietnamese “boat people,” many of whom were ethnic Chinese (Hoa).

Catherine S. CHAN

11 At the Edge of Two Worlds: Rethinking the Portuguese Diaspora in British Hong Kong For centuries, the Portuguese have journeyed across borders. At the height of Portugal’s expansion in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese swept through foreign cultures and transformed foreign communities and peoples. Its gradual decline in the late sixteenth century left behind traces of Portugal and its culture as peoples of Portuguese descent experienced intermarriage and came to be assimilated by native locals, resulting in the birth of a Eurasian population. As with all histories of migration and transnational movement, identity negotiation is a never-ending construction that varies according to context, power, interaction and experience: the Melakan Eurasians identified strongly with their Portuguese background, particularly influenced by the realities of a formal Portuguese Settlement formed in 1933 by the British government.1 In other Southeast Asian settlements, Portuguese Eurasians slowly shed off their ethnic Portuguese identities, especially as many were born in Southeast Asia; having failed to witness the glories of Portuguese colonization, they experienced instead new rounds of colonization and subsequent decolonization, succeeding initially in dominating new forces through the use of their Creole language but later becoming assimilated themselves into local societies.2 From transforming others to being incorporated into other societies, the various Portuguese dispersions around the globe have without doubt demonstrated the fluidity of migrant identity as a product of social

1 Significantly within the secluded Portuguese Settlement, the Portuguese Eurasians spoke their own patois language of Kristang, celebrated traditional festivals, were all Roman Catholics and were highly devoted to protecting their settlement area. For extensive studies of the Melakan Portuguese, see Beng-Lan Goh, Modern Dreams: An Inquiry Into Power, Cultural Production and the Cityscape in Contemporary Urban Penang, Malaysia (New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002), 123–144; Kok Eng Chan, “The Eurasians of Melaka,” in Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, eds., Melaka: The Transformation of a Malay Capital C. 1400–1980, vol. 2 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983), 264–283; Ronald Daus, Portuguese-Eurasian Communities in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), 6–27. 2 One vivid illustration is the case of the Portuguese in Batavia. According to Daus, the Portuguese dominated even after and during the invasion of the Dutch owing to the wide use of Creole Portuguese in the area. This picture would later fade out as Malay began to dominate, incorporating the Portuguese subsequently into the Malay community during the early 19th century. For this, see Daus, Portuguese-Eurasian Communities, 6–27. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-012

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interaction, institutional framework and collective renegotiation. This study works on such pre-existing observations to highlight the unique context and complex discourse of Creole migration in the Macanese narration through their experience of first diaspora in Hong Kong. Stepping into Macao during the mid-fifteenth century, the Portuguese flourished in utilizing Macao as the center of shipping and trade, further consolidating their political authority over the territory. Between 1560 and 1640, trade from Guangzhou to Nagasaki and Manila was made possible en route Macao and goods were shipped to Goa and Lisbon through Malacca from Macao.3 Particularly enticed by this economic edge, Portuguese settlers subsequently established their community and built their lives in and around Macao,4 mingling over time with native communities, resulting eventually in the emergence of a Macanese population.5 However, as the tides turned, Macao soon became a place dominated by the growing influences of British merchants under the flourishing British Empire.6 Despite the existence of a Portuguese administration, the majority of the Portuguese in Macao could only work under and for the British and certainly not without a sense of bitterness.7 Notably, it was common for the British to perceive the Portuguese in Macao as valuable, yet non-European laborers owing to their mixed racial background and linguistic competence in Cantonese, Portuguese and English; the Macanese, in turn, expressed an absence of resistance towards such identification.8

3 R.D. Cremer, “Origins and Early History of Macau,” in R.D. Cremer, ed., Macau City of Commerce and Culture (Hong Kong: UEA Press, 1987), 32. 4 Churches, for instance, were built by the Portuguese in Macao during this early period. For this, see Michael Hugo-Brunt, “The Church and Former Monastery of St. Augustine, Macao,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians XIX, no. 2 (1960): 69–75; “The Convent and Church of St. Dominic at Macao,” Journal of Oriental Studies 4, nos. 1 and 2 (1957–1958): 66–75. 5 José Pedro Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong and China (Macau: Fundaçao Macau, 1998); Siping Deng 鄧思平, Aomen tusheng Puren 澳門土生葡人 (The Macanese of Macao; Xianggang: Sanlian shudian youxian gongsi, 2009); Ana Maria Amaro 瑪麗亞 ‧ 阿馬羅, Dadi zhizi: Aomen tusheng Puren yanjiu 大地之子 ‧ 澳門土生葡人研究 (Filhos de Terra: A Study of Macao’s Macanese; Aomen: Aomen wenhua sichu, 1993). 6 Philip J. Stern has done an extensive study on the East India Company in The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 7 As Braga observed, ambitious Macanese subsequently engaged in the Opium business but many to no avail. See Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong, 63. 8 Maurice Collis, “Macao, the City of the Name of God,” History Today 1, no. 4 (1951): 49.

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Away from Two “Homes” Attempting to turn the tables, the Portuguese arrived in Hong Kong following British victory against China in the First Opium War. As a ripe opportunity for greater advances, this group of Macanese was amongst many others who thought the newly established British colony offered a chance for change, particularly in attaining upward mobility.9 Significantly in their experience of first diaspora, the Macanese entered an identity marked by the strengthening of a collective memory intersecting between a point of origin (Macao) and a point of mythical origin (Portugal).10 This is especially illustrated by the fact that Hong Kong soon became the first exposure for many less privileged Macanese to formal education of the Portuguese language: although there were only about 300 Macanese in the colony by 1848, an imminent rush to set up private schools for the Portuguese children emerged in the decade due to fears of “los[ing] their cultural ties to Macao.”11 Prior to their arrival in the British colony, political instability in Portugal led to difficulties in consolidating sound educational institutions for the Macanese in Macao; thus, it would only be until 1871 that the Associação para a Instrução dos Macaneses (APIM) was formed to guarantee the continuation of education for the Macanese youth.12 In contrast to the situation in Macao, the first Portuguese school in Hong Kong was opened as early as in 1844 and between 1848 and 1850, four more schools would be established for the Macanese community. Apart from private schools, religious organizations also exerted efforts in the founding of the Canossian Sisters’ School for Catholic girls (1860) and the St. Saviour’s College for Catholic boys (1865, later renamed as the St. Joseph’s College), both of which taught Portuguese as a second language. This demand for and supply of education for the Portuguese community is demonstrated in the consistent foundation of schools in the Central District from 1842 to 1896 for Portuguese children by the

9 Simultaneously during this period, mainland Chinese, Indians, Americans and Germans arrived in Hong Kong in hopes of making a fortune. 10 Alfredo Gomes Dias, “The Origins of Macao’s Community in Shanghai. Hong Kong’s Emigration (1850–1909),” Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies 17 (2008): 202. 11 Mário Pinharanda, “Socio-Historical Factors Involved in the Changes of the Creole Matrix of Makista,” in Katrine K. Wong and C.X. George Wei, eds., Macao- Cultural Interaction and Literary Representations (New York: Routledge, 2014), 34. 12 According to Pinharanda, due to repeated setbacks caused by Portugal’s political issues and diplomatic decline, the first lay school of Macao that used Portuguese as medium of instruction would only be founded in the year 1847 (Escola Principal de Instrução Primária), leading successively to efforts by local Macanese and Portuguese residents to open more schools for their children. For this, see Ibid., 32.

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colony’s Catholic institutions as according to the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives: 1842–1886 Church, Wellington Street, (Rebuilt in 1860) L. 50 1858–1879 Roman Catholic Seminary, Pottinger Street 1845–1852 Free School for Portuguese, Wellington Street 1860–1865 Chinese School for boys, Wellington Street 1860–1865 English School for boys, Wellington Street 1860–1865 Portuguese School for boys, Wellington Street 1866–1881 St. Savior’s College, Pottinger Street 1860–1861 English School for boys, Staunton Street 1860–1861 Portuguese School for boys, Staunton Street 1880–1896 Free Ragged School, Bridges Street 1887–1896 Free School, Bridges Street, by Sisters of Charity 1894–1896 Sacred Family’s Family Chapel, Bridge Street 1888–1895 Hollywood Road Charitable School. 1883–1896 Victoria Portuguese School 1883–1896 Victoria School (Private Schools)13 In addition to schooling, the Macanese community in Hong Kong also made attempts to maintain their Portuguese roots by establishing religious organizations and Portuguese publications. Of the former, J.P. Braga records: “for the first half-century after the setting up of the Catholic mission in Hong Kong, the congregations of the Catholic churches were almost entirely Portuguese.”14 Publications included Portuguese newspapers A Voz Macaista (1846), Amigo de Progreso (1850), O Impulso ás Letras (1858–1969), O Português (1913) and Pró Pátria (1915–1917); two private libraries named Biblioteca Portuguesa and Biblioteca Lusitana were opened in 1857 and 1861 whilst various social and cultural events within the Portuguese community came to be organized by two prestigious clubsClube Português and Clube Lusitano. Leaving their home of Macao and arriving in a foreign land, the rush to establish Portuguese schools, print publications and organize religious and cultural activities remarkably reflected the imminent desire of the Macanese to stay connected with their Portuguese roots. In contrast with the slow cultural and educational developments in Macao, the rapid construction of a Portuguese community in Hong Kong, notwithstanding the significantly small population of Portuguese subjects in the colony, reveals a few things about the migratory context of the Macanese community. In their study of Turkish-Dutch 13 “The Catholic Institutions in Hong Kong (1842–1896),” Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives, http://archives.catholic.org.hk/Statistic/CIHK.htm (accessed 29 November 2015). 14 Braga, The Portuguese in Hong Kong, 162.

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Muslims, Verkuyten and Yildiz argue that ethnicity and religion are significant identity markers in migration15; the Macanese experience projects not only the emphasis of ethnicity and religion in the preservation of identity within a foreign condition, but further, the strengthening and accentuation of an imagined, mythical identity previously disregarded in an old but familiar spatial situation. In other words, the imminent fear of losing a Creole Macanese identity gave rise to the actualization of an ethnic Portuguese identity in nineteenth century Hong Kong and as both identities became further entwined, the imagination of Portugal as a home was no longer as distant as it was in the context of Macao. Certainly, more evidence would help consolidate this idea and a detailed comparison of identity awareness in Macao and Hong Kong would help in affirming the theory.

Dis-identification Under a Historical Context The desire to shift towards an ethnic Portuguese identity amongst the Macanese may be further explained and better understood under the unique context of Hong Kong as a British colony. Similar to any other colony, Hong Kong was no exception from the conformity of British colonial practices, filled with structural inequalities that situated the Europeans at the top and the Chinese at the bottom. Within this structure, the Portuguese mostly worked as backbones of English companies, marked by “preparedness… to work for much lower wages and [an] ability to speak English and Cantonese” that sadly, Stuart Braga observes “fixed them into a pattern of social and economic inferiority from which only a few escaped in the next century.”16 Surely it should not be neglected the achievements of extraordinary names like Leonardo d’ Almada e Castro,17 Jose Maria d’ Almada e Castro18

15 Maykel Verkuyten and Ali Aslan Yildiz, “National (Dis)identification and Ethnic and Religious Identity: A Study among Turkish-Dutch Muslims,” Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, no. 10 (2007): 1448–1462. 16 Stuart Braga, “Making Impressions: The Adaptation of a Portuguese Family to Hong Kong, 1700–1950,” PhD diss., The Australian National University (October 2012), 106. 17 Leonardo’s career began in Macao as Superintendency of British Trade in China. In 1843, he arrived with Governor Pottinger and was appointed Chief Clerk for the Colonial Secretary in 1846, a position that would allow him in charge of all Portuguese workers and access to information on the sale of land near Hong Kong’s deep water harbor. 18 Jose Maria was Secretary in 1877 to Hong Kong’s 9th Governor Hennessy and was promoted to Chief Clerk before his death in 1881.

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and later J.P. Braga19 and Leo d’ Almada e Castro20 who stood out amongst the Portuguese population. For the majority of the Portuguese population in Hong Kong, there was no denying that their hopes were instantly crushed under the racially stratified norms of colonial Hong Kong. British subjects in the colony objected against the appointment of Portuguese civil servants, since they were perceived as non-Europeans. These objections were particularly strident during the early opening of Hong Kong when higher positions were reserved for the British alone. In 1847, for instance, the China Mail printed “Letter of an Englishman,” an objection to Leonardo d’ Almada e Castro’s appointment as Chief Clerk, describing Leonardo as an “Agent of the Propagandists” for his religious background.21 Obstacles to his further career advancement would be seen again in 1854: when the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies directed Sir John Bowring to appoint Leonardo as Colonial Secretary on a local salary after his application for British citizenship, the idea was ousted by W.H. Mercer who later commented that Leonardo was no doubt an exceptional Portuguese but “hardly eligible for higher appointment.”22 A few decades later in 1878, Carvalho was celebrated as the first Portuguese to be nominated in the Legislative Council; this, however, ended in failure owing to the outrage and rejection of the ruling British businessmen, bankers and public servants who perceived non-British subjects as aliens.23 Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, similar cases were recorded and the public perception of the Portuguese as alien citizens were commonplace within the norms of the colony.24 Unwilling to accept their fate, J.P. Braga in 1895 published a 95-page pamphlet entitled The Rights of Aliens in Hong Kong, denouncing the lack of justice in Hong Kong for the Portuguese. According to Braga, ironically against British principles of free trade and open competition, the Portuguese had then been perceived as second-class citizens,

19 Manager of the Hong Kong Telegraph during the early 20th century, J.P. remarkably became a member of the Sanitary Board from 1927 to 1930 and emerged as the first Portuguese to enter the Legislative Council where he served as unofficial member between 1929 and 1937. 20 Born and educated in Hong Kong, Leo was as a prominent barrister and was appointed unofficial member of the Legislative Council between 1937 and 1941, serving as member of the Executive Council after the end of the Second World War until 1958. 21 Jorge Pereira Forjaz Collection, Old China Hands Archive, California State University Northridge, seen in “Over the Bamboo Ceiling,” 31 May 2013, Far East Currents, http://www. macstudies.net/2013/05/31/over-the-bamboo-ceiling-early-macanese-enterprise-in-hong-kong/ (accessed 30 November 2015). 22 G.B. Endacott, A Biographical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong (Singapore: Donald Moore for Eastern Universities Press, 1962), 121. 23 Braga, “Making Impressions,” 196. 24 Further examples can be founded in “Over the Bamboo Ceiling.”

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situated in between the British and Chinese populations.25 In 1936, the common dislike of the Portuguese in civil service went on and Braga continued to defend the Portuguese, this time in an article printed on the Hong Kong Telegraph where he raised the question “How can it proved that the Portuguese are robbing any other section of the community of employment?”26 Remarkably in Braga’s illustration of the Portuguese presence in civil service, his analysis of the racial composition in the colony’s junior clerical staff reveals a new identity for the Macanese. According to his figures, at the said level, there were during the 1930s, 789 Chinese, 39 Indians, 21 Portuguese, 9 British and 4 Eurasians27; distinctive from Eurasians, the Portuguese in this example no longer identifies with a mixed racial background of Portuguese descent and Asian blood. Placed in the context of a growing proportion of local-born Portuguese and the continuous immigration of Macanese from Macao, such insistence of being categorized as Portuguese demonstrates a degree of dis-identification from their previous Creole identity, which had been acknowledged since the sixteenth century.28 In 1897, of the 2,263 Portuguese in Hong Kong, 1,214 were local-born; 932 came from Macao and only 108 presumably came from Portugal or Goa.29 Despite the sustained affiliation with their place of origin and a growing distance between Hong Kong’s Portuguese and their mythical homeland of Portugal, the confinements of racial stratification in Hong Kong seemed to have propelled the Macanese to identify more with their imagined nation and less with their host colony and actual birthplace due to issues of rejection on the basis of ethnicity. This is further exemplified by Stuart Braga’s vivid descriptions of the Portuguese and the Eurasians, which leads one to ponder whether Braga was in fact speaking of Portuguese families belonging to Portuguese ancestry alone or if the

25 José Pedro Braga, The Rights of Aliens in Hong Kong: Being a Record of the Discussion Carried on Through the Medium of the Public Press as to the Employment of Aliens in the Colony (Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1895). 26 José Pedro Braga, “Some Light on the Subject of ‘Other’ Employees; How Can It be Proved that the Portuguese are Robbing Other Section of the Community of Employment? Special to the Telegraph,” The Hong Kong Telegraph, 9 September 1936, 7. 27 Ibid. 28 In 1533, the Portuguese arrived at Macao, some from Portugal and others from already Eurasian backgrounds. This group of peoples came to be descendants of the Macanese. The Creolization of the Macanese is further witnessed in another 16th century description that refers to Macanese as being born to a European father and Eurasian mother or having Eurasian parents. For this, see Jose Feliciano Marques Pereira, Ta-Ssi-Yang-Kuo: Archivos e Annaes do ExtremoOriente Portugues, 2nd ed., S. 1, vols. 3–4 (1901–1903); (Macau: Direccao dos Servicos de Educaijao, Arquivo Hist6rico, 1984), 821–822. 29 Braga, “Making Impressions,” 495.

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Portuguese indeed did dis-identify with their Creole identities to escape the condemnations of being taboo and half-caste as Eurasians in colonial Hong Kong30: There may have been a few others who bothered, but they were not Portuguese. There was one other community – if that is the term for a small group of people ostracized even more completely than the Portuguese. These were the Eurasians, the product of a union between a European man and a Chinese woman. Marriage between the races was a very rare circumstance, so a Eurasian was more commonly the result of a mesalliance. Eurasians were commonly held to have all the vices and none of the virtues of both parents, and in the thinking of the time, that made them tend towards crime and perversion, usually homosexuality. If the Portuguese were down-trodden, Eurasians were pariahs to both the British and Chinese communities.31

Portuguese? Macanese? Eurasian? European? As previous works on migrant identities have pointed out, the dialectic interplay of self-representation is a product of identification influenced by both interpersonal differentiation and social categorization.32 Under this context, identity becomes a fluid choice depending on situation and social conditions, leading to different extents of conflict between social categorization and self-representation and thus, the notion of identity negotiation.33 The fact that the Portuguese had already been Creolized prior to their arrival combined with their ambitions of social mobility in a socially-stratified, hybrid Hong Kong, undoubtedly served in complicating the Portuguese question of identity negotiation and later, reconstruction. Desiring to climb upwards and coming to terms with the social realities of the British colony, the identification of “local Portuguese” by 1931 was largely split between British citizens and Portuguese citizens.34 According to the census 30 This description was given by Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, Chief Manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. For this, see Frank H.H. King, “Hongkong Bankers Inter-war, I: Policy and Managers,” in Frank H.H. King, Catherine E. King and David J.S. King, eds., The Hongkong Bank between the Wars and the Bank Interned, 1919–1945: Return from Grandeur (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 288. 31 Ibid., 221. 32 Kay Deaux, “Reconstructing Social Identity,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 19, no. 1 (1993): 4–12; Bernd Simon, Identity in Modern Society: A Social-Psychological Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004). 33 William B. Swann, “Identity Negotiation: Where Two Roads Meet,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, no. 1 (1987): 1038–1051. 34 From a 1931 census, of the 3,183 local Portuguese, 1,089 claimed to be British citizens and 2,088 entered themselves as Portuguese citizens; quoting Stuart Braga: “The report remarked,

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tabulated in November, there were 2,789 local Portuguese in Hong Kong of which 473 were Chinese; if based on place of birth, of the 3,197 Portuguese, only four were born in Portugal whom entered themselves as Macanese whereas 2,362 were born in Hong Kong and 572 in Macao.35 Surprisingly, although a considerable proportion of the Portuguese was either born in Hong Kong or originally from Macao, there had been no signs of association to Hong Kong or Macao. A remarkable deviation from other cases of Portuguese migration may be observed: instead of conforming to their Creole identity, the local Portuguese in colonial Hong Kong refused categorization as Eurasian and/or Creole. Certainly, the extent of Portuguese dis-identification with their previous identity in Hong Kong requires further analysis, particularly of transformations in linguistic practices and everyday habits. A number of newspaper editorials printed on the South China Morning Post in the twentieth century reveal public debate over Portuguese identity. In 1918, a gentleman reacted negatively to accusations concerning Portuguese refusal to serve during the war and emphasized that there could only be one category of Portuguese under the simple reason that a Portuguese alien could not be simultaneously a British subject; as a concluding remark, the writer pointed out: “…I am sure, that we, the Portuguese, who are serving the colony are doing so under special permission from our Home Government, granted through our Consul,” therefore making a strong disparity between Portuguese and local Portuguese of British citizenship. This was enlightened in 1931 when the Portuguese Consul General suggested that local Portuguese may instead of being identified as Portuguese citizens, be distinguished between Goanese, Macanese, Hong Kongese and Portuguese.36 In the 1930s, public discourse regarding the complexities of identifying the Portuguese would continue, paying tribute to the Macanese predecessors of the local Portuguese in Hong Kong: it is too often forgotten here, how much Hong Kong in its early days depended upon Macao. It is no exaggeration to say that the meteoric rise of Hong Kong- and later of Shanghaiwas largely due to the capability and zeal of numerous Macanese families… in short, the

as had been noted more than thirty years earlier, that the Portuguese were slow to adopt British citizenship. Given the extent of discrimination against them, it is not hard to see why.” Braga, “Making Impressions,” 496. 35 The numbers in the report do not seem to be consistent; instead of 3,197, there should have been 3,177 local Portuguese in total. Source from “Puzzle for Census Officers,” South China Morning Post, 9 November 1931, 14. 36 Rev. FA Fadden, “A Bird’s-Eye View By Argus,” South China Morning Post, 14 August 1931, 1.

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Portuguese community is one of two-fold, but fortunately undivided loyalty, to Macao and Portugal on the one hand, and to the British colony in which they live on the other.37

Indeed despite the increasing participation of some notable Eurasians in the government, their inferiority in public perception continued in the twentieth century. In 1928, for instance, a description of Eurasians is as follows: “Look at the Eurasian. He looks a good deal like our mestizo Spanish-Filipino. In Hong Kong the Eurasians is a mixture of a Portuguese or English father and a Chinese mother. In all respects he moves and acts- or tries to move and act- like a European: his dress, his speech, his mannerisms. But the Europeans and Chinese do not consider him as of their own kind.”38 Although yet to be affirmed, this social background perhaps shaped the self-identification of the Portuguese in Hong Kong as strictly European, resulting in subsequent conflict between self and public perception. Shortly before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in July 1940, two gentlemen disputed over the definition of being Portuguese in two letters to the newspaper’s editorial, particularly in light of evacuation priorities being given to the Portuguese before the Eurasians. The first gentleman, unhappy that the Portuguese were registered for evacuation before British Eurasians, argued against this decision by calling local Portuguese “Macanese or Goanese born in Hong Kong, Macao or India” as “strictly Eurasian.”39 In response to this claim, the other gentleman, presumably a Portuguese, lashed back by insisting that the Portuguese, even if local-born, belonged to European ancestors from Portugal; the highlight of his letter, however, came in his strong distinction between Portuguese and Macanese: “[There is] no proof that Portuguese in general have Chinese blood. We admit that we too have Eurasians just like any other nation in the world… Just because some of them are so, does not mean that we are mixed…”40 This again points back to the question of a split within the Portuguese community and calls for a more in-depth investigation of the negotiation of identity of the Portuguese in self and public perception. Were the Portuguese in Hong Kong not Macanese? With ethnic roots grounded in Macao less than a century earlier, should the Hong Kong Macanese then be considered more European and less Eurasian? If the aforementioned arguments are valid, were the Portuguese distinguishing themselves from their own? This contradicting picture of the local Portuguese may be made in another account 37 “Portuguese Republic: Anniversary of Foundation to be Observed To-day; Record of Progress as Nation,” South China Morning Post, 5 October 1939, 9. 38 “As Others See Us: The Impressions of A Filipino; Hong Kong Roads,” South China Morning Post, 18 April 1928, 10. 39 O.I.C.U., “Correspondence: Status of Eurasians (To the Editor, S.C.M. Post), 16 July 1940, 7. 40 Non-Eurasian, “Eurasians and Others,” South China Morning Post, 18 July 1940, 8.

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from 1940 where a writer using the pen name “Macanese” made a bold yet confusing statement in defining the Portuguese of Hong Kong, quoting “…there is no classification of ‘Eurasian’ by the Portuguese. There is no such treatment. We are all very proud of having the exceptional privilege of being Portuguese citizens and have full confidence in our Government which is the best.”41 Having identified himself as a Macanese, his claim raises further questions about the complexities of the Portuguese identity in Hong Kong. If a Macanese in the colony was not to be considered Eurasian, must he be regarded as European or was the Macanese identity, categorised most often under the general umbrella of a Portuguese identity in fact an independent entity that could not be classified at all under the categories of European or Eurasian? Certainly, having repeatedly (been challenged, efeated and failed by the racial limits of colonial Hong Kong, the Portuguese community in Hong Kong scrambled to imagine their own haven, one that purposefully distanced their identification with an original homeland and brought them closer to the mythical homeland that had never been.

Conclusion Across borders and encompassing all ages, identity construction has never ceased to witness inevitable interaction between self and other. As De Beauvoir stated in 1949, the self no doubt needs the other to self-represent.42 In the process of identity negotiation and reconstruction of the Portuguese community in Hong Kong, the Creole identity that found its beginnings in Macao and was subsequently brought by the Portuguese to the newfound colony played its purpose in the making of a new Portuguese self. This is especially obvious when the Portuguese narrative is located in the bigger process of their attempt to appropriate, re-interpret and adapt to Hong Kong’s social boundaries as a British colony. Learning of the inferiority of being Eurasian and dissatisfied with the constraints of not being British, the Portuguese struggled in maintaining a self-identification that was strictly European. This then, as previously demonstrated, resulted in divergence between self and public perception, as well as another degree of othering within the Portuguese community itself.

41 Macanese, “Registration & Evacuation: (To the Editor, S.C.M.P.),” South China Morning Post, 20 July 1940, 7. 42 Simone De Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949).

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For migrants looking to find settlement, progress and advancement in a foreign situation, the other and the self are never clearly defined as constants43; instead, identity references become selective choices, some of which are utilized and others suppressed or forgotten in order to situate oneself within a bigger social context. Notably in the case of Hong Kong’s Portuguese, different levels of other and self were at work, making it exceptionally difficult to define a dichotomous division between representations of “them” and “us” to the extent that identity became actively negotiated by different actors; “them” could refer to non-Portuguese, Portuguese of a strict European ancestral lineage (who were born in Macao or Hong Kong and have never been to Portugal) or Macanese Eurasians and “us,” on the other hand, could refer to Portuguese or Portuguese Eurasians or even Macanese. Either way, the Portuguese experience in Hong Kong affirms a great level of interaction between the complexities of identity construction and the rigidity of British colonial stratification. Placed finally in existing discourse that commonly defines identity into two poles: one as a fixed and possessive property44 and another as unstable and a process,45 the Portuguese identity demonstrates a unique mixture of both, where Creole identity may just have worked conveniently as a property mobilized in the process of their brand new becoming.

43 MariaCaterina La Barbera, “Identity and Migration: An Introduction,” in MariaCaterina La Barbera, ed., Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (AG, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014), 4. 44 Floya Anthias, “Belongings in a Globalizing and Unequal World: Rethinking Translocations,” in Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabiran and Ulrike Vieten, eds., Sage Studies in International Sociology: The Situated Politics of Belonging (London: SAGE Publications, Ltd., 2006), 17–32. 45 Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (London: Taylor and Francis, 2008).

YUNG Ying-yue

12 The Global Migration of a Chinese Family: Kwan Yuen-cheung and His Descendants Right after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March of 2011, and the resulted leak of radioactive material came to be known, the author of this paper received, one after another, offers from relatives around the world to stay in their houses in order to escape from Japan. These offers came from her siblings living in Hong Kong and Malaysia, from first, second, and even distant cousins living in Singapore, North America, Hawaii and England. A cousin who lived in Hawaii and worked for an airline company, told the author, upon hearing of the shortage of food and daily necessities in Tokyo, that she could utilize staff travel privileges to fly to Narita to deliver supplies, and return on the flight the same evening. Cousins who offered their help included some whom the author had met only once or twice. For the very first time, the author realized how grateful and meaningful it was to be a member of a global family. This paper will deal with a case study on the formation and development of the author’s global family, to examine when, how and why the descendants of Kwan Yuen-cheung1 (關元昌, Guan Yuanchang) and his wife Lai Amui (黎阿妹, Li Amei) migrated to different parts of the world, and how this diaspora family reunited and became a global family. In the end, this paper examines the meaning of “Chineseness” among contemporary Kwan family members.

1 The actual spelling of names of Yuen-cheung and his descendants, not the pinyin system, will be used in this paper. However, the pinyin will be given when names in Chinese characters first appear in the paper. Note: This study is based on and is a continuation of my previous papers titled “The Formation of a Chinese Diaspora Family: the Case of the Guan Family” ,『アジア研究シリーズ No.42』(亜 細亜大学, March, 2002); “The Dispersion of a Chinese Diaspora Family: The Case of the Kwan Family in America,”『アジア研究シリーズ No.51 』(亜細亜大学, 2004), and「地域的キリスト 者家族からグローバル家族への展開」谷垣·塩出·容編著『変容する華南と華人ネットワー クの現在』 (“Transformation from Regional Christian Families to Global Families: the Case of Kwan, Yung and Cheung families” in Tanigaki, Shiode, Yung ed. The Morphing South China and Contemporary Chinese Networks) (風響社, 2014), pp. 351–80. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685-013

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Who are the Kwan Yuen-cheung family? Kwan Yuen-cheung (1832–1912) and his wife Lai Amui (1840–1902) were among the earliest Christians in Hong Kong and Guangdong. Yuen-cheung was born at Xilang Village (西朗郷) in Panyu County (番禺縣) of Guangdong Province.　His father, Kwan Yat (關日,Guan Ri), was probably one of the earliest disciples of Robert Morrison who was sent by the London Missionary Society (LMS) to spread Christianity in China. It is not clear when and how Kwan Yat converted to Christianity. Judging from the fact that he and his family moved to Hong Kong after the Opium War owing to discrimination by fellow-villagers for being converts, it may be assumed that he had become a Christian in the 1830s. Initially, Kwan Yat’s family had a low socio-economic status, so they lacked the traditional means to achieve social success. However, their relations with the LMS had a lasting influence on both their religious and secular lives. Kwan Yat had four sons, all of whom became elders of the LMS station in Hong Kong. His youngest son, Kwan Jit-tong (關節堂, Guan Jietang: 1835–1901), studied at the Anglo-Chinese College that was originally founded in Malacca by Morrison and Milne in 1818 and later moved by James Legge to Hong Kong in 1843. Legge was sent in 1839 by the LMS to Malacca where he was assigned to work for the College and later became its principal in November 1840. After Jit-tong graduated from the College, he taught for more than 30 years at the Central School established by James Legge upon the request of the Hong Kong government. Many of his classmates opted for better-paid jobs such as translators or compradors. Yuen-cheung, Kwan Yat’s third son, started working as a general assistant in printing for the LMS, and was eventually trained by a missionary, who was also a medical doctor, in the western method of dentistry. He became one of China’s first western dentists. He was also a leading figure in founding the To Tsai Church (道 濟會堂; Daoji Huitang), the first independent church of Chinese converts in Hong Kong, under the support of the LMS. Lai Amui, on the other hand, got separated from her parents during the turmoil caused by a local rebellion and was brought up by a British officer, probably the then Registrar General in Hong Kong, and his Chinese wife. Amui was able to receive a good education under the couple who adopted her. Because of her upbringing, she was fluent in English and became a Christian. Unlike her Chinese contemporaries, she did not confine herself within her family, but became a career woman, worked as a teacher, an interpreter, and a matron at Alice Memorial Hospital in Hong Kong. She also engaged in volunteer activities. Yuen-cheung practiced dentistry in Guangzhou, but his family was in Hong Kong, while Amui’s professional career was located in Hong Kong. Both he and

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Amui were fervent and active members of the To Tsai Church in Hong Kong. The fact that both of them were buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery showed that Hong Kong was their actual home. Yuen-cheung and Amui had ten sons and five daughters. Most of them achieved fame and success in China and Hong Kong and their descendants can now be found all over the world.　How did it happen? Yuen-cheung and Amui paid much attention to their children’s education. The sons studied Chinese and English in secondary school and entered college for advanced studies. The daughters had to enter private schools as there was no public girls’ school established yet. Because of their mother’s unique experience of having been raised in an English family, it can be assumed that the daughters were also able to acquire some knowledge of English. Moreover, the children of Yuen-cheung grew up in a time when the Qing government finally recognized the superiority of western gunboats – in other words, western technology. People equipped with knowledge of western affairs were especially needed in the navy, the tax and maritime customs service, medical service, and mining. These were the fields where the children of Yuen-cheung built their careers. As a result, all of the sons were engaged in jobs related to so-called “western affairs”, such as medical doctors, naval officers, customs officers and engineers, and the daughters obtained qualifications to become teachers and western-style midwives. Brief facts of the fifteen children are listed below. 1. Yuet-ming (月明, Yueming: 1858–1913) was the eldest daughter and married Lau Hin-cheung (劉顯章, Liu Xianzhang: 1849–?). Nothing much is known about her except for her enthusiastic services at church. She lived and was buried in Hong Kong. 2. King-wan (景雲, Jingyun: 1860–1923), the second son, was a graduate of the Nanyang Naval Academy. He served in the Fujian Fleet for some years and later at several posts in the Customs office, then worked as a manager in the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company. He settled in the outskirt of the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Kingwan married Lam Yim-king (林艶瓊, Lin Yanqiong: 1865–1924) and had two sons and eight daughters. 3. King-to (景道, Jingdao: 1862–1889), the third son, was also a naval officer at the Fujian Fleet and later became an anti-smuggling officer at the Customs service. He died unmarried at the age of 27. 4. King-woon (景垣, Jingyuan: 1864), the fourth son, died shortly after birth. 5. Yuet-ping (月屏, Yueping: 1865–1899) was the fifth daughter. She was a student of Noyes at True Light Girls’ School in Guangzhou, a fervent and active Christian of the Zhenjiang Church. She also translated and wrote many missionary tracts. She was married to Wan Bing-chung (温秉忠,

246 

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

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Wen Bingzhong: 1863–1938) and they had one son who died young, and an adopted daughter. Yuet-ping died at the age of 34, and was buried in Hong Kong. King-yin (景賢, Jingxian: 1867–1919), the sixth son, was a graduate of the Imperial Medical College in Tianjin in 1890. His appointments included chief of a naval hospital, and physician-in-attendance for the Empress Dowager. He married Cheung Yuk-yue (張玉如, Zhang Yuru: 1870–1945) and they had five sons and seven daughters. King-yin was buried in Tianjin. King-leung (景良, Jingliang: 1869–1945), the seventh son, graduated in medicine from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1893. He served as a physician in Hong Kong. Sun Yat-sen was a classmate when they studied medicine and became a close friend. Sun was the matchmaker for King-leung and Emma Lee (李月娥, Li Yue-e: 1876–1905). The couple had five sons and two daughters. After Emma died at the age of 30, King-leung married Kong Yan-mui (江恩梅, Jiang Enmei: 1885–1965), a midwife at the Alice Memorial Hospital and had seven sons and two daughters. He and his two wives were buried in Hong Kong. Yuet-ying (月英, Yueying: 1870–1962), the eighth daughter, was a teacher of English and other subjects, and one of the earliest registered midwives among Hong Kong Chinese. She married Yung Hoy (容星橋, Rong Xingqiao: 1865–1933) and they had eight sons and three daughters. After Yung’s death in Shanghai, Yuet-ying lived in Singapore and Hong Kong with her children. She was such a fervent volunteer that she still worked at a rehabilitation institution in her eighties. She and her husband were buried in Zhuhai. King-chung (景忠, Jingzhong: 1873–1923), the ninth son, joined the Imperial Customs Services after graduating from Queen’s College in Hong Kong, and served at various ports. He married Sarah Chu Chi-sian (朱岐仙, Zhu Qixian: 1873–1940) and had two sons and three daughters.　King-chung retired in Shanghai and was buried there. Sarah moved to Singapore with their son during the Sino-Japanese War. Yuet-har (月霞, Yuexia: 1874–1942), the tenth daughter, engaged her whole life in missionary activities and remained unmarried. She was buried in Hong Kong. Yuet-wah (月華, Yuehua: 1875–?), the eleventh daughter, was a qualified midwife in Hong Kong. She married Tam Kwing-chung (譚烱松, Tan Jiongsong: 1875–1902) who passed away at the age of 27. They had one son. King-sing (景星, Jingxing: 1877–1955), the twelfth son, was a graduate of the Imperial Medical College in Tianjin in 1900 and was appointed as Director of the Public Health Office at Yingkou, Tianjin. In the early days

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of the Republican government he was appointed Inspector-General for Salt Control in Guangdong. He married Yeung Shun-wah (楊舜華, Yang Shunhua: 1884–1951), had six daughters and two sons and retired in Hong Kong. 13. King-sun (景燊, Jingshen: 1878–1948), the thirteenth son, graduated in mineralogy in Beijing and went on for graduate studies in England and America. He worked for Loke Yew, a famous tin miner in Malaya, and married one of his daughters, Juliann Yuen-ying, and had one son. He later returned and settled in Hong Kong. 14. King-hung (景鏗, Jingkeng: 1880–1947), the fourteenth son, graduated from the Imperial Medical College in Tianjin and went on to further studies at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. He was appointed Branch Director at the Public Dispensary in Hong Kong and Medical Director of the Kailuan Mining Department, and later worked at various railway offices. He went into private medical practice and settled in Tianjin. He married Chen Lusheng (陳律生: 1885–1968) and Jia Peilan (賈佩蘭: 1908–1964), and had three sons and six daughters. 15. King-fai (景輝, Jinghui: 1883–1943), the fifteenth son, graduated from Diocesan College in Hong Kong and went on to higher studies in Europe and America. He obtained a degree in Civil Engineering in the United States, and was Director of the Department of Highways in Swatow and later a commissioner in the Canton Municipal Government. He remained single throughout his life. The acquisition of western knowledge through relations with western missionaries and the Christian community provided a new ladder for upward social mobility, and created a new class of elite – English-speaking Chinese in the British Colony of Hong Kong. Yuen-cheung and his family were no doubt members of this new elite group. During the lives of the second generation, Yuen-cheung’s family had already spread from Hong Kong to treaty ports such as Suzhou, Zhenjiang, Shanghai and Tianjin, and also to Beijing and Malaya due to the professions they engaged in. The second generation continued to bring up their own children in western-style education. Many of the third generation had the opportunity to study abroad. In spite of the fact that China was never able to break out from turmoil in the first half of the 20th century, those who studied abroad opted to return to China, to take up jobs that would help strengthen China in the face of western threat, as expressed in the maxim Yuen-cheung gave his family, “May my descendants continue to be devoted Christians, and live their lives with Christian spirit to aid the poor in the community and as medical doctors to save lives or as

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engineers to help make the country strong”.2 However, the communist takeover in China in 1949 marked a turning point. The third and later generations migrated and dispersed to different regions overseas. In order to facilitate the description of the migration pattern, “The Kwan Family Code System” created in 20033 will be used in this paper as an aid for identification. It is a system of numerical codes that denote an individual’s position within the extended family. Numbers indicate birth order of the lineage, separated into generations in descending order. The first set of numbers refers to Kwan Yuen-cheung’s own children, the next his grandchildren, and so on. Therefore Yuen-cheung’s offspring will have a single-digit family code, his/her child will have a two-digit code, and so on. For example, the author’s code, 8-9-3, means that her grandmother was Yuen-cheung’s eightth daughter, her father was the ninth child of her grandmother, and she is the third child of her father. Spouses are treated as integral members of the Kwan family, and therefore a suffix “S” was added to the code to signify spouse, “P” to signify domestic partner, and “R” to signify relative brought up in the family. The family code system was first introduced for identification purpose in the Kwan Yuen-cheong Family Record4 compiled in 2003. The 15 children of Yuen-cheung are regarded as ancestors of the 15 branches of the present Kwan family. The first, third, fourth, tenth, and fifteenth branches had no issues. The fifth daughter had a son who died early and had no issue, but had an adopted daughter, whose relation with the Kwan family was only re-established a few years ago, a fact probably still unknown to most of her descendants.5 Today there are a total of 1368 members listed in the Family Record,6 living and non-living, including direct descendants, adopted children and their spouses or partners (See Table 1 and Table 2). Kwan family members can be found in Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States, besides mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

2 For the history of the first and second generations of Kwan Yuen-cheung family, refer to 容應 萸「香港開埠與關家」(The Opening of Hong Kong Port and the Kwan Family), in 關肇碩、容應 萸『香港開埠與關家』(香港: 廣角鏡出版社, 1997), pp. 5–30. 3 Yung Ying-yue, “The Dispersion of a Chinese Diaspora Family: The Case of the Kwan Family in America”, p. 11. 4 Kwan Yuen-cheong Family Record, (Unpublished article, distributed privately to family members, 2003). The spelling “Yuen-cheong” was used in the title, but this paper follows the spelling on the gravestone, which is “Yuen-cheung”. 5 Information given by Roger Lee (5-1-1-1-2). 6 This unpublished family record has been updated from the 2003 Family Record by, and is kept by the author. The number is counted on 20 February 2016.

The Global Migration of a Chinese Family 

Table 1: Latest total of Kwan Family members as of Feb 2016. Branch

Number

1 2

2 195

3

1

4

1

5

28

6

1531

7

397

8

233

9

143

10

1

11

9

12

111

13

28

14

672

15

1 13703

total

Notes: 1 6–11 was adopted by 12. The actual number should be 152. 2 14–1 was married to 11–1. The actual number should be 66. 3 After deducting the above double counts, the actual total is 1368.

Table 2: Number of members by generation. Digit

Number

1

29

2

130

3

328

4

517

5

329

6 total

35 1368

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Information regarding some of the famous in-laws of the Kwan family will be supplemented here.7 Yuet-ping (5) was married to Wan Bing-chung who was a member of the second detachment of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) to the United States, and the son of a famous church elder, Wan Ching-kai. After Yuet-ping passed away, Wan married the sister of Ni Kwei-tseng who was the mother of the three Soong sisters – Ai-ling, Ching-ling, Mei-ling who married K’ung Hsiang-hsi, Sun Yat-sen, and Chiang Kai-shek respectively. Yuet-ying (8) married Yung Hoy who was a cousin of Yung Wing and a member of the third detachment of the CEM to the United States. Yung Hoy made the acquaintance of Sun Yat-sen through his marriage with Yuet-ying and introduced Sun to Yung Wing after the abortive Zilijun Uprising in Hankou. King-sing (12) married Yeung Shun-wah, the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a loyal supporter of Sun Yatsen, and the sister of Yang Heling who was a comrade of Sun in his Hong Kong days. King-sun (13) married Juliann, the daughter of Loke Yew who was a famous and wealthy tin miner in Malaya. Among the third generation, Patricia Kwan (6-12) married Theodore Cheng, the son of Cheng Tian-gu who was the mayor of Canton and the ambassador to Mexico and Brazil in the 1940s. Violet Kwan (7-5) married Sandy Lin, the son of Lin Yuen-fai who was a member of the fourth detachment of the CEM, and became the first Chinese director of a western-style medical school, namely, the Imperial Medical College, Tientsin. Gloria Kwan (7-2-3) of the fourth generation married Ling Sung-ching, the son of Homer Ling Chuen-Cheng, an architect who designed the Ling House on Gulangyu Island, Xiamen. Kenneth Yung (8-4-2) married Esther Sun, the grand-daughter of Sun Mei who was the elder brother of Sun Yat-sen. Last but not the least, George Hu (9-1-4) married Tan Poey Ching, the granddaughter of Tan Kah Kee, a Chinese businessman, community leader and philanthropist in Malaya.

The Dispersion Chinese diaspora in the nineteenth century are in general classified into 3 groups: “coolies”, free artisans, and traders. Coolies worked in mines and plantations, and built railways. Artisans included tailors, blacksmiths, ship chandlers, cobblers and carpenters. Traders dealt with goods such as silk, tools, textiles, food, and porcelain. Their lives in foreign lands was filled with countless exploitation, discrimina7 Information regarding the in-laws of the Kwan Family is based on interviews performed by the author with Kwan family members.

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tion and hostility. They were marginal groups who were looked down on by both Chinese in the mainland and foreigners in the lands where they worked. The majority of the Kwan family members who voluntarily migrated from China, however, were able to find respectable jobs and lead well-to-do lives on foreign soils, due to their educational background and their adaptability to foreign environments. There were 4 routes for their voluntary migration:8 To stay on after finishing education in a foreign country To migrate taking advantage of professional skills To obtain citizenship through marriage to a citizen To gain citizenship as immediate family of a relative who has already become citizen

Migration to Southeast Asia and Taiwan The settling of Kwan family members in Malaya began at the turn of the twentieth century. King-sun (13, the thirteenth son of Yuen-cheung) worked for Loke Yew in Malaya and married his daughter. He himself chose to return to live in Hong Kong but he had brought his nephew, Kwan Kin-tong (7-2), and Cheng Yoon-tin (7-3S) who was the husband of his niece, Wai-heng (7-3), to Kuala Lumpur. Kin-tong and Yoontin worked at the Kwong Yik (Selangor) Banking Corporation, the founding of which Loke Yew played a leading role. Kin-tong got married in Kuala Lumpur, settled and raised a big family there. Wai-heng (7-3), on the other hand, took her children and some of Kin-tong’s children back to study in Hong Kong and mainland China. These children stayed with their Kwan relatives and were well taken care of. Margaret Kwan (9-1) married Hu Tsai-kuen, a medical student who came from Singapore to study medicine at the University of Hong Kong in 1916, and migrated to Singapore. They had a family of seven children, and became the earliest branch who settled in Singapore. Her brother Pah-chien (9-2) visited her in Singapore and met her neighbor Egan Oh whom he married. Pah-chien and Egan Oh (9-2S) lived in Shanghai, but decided to move back to Singapore with his mother (9S) when Japan invaded China. They settled in Singapore thereafter. Trikki Cheng (7-3-3) who is Wai-heng’s daughter, was brought up in Hong Kong and studied in Shanghai and Guizhou. She went to the States for undergraduate studies where she met her future husband Quek Kai-tiong who was from Singapore. Their family settled in Singapore.

8 Information regarding the migration of the Kwan family members is based on oral interviews and interviews via email performed by the author.

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 YUNG Ying-yue

Winston Wing Yung (8-8) was the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health of the Nationalist government in Nanjing. When he was in Geneva attending the World Health Assembly as the Deputy Chief of the Chinese Delegation in 1948, news arrived that the fall of China to the Communists would be inevitable. Immediately, he and his wife Lilyan Leong (8-8S) decided that he would resign from his government post and the family would leave China. Winston was able to get an appointment at the WHO Epidemiological Intelligence Station in Singapore so the whole family were able to move and settle there. Edmond H Yung (8-9-2), a civil engineer, and his wife Emily were graduates of Hong Kong University. They worked in England for some years, and moved to Malaysia in the 1970s where Edmond went into the business of property development and Emily into interior design. Both were conferred a “Datuk-ship” later on separate occasions. Kwan family branches were also found in Thailand and Japan. May Kwan (9-2-2) was brought up in Singapore, and went to study at the University of Adelaide in South Australia around 1960. She met a Thai student, Suphawat Phanchet, whom she married in 1965 and moved to Bangkok with him in 1966. The author (8-9-3) was born in China, brought up in Hong Kong, studied in Japan and the United States, married in Singapore, stayed there for seven years, and the whole family migrated to Japan in 1989. Kwan Sung-sing (6-1), an eminent architect of Kwan, Chu and Yang Architects in Tianjin, was said to be a close friend of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Meiling. He followed the Nationalist government to Taiwan and lived there until his death in 1960. His children, however, went to study in North America and stayed on.

Migration to North America The communist takeover in China in 1949 marked a critical point in Kwan family migration to North America. Before then, the Kwans who finished studies at the tertiary level in the US returned to China upon their graduation. However, after 1949, those who were already in the United States chose to stay on, and others who were in China opted to migrate there to find new lives. Four major developments in China and the United States facilitated the immigration of the Kwan members to the United States. After the U.S. Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act to halt Chinese immigration in 1882, Chinese were excluded from citizenship by naturalization. During the Sino-Japanese War, when China allied with the U.S., the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, and a quota of 105 per year was set for Chinese immigrants in 1943. Yung Chi-hsiung (8-6), who came to the States for tertiary education in the 1920s, finally obtained his citizenship in 1947.

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Secondly, the Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act to give permanent resident status to 3,500 Chinese visitors, seamen, and students unable to return home because of civil war in China in 1948. U.S. broke off diplomatic ties with the newly established People’s Republic of China in 1949. In 1952 the McCarranWalter Act made Chinese immigrants, many who had lived in the U.S. for decades, eligible for citizenship. In 1953 the Refugee Relief Act allowed 3,000 Chinese into U.S. as refugees of the Chinese civil war. The migration of Jeanne Fong (6-3-2) and her family is characteristic of the development of this period. Jeanne’s father, Kwan Sung-tao (6-3) undertook graduate studies in the U.S. where he met Florence, a Chinese American born in the U.S. But Florence lost her American citizenship when she married Sung-tao, and returned to live in China with him upon graduation, only to regain it in 1943. They and their three children were able to go on board the last evacuating ship to leave Shanghai for the U.S. on January 1949, due to Florence being an American citizen. On the other hand, Jeanne’s husband Mike came to study in the U.S. in 1948, and was allowed to acquire U.S. citizenship under the Refugee Relief Act in 1953. The next development that facilitated the migration of the Kwans to the U.S. was President John Kennedy’s directive in 1962, which permitted refugees from mainland China to enter the U.S. as parolees from Hong Kong. 15,000 refugees entered the U.S. under this provision, among who were David Kwan (2-2-1), his wife Ruth (2-2-1S), and their six children who left Hong Kong for the U.S. in 1963. Finally came the reopening of China to the outside world at the end of 1978. Vivian (6-6-2) and her family of four, David Chen (6-10-1) and his wife and two children arrived in the U.S. In both cases, one person migrated to the United States as a close relative of a Kwan member who had already acquired U.S. citizenship, and then their own immediate family members would arrive a few years later. In the case of the Kwans in Hong Kong, the 10-year Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 created political anxiety there. Many of them who had already settled in Hong Kong since the 1950s decided to leave Hong Kong. Yung Yingming (8-5-1)’s family, Cheng Man-chee (7-3-4)’s family, and Kwan Shiu-kuan (12-5)’s family migrated to the States in this period. Similar to the U.S., Canada also had a racial immigration policy that restricted entry for certain groups deemed “less desirable”. The original Chinese Act of 1885 restricted Chinese immigration with a head tax, further strengthened by the Chinese Act of 1923 which existed until 1946. The 1960s, however, saw several key reforms to Canada’s immigration policy. In 1962, the government introduced regulations that virtually eliminated racial discrimination as a major feature of immigration policy. Kenneth Yung (8-4-2), who had finished his Master of Engineering program in Adelaide, and had two-year working experience in Tasmania, chose to migrate to British Columbia in Canada in the same year. Then, the

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Immigration Act regulations were amended in 1967, under which a point system was introduced and education replaced race as a major selection criterion. The de-racialization in Canada’s immigration policy had an effect on the migration of highly educated individuals. Many Kwan members had migrated to Canada from Hong Kong since the Cultural Revolution, and even more followed after the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was formally signed, that People’s Republic of China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997. Paul Cheng (7-3-1), Yung Yingwah (8-4-3) , Jeannie Yee (8-11-1) were among those who brought their family there.

Migration to Oceania The Australian government introduced the Migration Act in 1966, which effectively dismantled the White Australia Policy installed since 1901, and increased access to non-European migrants. When the Policy was still in force in the 1960s, Allen Yung (8-8-2), who went to study in Australia in 1952 and finished his program in the Medical School at Melbourne University in 1960, was able to gain permanent residency only on the basis of being married to an Australian. He became an Australian citizen several years later. The 1975 Racial Discrimination Act made the use of racial criteria illegal for any official purpose. Selection of prospective migrants based on country of origin was entirely removed from official policies in 1978. Katherine Bau (2-10-2) from Hong Kong met Wong Lock-seng from Malaysia during her study in Australia. They got married and lived in Kuala Lumpur for 10 years, but moved back to Australia after deliberation regarding living and education environments for their son. Michael Kwan (7-6-4), who went to Australia for college education, stayed on in view of the imminent return of Hong Kong to mainland China, and his siblings Grace (7-6-1), Alice (7-6-3) and Granger (7-6-5) followed suit to New Zealand. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, students from mainland China were allowed to settle in Australia permanently. Rong Chengzhao (8-1-1-1) and Rong Chengkun (8-1-2-1) who came to study from Shanghai, decided to stay. One earlier migration of the Kwan family to New Zealand was Ivy Kwan (7-10). Her husband, Harry Long, the son of a Chinese laborer in New Zealand, had come to work in Hong Kong. They got married and lived in Hong Kong, but moved to New Zealand after Harry’s retirement. Their daughter, Judy Chan (7-10-1) went to study in New Zealand while the parents were still in Hong Kong, and decided to stay on. In short, the impetus for the Kwans to migrate was mainly generated by the political chaos and social turmoil in China they experienced, especially during

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the Communist takeover. Their elite status signified their close relations with the Nationalist government, and their devotion to Christianity made them incompatible with the communist ideology. Those who were already overseas chose to stay on, and those who were in China made efforts to leave. In the 1950s and 1960s the Kwan family unity declined as many members migrated overseas to find new lives. Those who stayed in Hong Kong still remained close, but those overseas gradually drifted apart from the Hong Kong and China Kwans as they had to adjust to their new social environments. Those in their 50s and 60s had to cope with economic survival and paying college tuition fees for their children. Those in their 30s and 40s were working to provide for their basic needs and were busy raising young children. Those in their teenage years and 20s were studying and trying hard to blend into the local peer groups. Therefore, it was not easy to maintain contact with the Kwans in other parts of the world. As for younger members who were brought up in North America, they were neither aware of the family history nor had mastery of the Chinese language, and thus had even less ties with their Asian relatives.　

The Reunion The situation changed when the jumbo jet in the late 1970s made international travel much cheaper, easier and faster. Migration to a foreign country used to mean settling down permanently; so re-visiting the hometown was a rare event. Now, people can come and go as they pleased, some a few times yearly. Import of Chinese video, music, tapes, books and food enabled the overseas Chinese to maintain their Chinese life styles in foreign lands. Many Chinese communities in large cities had their own newspapers, magazines and even TV stations. Communication, such as international telephone calls, also became cheaply accessible. With the arrival of the Internet, overseas Chinese, whether friends, relatives, or strangers, were linked by a new kind of communication network. Before the internet, contacts with relatives were in general restricted to the immediate family, members of the same branch, and other branches who lived close by. Letters, cards, and the telephone were the usual means. After the arrival of e-mail, frequent and easy contacts through this new medium can be made not only to old acquaintances but also to those known only by name but not in person. Instead of sending many letters, which was tedious and expensive, a single e-mail serves the same purpose. This technological revolution created a new and easy communication network for the Kwans to renew relationships, to fill in gaps that were caused by loss of contact, and to build up new solidarity among them.

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The Compilation of Kwan Yuen-cheung Family Record The idea of compiling a genealogy record for the Kwan Yuen-cheung Family was first brought up in Tianjin back in 1917, when Kwan King-sun (13) came from Hong Kong to visit his brother King-yin (6). Both agreed that since the family had expanded to more than a hundred in number, all living in different parts of China, and even Malaya, a family record book would be needed to keep everyone in touch, and to know who was who in the family and how they were related to one another. It was a tedious and difficult task to collect information of all members that the first edition of the Kwan Yuen-cheung Family Record finally came out many years later in 1937.9 However, with increasing emigration of the subsequent generations of all the branches, the Kwan Family became even more dispersed. The majority chose to settle in North America, Australia and different parts of Asia, with only a small number remaining in China. For the benefit of many younger Kwan descendants who would not understand Chinese, Peter Kwan (7-2-1) in Malaysia had begun to translate and update the 1937 Edition of the Family Record into English. Unfortunately, he could not finish his task owing to deterioration of health, and the half-finished edition in English was printed privately and distributed by him in 1982.10 On the other hand, in 1982 Yung Chi-tung (8-9) in Hong Kong had completed his compilation of a family record of the eighth branch in The Yung Family Record, which departed from Chinese tradition by including daughters and their families.11 Then, Richard Yung (8-8-1) in Singapore updated and revised the 1982 edition to a bilingual edition in 1999.12 Kwan Shiu-shek (12-7) in Hong Kong, together with the author of this paper, collected written materials and photographs and published

9 The 1937 family record has two volumes. The first volume『關氏家譜』records the ancestors from Guan Zhaoye (關肇冶) of the first generation to Kwan Yuen-cheung of the 18th generation. The second volume 『元昌公家譜』records the descendants of Kwan Yuen-cheung. Printed by 香港商業印刷所. 10 Peter Kwan, The Kwan Family Record of Genealogy ( Unpublished article, distributed privately to family members, 1982). 11 Yung Chi-tung ed.『容清裕堂家譜』(The Yung Qing Yu Tang Family Record) (Hong Kong: no publisher, 1982). 12 Richard Yung ed.『容清裕堂家譜』(The Yung Qing Yu Tang Family Record), 2nd Edition (Hong Kong: no publisher, 1999).

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a book on the history of the Kwan family.13 He also repaired the ancestral hall in their hometown and set up a charity clinic there in commemoration of the many medical doctors since Kwan Yuen-cheung in the family, soon after China inaugurated the policies of economic reforms. Meanwhile, Richard Yung (8-8-1) and some other members went on to continue Peter Kwan’s efforts and finished the 2003 edition of the Kwan Yuen-cheong Family Record which included all the 15 branches of Yuen-cheung family and also the fourth branch of Kwan Jit-tong (Yuen-cheung’s younger brother)’s family. The Kwan Family Codes were introduced, and Jit-tong’s descendants were referred to as the “D” branch.14 Richard Yung passed away in 2007, and the task of keeping the Family Record up-to-date fell on the author. As of February 2016, there are 1368 names on the family member list. The present Family Record differs from the traditional Chinese genealogy records in four ways: (1) both Chinese and English names are included; (2) both descendants of sons and daughters are included; (3) both direct descendants and adopted children are included; (4) non-marital partnership and different sexual orientation such as same-sex marriage, non-marital partnership and different sexual orientation such as same-sex marriage are recognized.

Reunions The popularity in finding the roots of one’s family in North America encouraged the English-speaking Kwans to learn about their family history. When the Internet era began, the Hong Kong Kwans and the overseas Kwans began to exchange e-mails in order to fill in the gaps created when they had lost contact, and relationships were thus renewed. As there were many members of the sixth branch living in California, Jeanne Fong (6-3-2) played a leading role in organizing a reunion of the sixth branch and members of other branches who lived nearby in 1999. More than 50 members attended the event. Based on the successful experience of this reunion, the first Kwan family reunion took place at the Asilomar Conference grounds, California from July 31 to August 3, 2003. 227 people coming from North America, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Australia, Egypt, El Salvador, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand attended the event. The common language of

13 關肇碩‧容應萸『香港開埠與關家』(香港: 廣角鏡出版社, 1997). (Kwan.S.S. & Yung Ying-yue, The Opening of Hong Kong Port and the Kwan Family). 14 Kwan Yuen-cheong Family Record (Unpublished article, distributed privately to family members, 2003).

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the Kwan Reunion was English. Talks and presentations were given to introduce the development of each branch. The continuation of holding a family reunion every other year, and the updating of family record book were also agreed upon by participants.15 Since then, reunions took place in Hong Kong (2006), on an Alaska Cruise (2009), in Singapore (2012), on a Caribbean Cruise (2013), and the latest reunion was on an Alaska Cruise followed by a reunion in Vancouver (2015).

Social networking and IT revolution Kwan family members today live in an increasingly globalized world facilitated by rapidly evolving technologies that make social networking and instant communication across distance possible. A bulletin board on the family website provides members with information, serves as a communication center and display for old and new photos. With an electronic mailing list, family members can send messages to everyone instantly. A secret Facebook Group has also been created after the Singapore Reunion to enhance closed discussion and private connections among family members.16

“Chineseness” of the Kwan family The author presented a paper titled “The International Migration of a Chinese Family” based on her research of the Kwan Family, at Xiamen University and Huaqiao University in China in September 2014. The author cited the following 3 elements as characteristics of the Kwans. (i) Being a member of the Kwan family does not require bearing the Kwan surname, but only requires the person to be a descendant of Kwan Yuencheung. The spouses of daughters are also included as family members. (ii) Kwan has become a multi-racial, multi-religious, and multi-cultural family which also accepts non-traditional values, for instance, non-marital partnership and different sexual orientation such as same-sex marriage. 15 Yung Ying-yue, “The Dispersion of a Chinese Diaspora Family: The Case of the Kwan Family in America,” p.20. 16 Yung Ying-yue, “Transformation from Regional Christian Families to Global Families: the Case of Kwan, Yung and Cheung families” in The Morphing South China and Contemporary Chinese Networks), pp. 377–8.

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(iii) English has become the common language.  The audience were interested in the paper, but someone asked a thought-provoking question which was simply, “Since all three characteristics are non-Chinese elements, can the Kwan family still be considered a Chinese family?”　In order to answer this question, the author sent out a survey containing 3 questions to family members by email and on Facebook, namely, (i) Do you consider yourself as Chinese, and why? (ii) How about your children? (iii) How about your spouse? Answers to the questions were received from members of different branches living in various regions.17 They are summarized and analyzed in the following paragraphs. There are at least 3 distinctions of “Chinese” recognized among the Kwans. (i) “Politically Chinese” are Chinese nationals who hold Chinese passports. The size of this group among the Kwans has been decreasing as more and more family members have migrated and gained citizenships of other countries. (ii) “Ethnically Chinese” are those who have Chinese ancestry, but not necessarily those who adhere to Chinese culture and traditions. Included also are Kwans whose Chinese ethnicity was diluted due to intermarriage with other ethnic groups. (iii) “Culturally Chinese” (more precisely Han-cultural Chinese) are those who retain (at least some) Chinese culture and traditions, for example, eat Chinese food, understand some Chinese language, enjoy Chinese arts, literature and music, celebrate Chinese New Year, or celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with turkey cooked in Chinese style, go to the family cemetery on Ching Ming, etc. However, one important point is that someone who is culturally Chinese in the Kwan family does not need to be ethnically Chinese. Some Chinese Kwans think that their non-Chinese spouses are more culturally Chinese than themselves. In fact, a non-Chinese spouse proudly claims, “We teach our children about Chinese customs and visit family. They are also learning to speak Cantonese. I am a non-Chinese spouse and do most of the Chinese cooking in our home”.18 Almost all answers regard eating Chinese food as essential, whereas so far only one insists that “understanding and speaking the Chinese language is one of the key factors” in being culturally Chinese.19 It was interesting to hear a nine-yearold 5-digit (sixth generation descendant from Yuen-cheung) boy who was 50%

17 The author has received 4 replies from the 2nd branch, 5 replies from the 7th branch, 2 replies from the 9th branch, 3 replies from the 9th branch, and 1 from the 12th branch. 18 Reply from 2-10-2-1S. 19 Reply from 8-4-2-1.

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Chinese ethnically, brought up in New Zealand and does not speak any Chinese, telling his English guest at a dinner party that “Us Chinese eat a lot you know!”20 As non-Chinese integrate into the family through marriage, and Chinese members adapt to cultures in different parts of the world they move to, non-Chinese culture and diets continue to have a growing influence in the family. Hence, “Chineseness” will be even more diluted in the future. However, Chinese culture is a hybrid and there is no single Chinese identity even within mainland China. Even Buddhism, the most important religion in China, was of foreign origin. Though transformations might be very slow and inconspicuous, Chinese culture has assimilated other cultures historically, and procreation with members of other ethnic races existed. A few respondents see themselves rather as “citizens of the world,”21 and suggest that being Chinese or not is irrelevant to the identification of “Kwan Family.” “Many of our family dispersed across the world and have married or have established relationships with persons of other heritage, ideologies, political or social affiliations or have parents who were not born in China,” hence, what matters is not how much Chinese the members are, but they are family. As a conclusion to the above views, “Kwan Family” can be defined as a group of people who (i) have blood/ marriage/ partnership connections to Kwan Yuen-cheung, and (ii) retain the values and traditions of their common family. The final question arises, then what are the values and traditions of Kwan Yuen-cheung family? Yuen-cheung’s family maxim says, “May my descendants continue to be devoted Christians, and live their lives with Christian spirit to aid the poor in the community and as medical doctors to save lives or as engineers to help make the country strong.” Kwan Yuen-cheung and many of his descendants were active members of the church. Some consider Christianity as the greatest heritage of the family that gives the family unity.22 Christian tradition is still strong. Sunday worship has been included in the programs since the first Reunion. The extended Kwan family maintained an ancestral hall in their hometown Panyu, but with the exception of a few individuals, Kwan Yuen-cheung’s descendants did not practice ancestral worship but worshipped Christ in church. Church activities were able to play a part of the role of maintaining the family network that is usually played by ancestral worship in Chinese society. Family members had many opportunities to get together because of their common religious belief,

20 Reply from 7-10-1 21 For example, reply from 7-2-3-2. 22 Reply from 2-10-1S. But some variety may be seen among the younger members, and a Muslim name (7-2-8-2) is even found in the Family Record.

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every Sunday service and during other major occasions such as Christmas and Easter. Marriages and funerals of family members were held in church. Secondly, in a traditional Chinese family, a well-to-do member had the duty to provide financial assistance to other less fortunate members. In the same way, well-to-do members in the Kwan family helped their needy relatives. King-leung (7) who practiced medicine in Hong Kong, King-sing (12) and King-sun (13) who retired in Hong Kong had built a few houses in Kowloon Tong. As the sharing of food and lodging was a family tradition, many Kwans of the same branch and others, had the experience of staying there when they fled from China owing to the Japanese invasion in 1930s or after the Communist takeover, until they were able to find a means of livelihood on their own. Moreover, well-to-do members gave generously toward education of the younger generation. A successful member in a distant big city in China or overseas would open his home to accommodate others who needed a place to stay or were starting out in their education or careers. Family members are always able to receive warm hospitality even from relatives whom they have not met before when they travel. Meda Lin (7-2-3-2) wrote in her reply to questionnaire designed by the author, “An enormous extended family makes travel a fun adventure – seems there is an aunt, uncle or cousin wherever I go. Our home is like a hotel and there are always some cousins visiting.”23 She calls this the “open arms, open door tradition” and says that it has “expanded to include nieces, nephews, friends of my cousin, their children, my closest friends, and my children’s friends……”24 Thirdly, Kwan family has become too vast a family to have complete consensus. There are some who are more open-minded, and some, more closed-minded and even conservative. The majority are Christians but they are a few members converted to Islam, or have allegiance to Chinese ancestor worship. Yet there seems to be a shared spirit of tolerance and acceptance of diverse values, ideologies, political views, social affiliation, and opinions on many other things. Nationality can be changed, and ethnicity can be diluted, but the identity of one’s family appears to last the longest. The study of the Kwan family as a global family helps one to perceive how far-reaching and diverse a family can become, and yet how strongly the ties can bind the members together, and to better understand what role family identity serves, in today’s globalized society.

23 Reply from 7-2-3-2 in 2003. 24 Reply from 7-2-3-2 in 2015.