Tribute And Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652-1853

446 Pages·1977·11.981 MB·English

by  Sarasin Viraphol

HARVARD EAST ASIAN MONOGRAPHS
76
TRIBUTE AND PROFIT: SINO-SIAMESE TRADE,
1652-1853

TRIBUTE AND PROFIT: SINO-SIAMESE TRADE,
1652-1853
by
Sarasin Viraphol
Published by
Council on East Asian Studies
Harvard University
Distributed by
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
and
London, England
1977
Copyright © 1977 by
The President and Fellows of
Harvard College
This book is produced by the John K. Fairbank Center for East
Asian Research at Harvard University, which administers research
projects designed to further scholarly understanding of China,
Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Inner Asia, and adjacent areas. These
studies have been assisted by grants from the Ford Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Viraphol, Sarasin.
Tribute and profit.
(Harvard East Asian monographs ; 76)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. China—Commerce—Thailand—History. 2. Thailand—Com­
merce—China—History. I. Title. II. Series.
HF3838.T45V57 382\0951’0593 77-9447
ISBN 0-674-80915-7
FOREWORD
The early Ming voyages across the Indian Ocean under
Admiral Cheng-ho in the early 15 th century have long demonstrated
that the expansion of China by sea antedated that of Europe. When
the European adventurers and trading companies eventually reached
southeast Asia in the 16th century, they found Chinese merchants
active in all the ports and on the trade routes. The Chinese junk
trade, as they called it, was well established in this region before
the Europeans arrived. In short, there was a Maritime China active
overseas in East Asia well before Maritime Europe expanded its
influence into that region.
As the age of sail has given way to that of steam and now of
air transport, the early achievements of Maritime China have been
neglected. One of its staple trades was that in rice between Siam
and South China. This was one of the principal economic interests
that grew up under China’s defensive tribute system for diplomatic
relations. How international commerce was conducted within the
tributary framework makes an absorbing study, and we are accord­
ingly indebted to Dr. Sarasin Viraphol for his basic account of the
two centuries of Sino-Siamese trade before the modern period.
To his attainments as a scholar of Chinese language and his­
tory, Dr. Viraphol adds his command of the Siamese materials and
his knowledge of the Siamese end of the trade. His book opens the
way for further studies of a complex political and economic rela­
tionship. Very appropriately, he has completed the revision of this
manuscript while attached to the embassy of Thailand in Peking,
where he is on leave from his post at Chulalongkorn University.
May 1977 John K. Fairbank

PREFACE
In January 1974, the Siamese (Thai) government formally
announced its intention to rescind the controversial “Revolution­
ary Party Decree No. 53,” which had been instrumental in suspend­
ing trade between Thailand and the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) since its introduction by the Sarit regime in 1959. It was
almost eleven months, however, before the government and the
National (Legislative) Assembly could remove this important
obstacle and pave the way to the resumption of trade with the
PRC through a state-regulated enterprise. In the course of the
lengthy debate, two factors stood out. First of all, after so many
years of diplomatic isolation from, and even open hostility toward,
the PRC, the Siamese government again found it useful to establish
a dialogue and a formal relationship with Peking, and seek trade
as a major avenue toward the accomplishment of this objective.
Secondly, trade with the PRC was considered desirable precisely
because of its own inherent value: the PRC was a vital source of
“strategic” materials (notably oil) while concurrently serving as a
viable market for Thailand’s agricultural and natural surpluses
(especially tin, jute, and rubber). In addition the effort to escape
a Japanese economic stranglehold was greatly aided by seeking an
alternative in the China market.
That the prohibitive decree was so belatedly abolished was
due, for one thing, to the apparent apprehension in some circles
about the possible repercussions the action might have on Thailand’s
future economic and political well-being. A number of assemblymen
feared that trade with the PRC would have adverse effects on the
country’s balance of trade, as well as providing a channel for po­
litical subversion—keeping in mind, among other things, the exist­
ence of a large, commercially oriented Chinese minority, and Peking’s
predominantly verbal endorsement and support of a war of national
liberation against Thailand. This apprehension was also shared by a
considerable portion of the public, as well as the armed forces.
viii
For a country that historically maintained a close economic,
political, and cultural tie with China, Thailand is appallingly de­
ficient in knowledge of her giant neighbor, even though, commer­
cially speaking, at one point in the early part of the nineteenth
century the Sino-Siamese trade was a most important branch of
the Eastern Seas trade. This ignorance contributed to the delay in
the implementation of a positive policy toward the PRC.
The present study has grown out of an awareness of this
problem. In a modest way, it attempts to bridge the information
gap in the long and eventful history of the two countries’ com­
mercial intercourse. In dealing essentially with a crucial part, and
as a matter of fact, the most crucial part, of this lengthy relation­
ship, that is, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the
work can provide a historical perspective on the likely future
course of development in Thailand’s commercial contact with the
PRC. At least it should serve as a reminder that trade between the
two nations was traditionally cordial and mutually beneficial.
Above and beyond that, the study aims at presenting a vig­
nette of economic conditions in premodem East Asia prior to the
fateful impact of Western penetration into the region in the nine­
teenth century. More often than not, we tend to allow our per­
spectives of Asian history to be colored by what has happened
since the middle of the last century. Notwithstanding the dramatic
changes wrought by the introduction of Western capitalism into
East Asia, the indigenous maritime trade, of which the Sino-
Siamese junk trade was a part, was significant in its own right.
Dutch historian J. C. van Leur has observed that one may be so
hasty as to conclude that trade in pre-nineteenth-century Asia was
“primitive in an economic sense and of no importance for modem
times.” But a more accurate picture, upon close scrutiny, is not
deserving of such summary dismissal.
The present study also deals with a host of other issues. I
attempt, for instance, to disprove the popularly held assumption
that Siam’s external trade stagnated in the period between 1688
and 1855 with the conspicuous absence of Western influence in
the country. This study also investigates the Siamese tributary trade
in its functional aspects, which in turn leads to a discussion of the
organizational structure of the Siamese royal trade with China. In
the same vein, a supplementary investigation is made to show the
various organized activities at Canton, Amoy, and other Chinese
ports, in the Siamese Chinese commercial context. The study also
traces in some detail the historical development of the Sino-Siamese
rice trade, which, in many ways, was catalytic in the further en­
hancement of relations between Siam and the southeastern Chinese
society. Finally an effort is made to trace the stages of economic
development of Siam in its transition from a basically self-sufficient
agrarian economy to the semblance of a market economy: the
increase of foreign trade in the second half of the seventeenth
century, then the development of a commercial agriculture and
commodity production economy, and finally a money economy
in the nineteenth century.
In discussing the major topics in the Sino-Siamese trade, I
have attempted to divide up the long history into essentially four
chronological periods between 1652 and 1853, when tribute rela­
tions were actually maintained between the two countries. The
four phases are: initial (1652-1717); developmental (1717-1776);
flourishing (1776-1834); and declining (1834-1853). The height
of the Sino-Siamese junk trade fell between the period when the
Ch’ing government was at the apex of power (in the Ch’ien-lung
reign, 1736-1795) and the start of its decline (in the Chia-Ch’ing,
Tao-kuang, and Hsien-feng rules, 1796-1860). In the first few
decades of Ch’ing rule, nascent foreign trade was severely sup­
pressed, but from the last half of the K’ang-hsi period until the
middle of Ch’ien-lung’s administration, that is, roughly between
the 1680s and the 1790s, the internal economy of China had
advanced from the recovery to developmental stages, and this pro­
vided an impetus for foreign trade though, in the Chinese rational­
ization, not a justification for it.
This periodization is predicated upon watershed developments
in both Siamese and Chinese history which affected the trend of
the Sino-Siamese trade. Thus 1717 is picked as the dividing line
between the initial and developmental phases because the second
X
maritime ban imposed by the Ch’ing court that year provides a
convenient pause to assess the first sixty years of the Sino-Siamese
trade. This trade developed from a framework of legalized tributary
trade to the beginnings of a relatively free-trade period accentuated
by the participation of private merchants from the coasts of South­
east China. Though the ban in 1717 did not completely halt the
Chinese trade to Southeast Asia as intended, it separates a period
in which Amoy rose as the hub of the Southeast Asia trade and
rice became an important staple in trade to China from the period
marked by the dominance of Canton.
In the same vein, 1767 is picked as another dividing line be­
cause it represents the end of the old Ayudhya dynasty and the
start of a premodem ruling period in Siam characterized by increas­
ing pragmatism and rationalization in the Sino-Siamese trade. This
attitude led in turn to the further intensification of this branch
of trade and growing signs of the incongruity of the tributary trade
framework.
These arbitrary divisions are not meant to portray separate,
compartmentalized developmental parts, but rather provide one
convenient way of viewing the course of the Sino-Siamese trade
whose continuity transcended the periodization projected herein.
One difficulty encountered in the present study is that biblio­
graphic materials were often unavailable. Owing to the undeveloped
nature of the topic under question, and the fact that records were
wanting for the large part of the junk trade, the sources consulted
are diverse and fragmentary. Because as a rule the later Ming and
Ch’ing emperors would not allow their subjects to trade and reside
abroad, the Chinese who defied this order were more apt to be
seamen and pirates not well-educated merchants who would leave
written records. On the whole, Chinese materials constitute the
most important references for this work, though efforts expended
at archives in Thailand have also yielded some interesting, though
much less voluminous, Siamese records including official court
communications primarily of the Rattanakosin (Bangkok) era.
Furthermore, Japanese sources may also be considered significant,
particularly the collection of Nagasaki port reports entitled Ka-i