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

446 Pages·1977·11.981 MB·English
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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

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