Tribute, Trade and Smuggling

Tribute, Trade and Smuggling PDF Author: Angela Schottenhammer
Publisher: Harrassowitz
ISBN: 9783447102384
Category : Communication
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Officially, relations between a so-called empire like China and her neighboring countries were frequently designated as tribute relations. In reality, however, much of the commercial, scientific and human intercourse that was going on not only in Asia but in the middle period and early modern world in general followed illegal or private paths and channels. Commodities, products, knowledge or human beings entered or left a country - or simply crossed borders - without the explicit permission or approval of a government or an official institution. This bilingual volume with English and Spanish essays investigates networks of unofficial, private or illegal commercial exchange activities and knowledge transfer, including the trafficking of people as well as human interaction that took place behind the official curtain of tribute and trade. The geographical focus definitely lies on East Asia, and almost every contribution at least relates to this macro-region. But it also introduces comparative examples from the Indian Ocean, the Asia-Pacific and the Atlantic and adjacent countries.

Tribute, Trade and Smuggling

Tribute, Trade and Smuggling PDF Author: Angela Schottenhammer
Publisher: Harrassowitz
ISBN: 9783447102384
Category : Communication
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Officially, relations between a so-called empire like China and her neighboring countries were frequently designated as tribute relations. In reality, however, much of the commercial, scientific and human intercourse that was going on not only in Asia but in the middle period and early modern world in general followed illegal or private paths and channels. Commodities, products, knowledge or human beings entered or left a country - or simply crossed borders - without the explicit permission or approval of a government or an official institution. This bilingual volume with English and Spanish essays investigates networks of unofficial, private or illegal commercial exchange activities and knowledge transfer, including the trafficking of people as well as human interaction that took place behind the official curtain of tribute and trade. The geographical focus definitely lies on East Asia, and almost every contribution at least relates to this macro-region. But it also introduces comparative examples from the Indian Ocean, the Asia-Pacific and the Atlantic and adjacent countries.

Tribute System and Rulership in Late Imperial China

Tribute System and Rulership in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Ralph Kauz
Publisher: V&R Unipress
ISBN: 3847014021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Demanding and offering tribute is a most common feature in human societies and nothing special to China. In the course of the development of Neolithic and later societies social classes have developed where persons who achieved superior positions first could demand 'presents' or tribute from neighboring societies they defeated and then, with the assistance of sturdy 'servants' from their own people. China was certainly no exception to that principle and one of the first terms for tax was thus 'gong', tribute. In China's early, 'feudatory' social system, tribute was demanded from lower political entities, and the mutual 'political' relations were already highly developed during the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE). This system of 'inner Chinese' relations became a sort of matrix when China expanded and achieved contact with countries which were more or less independent, and thus the 'tribute system' evolved. The individual case studies in this volume focus on the latest manifestations of the tribute system in late Imperial China.

Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries PDF Author: Vermeer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004488456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
The history of China's Southeast coast has unusual features. For many centuries, overseas trade and migration, internal and external warfare, strong religious beliefs and receptiveness to foreign influences characterized this society of fiercely independent traders, fishermen and mountain farmers. The protracted struggle of Cheng Ch'eng- kung and the Southern Ming against the Ch'ing dynasty precipitated Fukien into a crisis, from which many chose to escape by emigration to the Philippines and Taiwan. Recovery was slow. ; The fourteen Western and Chinese contributors to this study focus on internal economic and social developments, overseas and religious change. From the rich Chinese and European source materials, a picture emerges of great regional diversity. Local interests and values were confronted by the central government's orthodox rule, and Western influences of Jesuits and traders. The Fukienese reaction to them produces fascinating insights into Chinese society, and a truly local history which may qualify our ideas on the Chinese Empire. REA sinologists, social and economic historians.

Global History and New Polycentric Approaches

Global History and New Polycentric Approaches PDF Author: Manuel Perez Garcia
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811040532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Rethinking the ways global history is envisioned and conceptualized in diverse countries such as China, Japan, Mexico or Spain, this collections considers how global issues are connected with our local and national communities. It examines how the discipline had evolved in various historiographies, from Anglo Saxon to southern European, and its emergence in Asia with the rapid development of the Chinese economy motivation to legitimate the current uniqueness of the history and economy of the nation. It contributes to the revitalization of the field of global history in Chinese historiography, which have been dominated by national narratives and promotes a debate to open new venues in which important features such as scholarly mobility, diversity and internationalization are firmly rooted, putting aside national specificities. Dealing with new approaches on the use of empirical data by framing the proper questions and hypotheses and connecting western and eastern sources, this text opens a new forum of discussion on how global history has penetrated in western and eastern historiographies, moving the pivotal axis of analysis from national perspectives to open new venues of global history.

Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers

Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers PDF Author: Robert J. Antony
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888028111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Piracy and smuggling are as great a problem today as they were several hundreds of years ago. The studies in Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers, for the first time, carefully describe and critically analyze piracy and smuggling in the Greater China Seas region from the sixteenth century to the present. Because piracy and smuggling involve complex historical processes that are still evolving, to fully understand contemporary problems it is important to place them in larger historical and comparative perspectives. The essays in this book add significantly to the scholarship on East and Southeast Asian history, and in particular to the maritime history of the region we call the Greater China Seas. This is the first book to analyze the whole region from Japan to Southeast Asia as a single, integrated historical and geographical area. This book takes a radical departure from the standard terracentered histories to place the seas at the center rather than at the margins of our inquiries. By focusing on the water we are better able to stitch together the diverse histories of Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. The contributors to this anthology show that, although often dismissed as historically unimportant, pirates and smugglers have in fact played significant roles in the development of the modern world. Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers should appeal to undergraduate and graduate students in history and Asian studies, as well as to general readers interested in pirates and maritime history.

The Origins of JapaneseCChinese Territorial Dispute

The Origins of JapaneseCChinese Territorial Dispute PDF Author: Tadayoshi Murata
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814749125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Most books on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute between China and Japan are authored by either Chinese who argue that the islands belong to China or by Japanese who contend that the islands are rightfully Japan's. This book is the first of its kind — by a Japanese who supports China's claim or vice versa. Written by one of the foremost historians on Sino–Japanese relations, Tadayoshi Murata, Professor Emeritus from Japan's Yokohama National University, delves into the Japanese archives and uncovers evidence that shows Japan's ownership of the disputed islands is historically untenable. Given the current impasse surrounding the islands, Professor Murata suggests, as a way out, the two sides jointly manage the disputed territories based on mutual understanding. It is a must-read for those interested in Sino–Japanese relations, especially the history of the disputed islands, and the future of the two countries. Contents: About the AuthorIntroduction: The Importance of a Calm, Objective StandpointThe Tripartite Relationship between the Ryukyus, China, and JapanThe 36 Islands of RyukyuEast Asian Upheavals and the Ryukyu KingdomFrom Tokugawa Shogunate to Meiji RestorationNishimura Sutezo, 1885Victory in the First Sino–Japanese War and Clandestine OccupationFramework for the Treaty of Shimonoseki Drafted in JanuaryAssessing the Japanese Government's Basic Viewpoints AppendixAfterword Readership: Readers who are interested in the Japanese–Chinese territorial dispute on Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and Sino–Japan relations.

China’s War on Smuggling

China’s War on Smuggling PDF Author: Philip Thai
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154636X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Smuggling along the Chinese coast has been a thorn in the side of many regimes. From opium and weapons concealed aboard foreign steamships in the Qing dynasty to nylon stockings and wristwatches trafficked in the People’s Republic, contests between state and smuggler have exerted a surprising but crucial influence on the political economy of modern China. Seeking to consolidate domestic authority and confront foreign challenges, states introduced tighter regulations, higher taxes, and harsher enforcement. These interventions sparked widespread defiance, triggering further coercive measures. Smuggling simultaneously threatened the state’s power while inviting repression that strengthened its authority. Philip Thai chronicles the vicissitudes of smuggling in modern China—its practice, suppression, and significance—to demonstrate the intimate link between illicit coastal trade and the amplification of state power. China’s War on Smuggling shows that the fight against smuggling was not a simple law enforcement problem but rather an impetus to centralize authority and expand economic controls. The smuggling epidemic gave Chinese states pretext to define legal and illegal behavior, and the resulting constraints on consumption and movement remade everyday life for individuals, merchants, and communities. Drawing from varied sources such as legal cases, customs records, and popular press reports and including diverse perspectives from political leaders, frontline enforcers, organized traffickers, and petty runners, Thai uncovers how different regimes policed maritime trade and the unintended consequences their campaigns unleashed. China’s War on Smuggling traces how defiance and repression redefined state power, offering new insights into modern Chinese social, legal, and economic history.

The Qing Opening to the Ocean

The Qing Opening to the Ocean PDF Author: Gang Zhao
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Did China drive or resist the early wave of globalization? Some scholars insist that China contributed nothing to the rise of the global economy that began around 1500. Others have placed China at the center of global integration. Neither side, though, has paid attention to the complex story of China’s maritime policies. Drawing on sources from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the West, this important new work systematically explores the evolution of imperial Qing maritime policy from 1684 to 1757 and sets its findings in the context of early globalization. Gang Zhao argues that rather than constrain private maritime trade, globalization drove it forward, linking the Song and Yuan dynasties to a dynamic world system. As bold Chinese merchants began to dominate East Asian trade, officials and emperors came to see private trade as the solution to the daunting economic and social challenges of the day. The ascent of maritime business convinced the Kangzi emperor to open the coast to international trade, putting an end to the tribute trade system. Zhao’s study details China’s unique contribution to early globalization, the pattern of which differs significantly from the European experience. It offers impressive insights into the rise of the Asian trade network, the emergence of Shanghai as Asia’s commercial hub, and the spread of a regional Chinese diaspora. To understand the place of China in the early modern world, how modernity came to China, and early globalization and the rise of the Asian trade network, The Qing Opening to the Ocean is essential reading.

The Politics of Imagining Asia

The Politics of Imagining Asia PDF Author: Hui Wang
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674061357
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
In this bold, provocative collection, Wang Hui confronts some of the major issues concerning modern China and the status quo of contemporary Chinese thought. The book’s overarching theme is the possibility of an alternative modernity that does not rely on imported conceptions of Chinese history and its legacy. Wang Hui argues that current models, based largely on Western notions of empire and the nation-state, fail to account for the richness and diversity of pre-modern Chinese historical practice. At the same time, he refrains from offering an exclusively Chinese perspective and placing China in an intellectual ghetto. Navigating terrain on regional language and politics, he draws on China’s unique past to expose the inadequacies of European-born standards for assessing modern China’s evolution. He takes issue particularly with the way in which nation-state logic has dominated politically charged concerns like Chinese language standardization and “The Tibetan Question.” His stance is critical—and often controversial—but he locates hope in the kinds of complex, multifaceted arrangements that defined China and much of Asia for centuries. The Politics of Imagining Asia challenges us not only to re-examine our theories of “Asia” but to reconsider what “Europe” means as well. As Theodore Huters writes in his introduction, “Wang Hui’s concerns extend beyond China and Asia to an ambition to rethink world history as a whole.”

East Asia Before the West

East Asia Before the West PDF Author: David Kang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153198
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
From the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368 to the start of the Opium Wars in 1841, China has engaged in only two large-scale conflicts with its principal neighbors, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. These four territorial and centralized states have otherwise fostered peaceful and long-lasting relationships with one another, and as they have grown more powerful, the atmosphere around them has stabilized. Focusing on the role of the "tribute system" in maintaining stability in East Asia and fostering diplomatic and commercial exchange, Kang contrasts this history against the example of Europe and the East Asian states' skirmishes with nomadic peoples to the north and west. Scholars tend to view Europe's experience as universal, but Kang upends this tradition, emphasizing East Asia's formal hierarchy as an international system with its own history and character. His approach not only recasts common understandings of East Asian relations but also defines a model that applies to other hegemonies outside of the European order.