List of Maps  ix

Foreword / Wang Gungwu  xi

Introduction: The Arc of Historical Commercial Relations between China and Southeast Asia / Wen-Chin Chang and Eric Tagliacozzo  1

Part I. Theoretical/Longue Durée  

Chinese on the Mining Frontier in Southeast Asia / Anthony Reid  21

Cotton, Copper, and Caravans: Trade and the Transformation of Southwest China / C. Patterson Giersch  37

The Social Life of Chinese Labor / Adam McKeown  62

Opium as a Commodity in the Chinese Nanyang Trade / Carl A. Trocki  84

Part II. Precolonial  

The Lidai Baoan and the Ryukyu Maritime Tributary Trade Network with China and Southeast Asia, the Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries / Takeshi Hamashita  107

Cochinchinese Coin Casting and Circulating in Eighteenth-Century Southeast Asia / Li Tana  131

Import of Prosperity: Luxurious Items Imported from China to Siam during the Thonburi and Early Rattanakosin Periods (1767–1854) / Masuda Erika  149

A Sino-Indonesian Commodity Chain: The Trade in Tortoiseshell in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / Heather Sutherland  172

Part III. Early Colonial  

From Baoshi to Feicui: Qing-Burmese Gem Trade, c. 1644–1800 / Sun Laichen  203

Junks to Java: Chinese Shipping to the Nanyang in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century / Leonard Blussé  221

Chinese Books and Printing in the Early Spanish Philippines / Lucille Chia  259

The End of the "Age of Commerce"?: Javanese Cotton Trade Industry from the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Centuries / Kwee Hiu Kian  283

Part IV. High Colonial  

The Power of Culture and Its Limits: Taiwanese Merchants' Asian Commodity Flows, 1895–1945 / Lin Man-houng  305

Rice Trade and Chinese Rice Millers in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries: The Case of British Malaya / Wu Xiao An  336

Tonle Sap Processed Fish: From Khmer Subsistence Staple to Colonial Export Commodity / Nola Cooke  360

Moses' Rod: The Bible as a Commodity in Southeast Asia and China / Jean DeBernardi  380

Part V. Postcolonial  

Market Price, Labor Input, and Relation of Production in Sarawak's Edible Brids' Nest Trade / Bien Chiang  407

A Sino-Southeast Asian Circuit: Ethnohistories of the Marine Goods Trade / Eric Tagliacozzo  432

From a Shiji Episode to the Forbidden Jade Tree during the Socialist Regime in Burma / Wen-Chin Chang  455

Conflict Timber along the China-Burma Border: Connecting the Global Timber Consumer with Violent Extraction Sites / Kevin Woods  480

Contributors  507

Index  509

Wang Gungwu

Wen-chin Chang

Eric Tagliacozzo

Anthony Reid

C. Patterson Giersch

Adam McKeown

Carl A. Trocki

Takeshi Hamashita

Li Tana

Masuda Erika

Heather Sutherland

Sun Laichen

Leonard Blusse

Lucille Chia

Kwee Hui Kian

Lin Man-houng

Wu Xiao An

Nola Cooke

Jean DeBernardi

Bien Chiang

Kevin Woods

“Once in a while some groundbreaking efforts on regional studies are
carried out to cheer the hearts of the specialists and general readers.
Chinese Circulations falls into this mould and contributes significantly
to the unraveling of the multifaceted maritime and overland trade and
exchanges between China and Southeast Asia during the past few centuries.”—Voon Phin Keong, The China Review

“[The] essays . . . form a composite picture of the China trade and its effects on Southeast Asian societies that covers a wide swathe of the past and throws light on present relations. . . . This high-quality collection widens the understanding of Southeast Asia and reminds us of the weakness of the nation-state approach by being willing to transcend (or ignore) state borders, Skinnerian macroregions, or ethnic boundaries. . . .”—Mary Somers Heidhues, Asian Studies Review

“In the end, it is the broad scope offered by this work that counts—or, put differently, the editors’ courage to combine a particular region with a set of ‘things’ on the move, the idea of a structured time frame, and the role of China (or the Chinese) as a major player, all tied to a bag of simple models and interpretative tools. Voilà, if taken in that way, this collection makes an illuminating compendium, recommendable to specialists and a general audience alike.”
—Roderich Ptak, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

“[T]his book is a relevant and valuable read for scholars and advanced students of not only Chinese and Southeast Asian studies, but also of global, economic, environmental, diaspora and socio-political histories. By combining the usually disparate sub-fields of Southeast Asian studies–the wide range of Asian and European languages alone required to tackle primary sources renders any kind of regional expertise near impossible–and linking them with the twisted strands of Chinese commercial activity, this volume is reminiscent of Silk Road studies in its scope and richness. The multi-dimensional, diverse, yet mutually informed perspectives offered by this book are perhaps its most significant contribution, and this is precisely what an edited volume such as this is supposed to achieve.”—Karen M. Teoh, Journal of International and Global Studies

“This collection is a significant addition to the growing body of research on the connections between China and Southeast Asia, and the influence of Chinese merchants in this region. In addition, these essays help illuminate the ways in which trade in commodities has influenced processes of globalisation”—Ashley Wright, Itinerario

“this is a substantive volume ... that, in the best revisionist tradition, forces historians, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and others to reevaluate the power, influence, and dominance of local Southeast Asian agencies against the earlier proposals of Chinese and Western predominance of overseas and regional trade after 1600. ... [T]his book should be mandatory reading among scholars and graduate students who specialize in the diverse aspects of Southeast Asian, Chinese, and colonial-era history, and also those who variously study diasporas, servitude, immigration, and economic, maritime, and borderlands topics. As noted above, the book has great importance in its potential to allow scholars and diplomats to draw on the past to envision China’s future relationships within Asia and beyond.”—Kenneth R. Hall, China Review International

“This book offers a kaleidoscopic view of the origins and development of China’s commodity trade with Southeast Asia. Each of 20 contributors presents a detailed case study of a particular commodity chain, that is, the “total trajectory” of a commodity, from its initial extraction to production, distribution, exchange and final consumption.”—David Rosenberg, The China Review

“[T]his volume [is] importan[t] as a showcase of the study of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, and, as such, the editors and authors should be congratulated.”—Derek Heng, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

“On the whole, this well-written book will be an important reference not only to those who are interested in Sino-Southeast Asian studies, but will also attract readers exploring the historical development of globalization, particularly from the perspective of how commodity, information, capital and human beings have been circulating and intertwining together for many centuries. Moreover, I am confident that this book will have particular value given the increased interest in studying China’s rise at present, on the basis of enormous amounts of exported commodities and millions of emigrants, which has affected and will further affect Southeast Asia and the wider world.”—Li Minghuan, Asian Anthropologist

“This impressive study is an opportune contribution to the literature on a
contentious concept, “Chinese capitalism.” This book is exceptional because
of the method adopted to draw insights into how Chinese communities
and their enterprises in Southeast Asia have evolved over centuries. In the
process, this volume reviews major theoretical propositions in analyses of a
Chinese form of capitalism.”—Edmund Terence Gomez, Pacific Affairs

“This collection of essays offers the most comprehensive and updated examination of the flow of commodities, capital, and people between China and Southeast Asia…. [W]ith unmatched breadth and depth, [it] sheds new light on the dynamic and complex trade relations between China and Southeast Asia.”—Hongshan Li, The Historian

“This is an important landmark contribution to the study of China-Southeast Asia interactions highlighting the possibilities of synthesis and synergy and the reframing of these interactions through new concepts and approaches. It will be of interest and appeal to readers from a broad range of fields, from Southeast Asian economic and socio-cultural history to the history of Chinese migration, trade, and business in the region.” —Keng We Koh, Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde

“Once in a while some groundbreaking efforts on regional studies are
carried out to cheer the hearts of the specialists and general readers.
Chinese Circulations falls into this mould and contributes significantly
to the unraveling of the multifaceted maritime and overland trade and
exchanges between China and Southeast Asia during the past few centuries.”—Voon Phin Keong, The China Review

“[The] essays . . . form a composite picture of the China trade and its effects on Southeast Asian societies that covers a wide swathe of the past and throws light on present relations. . . . This high-quality collection widens the understanding of Southeast Asia and reminds us of the weakness of the nation-state approach by being willing to transcend (or ignore) state borders, Skinnerian macroregions, or ethnic boundaries. . . .”—Mary Somers Heidhues, Asian Studies Review

“In the end, it is the broad scope offered by this work that counts—or, put differently, the editors’ courage to combine a particular region with a set of ‘things’ on the move, the idea of a structured time frame, and the role of China (or the Chinese) as a major player, all tied to a bag of simple models and interpretative tools. Voilà, if taken in that way, this collection makes an illuminating compendium, recommendable to specialists and a general audience alike.”
—Roderich Ptak, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

“[T]his book is a relevant and valuable read for scholars and advanced students of not only Chinese and Southeast Asian studies, but also of global, economic, environmental, diaspora and socio-political histories. By combining the usually disparate sub-fields of Southeast Asian studies–the wide range of Asian and European languages alone required to tackle primary sources renders any kind of regional expertise near impossible–and linking them with the twisted strands of Chinese commercial activity, this volume is reminiscent of Silk Road studies in its scope and richness. The multi-dimensional, diverse, yet mutually informed perspectives offered by this book are perhaps its most significant contribution, and this is precisely what an edited volume such as this is supposed to achieve.”—Karen M. Teoh, Journal of International and Global Studies

“This collection is a significant addition to the growing body of research on the connections between China and Southeast Asia, and the influence of Chinese merchants in this region. In addition, these essays help illuminate the ways in which trade in commodities has influenced processes of globalisation”—Ashley Wright, Itinerario

“this is a substantive volume ... that, in the best revisionist tradition, forces historians, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and others to reevaluate the power, influence, and dominance of local Southeast Asian agencies against the earlier proposals of Chinese and Western predominance of overseas and regional trade after 1600. ... [T]his book should be mandatory reading among scholars and graduate students who specialize in the diverse aspects of Southeast Asian, Chinese, and colonial-era history, and also those who variously study diasporas, servitude, immigration, and economic, maritime, and borderlands topics. As noted above, the book has great importance in its potential to allow scholars and diplomats to draw on the past to envision China’s future relationships within Asia and beyond.”—Kenneth R. Hall, China Review International

“This book offers a kaleidoscopic view of the origins and development of China’s commodity trade with Southeast Asia. Each of 20 contributors presents a detailed case study of a particular commodity chain, that is, the “total trajectory” of a commodity, from its initial extraction to production, distribution, exchange and final consumption.”—David Rosenberg, The China Review

“[T]his volume [is] importan[t] as a showcase of the study of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, and, as such, the editors and authors should be congratulated.”—Derek Heng, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

“On the whole, this well-written book will be an important reference not only to those who are interested in Sino-Southeast Asian studies, but will also attract readers exploring the historical development of globalization, particularly from the perspective of how commodity, information, capital and human beings have been circulating and intertwining together for many centuries. Moreover, I am confident that this book will have particular value given the increased interest in studying China’s rise at present, on the basis of enormous amounts of exported commodities and millions of emigrants, which has affected and will further affect Southeast Asia and the wider world.”—Li Minghuan, Asian Anthropologist

“This impressive study is an opportune contribution to the literature on a
contentious concept, “Chinese capitalism.” This book is exceptional because
of the method adopted to draw insights into how Chinese communities
and their enterprises in Southeast Asia have evolved over centuries. In the
process, this volume reviews major theoretical propositions in analyses of a
Chinese form of capitalism.”—Edmund Terence Gomez, Pacific Affairs

“This collection of essays offers the most comprehensive and updated examination of the flow of commodities, capital, and people between China and Southeast Asia…. [W]ith unmatched breadth and depth, [it] sheds new light on the dynamic and complex trade relations between China and Southeast Asia.”—Hongshan Li, The Historian

“This is an important landmark contribution to the study of China-Southeast Asia interactions highlighting the possibilities of synthesis and synergy and the reframing of these interactions through new concepts and approaches. It will be of interest and appeal to readers from a broad range of fields, from Southeast Asian economic and socio-cultural history to the history of Chinese migration, trade, and business in the region.” —Keng We Koh, Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde

“The authors have used their great professional skills to paint a picture of extensive and precarious trading activity that illuminates the underpinnings of Southeast Asian economic development for the last millennium. It is their success in doing so that recommends this collection to all who wish to understand why the region is what it is today.”—Wang Gungwu, from the foreword

“Collectively, the chapters provide a longue durée view of how Chinese circulations have historically shaped the economic landscape and buoyancy of the Southeast Asia region. By tracking disparate flows of actors, objects, ideas, and practices, the authors show how the kinship-based commercial capitalism originating in China cumulatively created conditions for meeting the challenges of European industrial capitalism and, more recently, contemporary globalization.”—Aihwa Ong, author of Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality and co-editor of Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism

“Focused exclusively on Chinese commodity trades in Southeast Asia, Chinese Circulations is a pioneering investigation of an important region.”—Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia

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