Maritime Interactions

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Port terminology = hai gang chang yong ci hui - PSA booklet in 1994

Offshore Asia: Maritime INteractions in Eastern Asia Before Steamships / Edited by Fujita Kayoko, Momoki Shiro, Anthony Reid. ISEAS. 2013

From Liu Shiuh-feng's "Shipwreck Salvage and Survivors' Repatriation networks of the east asian rim in the Qing Dynasty

  • 211 - Research on shipwrecks in East Asia focusing on China, Japan, Ryukyu, and Korea in particular has produced a wealth of papers. but overall their topics tend to focus on the salvage activites or individual events in a country or between two regions. Works dealing with salvage activities and repatriation systems covering the entire China seas and multiple countries are still few in number."
  • "shipwreck survivors' repatriation network.
  • 213 - east asian waters in 17th century were essentially closed as a result of the maritime ban by china's ming and qing regimes and japanese sakoku (national seclusion) policy. nevertheless the ban did not completely stop people of coastal communities from engaging in activites at sea and maritime accidents in the event of natural disasters never ceased to occur.
  • handling and repatriation of foreign shipwreck survivors always involved intentional interactions. udner normal circumstances, the safe repatriation of civilians was ensured only if they drifted to a country with which their home country had diplomatic ties or trade relations.
  • China: fishermen or coastguards that spotted a foreign vessel floating along china's coastline would report the matter to the local government. the local authorities or districts (or the department of maritime defence) would send officials to investigate th cause of the wreck, inspect it to determine whether there was contraband cargo, and then provide accommodation, clothing and food. from the local department of the district, the incident would be reported to superior govts. in principle foreign civilians were sent to the provincial capital to sta. where the govt general and governor would present a memorial to the imperial court and inform the board of revenue and board of rites.


merchants, envoys, brokers, and pirates

  • hokkien maritime merchants conssited of disparate miniorities pitted against all powerful racial discriminatory colonial and indigenous political systems. lacking a safe base in coastal china, since the chinese imperial govt did not help prp toect them, the merchants were frequently driven out of the sea and either became sojorning chinese overseas or simply merchant pirates! to overcome instituitional obstacles imposed by chiense govt and to defy political and economic odds, they were forced to assume different capacities in different periods while playing the esential linking roles. they could be diplomatic enjoy, artisans, fisherman, brokers, piractices, depending on the environment.


  • Ministry of Rites 礼部 (禮部) handled foreign relations prior to the establishment of the Zongli Yamen in 1861. also did: Management of state Confucian affairs including Imperial court ceremonies and ritual offerings. Certain matters relating to Buddhist and Taoist priests including their registration with the state. Management of the Imperial examinations. // why rites? is diplomacy part of the rites?

sea rovers, silver and samurai - maritime east asian in global history

neither here nor there, the east asian mritime ralm

  • on the uniqueness of east asia - the most important thing was China: no other ocean realm has had such a colossus affecting its trading patterns and historical developments with the exception of the mediterranean during the roman empire and possibly the atlantic world during the late twentieth century. but whereas the roman empire lasted only a few centuries and america's influence is new, china's dominance has been a fact for two milliennia. anthony reid has shown how the seas and states of southeast asia have always been deeply affected by China: when china boomed, the ports of southeast asia also tended to thrive. [edward thompson ed Diary of Richard Cocks, Cape Merchant in the English Factory in Japan 1615-1622]
  • the straits plays a central role in mediating between east asia and the world. china's foreign trade has always been key factor.
  • it was not just china's size and dominance that was unusual, china's maritime policies were anomalous,

envoys and escorts

  • early notions of piracy amongst the chinese and korean - "japanese pirates" - serving to define the maritime world as a nonagricultural, uncivilised, and peripheral region exluded from china proper and which made china' land-based agricentric regimes seem normal. esp if seeming to be non-state. chinese fugitives wedded japanese women resulting in border crossing families > dissemination of bad custom.
  • Suzerainty (/ˈsjuːzərənti/ or /ˈsjuːzərɛnti/) is a situation in which a powerful region or people controls the foreign policy and international relations of a tributary vassal state while allowing the subservient nation internal autonomy.
  • example in 1420 where korean ambassdor song huigyong had occasion to arrange for private protection during his return trip through the inland sea from japan to korea. by chance, as the sun set, they spotting a pirate dwelling and moored the ship. a hakata merchant accompanying song, so kin, negiogiated and hired a sealord to physically accompany them. saying that if ship from the east has eastern pirate on it, western pirate will not harm it. he paid 7000 coins to the eastern pirate. these were the tagaya, whom with another sealord they divided control over the region.
  • those who served the state and fulfilled proper function as peaceful tributary envoy or LEGAL merchants could find themselves terminologically reinstated.
  • see also serenity the film 2005 joss wheldon.