Quanzhou and the Maritime Trade of Southeast Asia
On September 26 and 27, 1997, an international conference on the study of maritime trade and the development of the Quanzhou region during the Song and Yuan dynasties (tenth to fourteenth centuries) was held in Leiden, the Netherlands. The conference brought together a small group of eleven scholars from various disciplines and different areas of research within the confines of this topic. Most of the papers contributed to this conference will now be published with E. J. Brill Publishers, Leiden (probable title 'Quanzhou and the Maritime Trade of Southeast Asia, 10th through 14th Centuries. Studies in social and political history, political economy, and archaeology').
By ANGELA SCHOTTENHAMMER
The stated aim of the conference was to arrive not just at a better, but at a more standardized understanding of the history of the overseas trade of Quanzhou during the said time period. It sought to present the actual, interdisciplinary state of research and expose it to a critical debate. Contributions were, therefore, not restricted to social and political history only, but covered also politico-economic and, above all, archaeological topics. Studying the history of maritime trade in ancient times the field of archaeology once and again proofs to be a veritable gold-mine for any historian of China, providing valuable additional and/or substantiating theoretical assumptions. This is, of course, also true for Quanzhou and its economic development in the past.The forthcoming volume comprises the articles of eight authors and includes various tables and black and white illustrations (c. 420 pages in all). The first two articles are of a social-economic and socio-political nature. John Chaffee (Department of History, Binghamton University, NY, USA) thoroughly investigates 'The Impact of the Song Imperial Clan on the Overseas Trade of Quanzhou'. He reassesses the role and the importance of the clan during the Southern Song dynasty, when Quanzhou simultaneouly served as a major centre for clansmen, and sucessfully throws more light into the interrelationship between the imperial clan and the development of maritime trade. Hugh Clark (Ursinus College, Collegeville, USA) in his contribution 'Overseas Trade and Social Change in Quanzhou Through the Song' argues that the maritime trade of Quanzhou prompted a social revolution that was certainly as profound as the local commercial revolution. He shows that in Minnan social mobility was a 'real factor' in constructing the social elite. My own article 'The Role of Metals and the Impact of the Introduction of Huizi Paper Notes in Quanzhou on the Development of Maritime Trade in the Song Period' is intended as a contribution to the study of the political economy of the Quanzhou region, an aspect which is unfortunately very often fairly neglected in books and articles investigating the history of maritime trade. The articles focuses on the investigation of economic questions and wants to show in which way the use of metals, primarily copper, as both use and exchange values, and the introduction of paper notes in Quanzhou had specific negative effects on the further development of Quanzhou's maritime trade during the Southern Song dynasty effects which were indirectly promoted, but not intended by the Song government.
The following four articles analyze archaeological data and materials. Richard Person's (Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, Can) contributions 'Port, City, and Hinterlands: Archaeological Perspectives on Quanzhou and its Maritime Trade' surveys the city plan of Quanzhou, analyzes the local ceramic production, in particular the evidence of the ceramics trade between Quanzhou and the Ryûkyû Islands. Finally, he describes the flow of coinage from China to Japan. In her study 'The Ceramic Boom in Minnan during Song and Yuan Times' Ho Chuimei (Chicago Field Museum, Department of Anthropology, USA) introduces to the reader the evaluation of archaeological data collcted during a three-year joint project of the Chicago Field Museum, USA, and the University of Xiamen, China. She discusses both geographical shifts in manufacturing centres and changes in product types. John Guy (Victoria & Albert Museum, Indian and Southeast Asian Department, London, UK) investigates the commercial activities of Tamil and Quanzhou merchants and their integration into commercial and organizational structures. His article 'Tamil Merchant Guilds and the Quanzhou Trade' examines both Hindu remains in Quanzhou and archaeological evidence such as inscriptions in South India and shows that the powerful Indian merchant guilds, the Ayyavole and the Manigraman, were very probably also active in South China. Janice Stargardt (Director of the Cambridge Project on Ancient Civilization in Southeast Asia, Cambridge University, UK) discusses the results of archaeological research at the Satingpra complex in South Thailand. In her paper entitled 'Behind the Shadows: Archaeological Data on Two-way Sea Trade between Quanzhou and Satingpra, South Thailand, 10th14th Century' she investigates ceramics excavated in situ, as well as locally indigenous plants and timbers and concludes that the archaeological evidence at Satingpra suggests that Satingpra played an important role as an entrepôt in the development of interregional trade with South China.
Roderich Ptak, eventually, in his article 'Quanzhou: At the Northern Edge of a Southeast Asian 'Mediterranean'?' (Institut für Ostasienkunde, Munich University, Germany) adopted the idea of the French historian Denys Lombard that in principle the concept of a 'Mediterranean' as a region characterized by economic and cultural 'exchanges' an idea which originally stems from Fernand Braudel may also be applicable to Southeast Asia. In this context, he discusses Quanzhou as a port at the northern edge of a larger Southeast Asian 'mediterranean' region.
The forthcoming volume is intended as an 'interdisciplinary' contribution to the history of Quanzhou and maritime trade in Southeast Asia. It seeks to improve our knowledge on the history of this trade and wants to draw the reader's attention to some hitherto rather neglected aspects of this topic. In this respect, we hope that archaeological, but also politico-economic perspectives will in the future be integrated more firmly into the horizon of the historians of China. *
Dr Angela Schottenhammer is affiliated with the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, and with the Sinologisches Seminar, Christian-Albrechts-Univerity Kiel in Germany. She can be reached at e-mail: Angela.Schottenhammer@t-online.de