The South China Sea

The South China Sea by Bill Hayton Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: The South China Sea by Bill Hayton Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bill Hayton
Yuan Dynasty, sent 14 maritime missions abroad and launched destructive attacks against Champa and Java in particular. Without the wealth from maritime trade, however, the Yuan Dynasty couldn't generate the surpluses needed to maintain their own power. By 1368 they were in the dustbin of history.
    They were replaced by the Ming Dynasty who almost immediately tried to abolish private overseas trade and bring it, once again, entirely under state control. Trading relations officially reverted to ‘tribute’ arrangements rather than the open market and Guangzhou was designated the ‘legitimate’ port for ships from Southeast Asia. But after nearly four centuries of private trading by Chinese merchants and with an infrastructure of agents and family networks in place around the region, unofficial trade was never eliminated, particularly among the entrepreneurs of Fujian province. Inthe end the smuggling became dominant, particularly when Chinese communities abroad started to use the ‘tribute’ trade as cover. In time the Ming would turn their backs on the sea and focus on inland problems, but not before the most spectacular assertion of Chinese state power in the sea: the 30 years of the ‘eunuch voyages’.
    * * * * * *
    Geoff Wade is an Australian historian, a level-headed expert on the Ming Dynasty and its written annals, the Ming Shi-lu . But if you want to upset him, just ask about the writer Gavin Menzies and his book 1421: the Year China Discovered the World , describing the alleged exploits of the Chinese eunuch admiral Zheng He. Wade is derisive. Menzies’ book, he says, ‘is quite remarkable in that not one of the claims made in the volume has any veracity whatsoever. The eunuch admirals that he claims circumnavigated the world did not travel past Africa, there are no Chinese or other texts which support the voyages suggested, there has been no Chinese shipwreck found beyond Asia, and there are no Ming settlement sites or structures beyond Asia. That a fiction of this scale could be published and marketed as non-fiction is a damning indictment of Mr Menzies, but even more so of his publisher.’ 13 Wade might get angrier than most but this is the generally held view among professional historians about Menzies’ claims.
    Menzies may have invented large parts of his account but there's no doubt that Zheng He was a fascinating historical figure: a Muslim from Yunnan who was captured during the Ming invasions and castrated, and who later helped the third Ming emperor win a succession battle for the throne. Zheng is now so widely known that it's hard to believe there was a time when he was an obscure figure. That changed in October 1984 when the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping used the admiral to justify his ‘open door’ policy of engagement with the West in a speech to the Communist Party's Central Advisory Commission. In the years since, Zheng has become the poster boy for Beijing's policy of ‘peaceful rise’, an exemplar of China's engagement with the world. In 2004 the man responsible for organising the huge commemorations marking the 600th anniversary of the admiral's first voyage, Vice-Minister of Communications Xu Zu-yuan, summarised the official view of his achievements. ‘These were thus friendlydiplomatic activities,’ he declared. ‘During the overall course of the seven voyages to the Western Ocean, Zheng did not occupy a single piece of land, establish any fortress or seize any wealth from other countries. In the commercial and trade activities, he adopted the practice of giving more than he received, and thus he was welcomed and lauded by the people of the various countries along his routes.’ 14
    However, Geoff Wade argues that this account of Zheng is almost as misleading as Gavin Menzies’ version. Wade's study of the Ming Shi-lu has revealed there were 25 voyages led by several different eunuch commanders in the years between 1403 and the early 1430s, of which Zheng led only five. The

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