Sino-Malay trade and diplomacy

Derek Heng has made a really interdisciplinary research combining the epigraphic analysis of Chinese court archives and data from recent archeological findings in maritime Southeast Asia dating from the mentioned period. The author defines the geographical limits of his research to include China and the Malay region, i.e. “the Malay Peninsula, the eastern coast of Sumatra, and the northern coast of Borneo” (p. 1), which also includes the Strait of Malacca. This strait has also been an important geostrategic point that links China with the rest of the world through maritime routes. Further D. Heng explains that the periodisation from the 10th to 14th c. means the time of the Chinese dynasties Song and Yuan (p. 2). The rich epigraphic and archeological data has allowed Derek Heng to retrace all products that were part of the trade during this period and which commodities the Chinese court considered to be of high value. From the early pages of the book it is obvious that it comes to fill several gasps in the study of the maritime economy, relations and history of both China and maritime Southeast Asia.

The one is the already mentioned interdisciplinary method of analyzing artifacts and written sources. The second is the fact that the book covers the history and the development of both parts in this maritime interaction – China and Southeast Asia. As part of his research the author looks also how the administrative and other changes in China reflect upon the history and the development of its partners in maritime Southeast Asia. The monograph is divided into six chapters which cover the subject from all possible point of views – Chinese, Malayan, economic, commercial, and political and others. The mentioned division allows the author to prosledi at full extent the changes and reforms that were undertaken by the consecutive Chinese emperors from the dynasties Song and Yuan and to relate their policy to the observed sometimes significant differences in imported products and volume of trade. In this regard, the Wang Anshi reform under the reign of the emperor Shenzong (1067-1085) of the Song dynasty is used by the author in Chapter 2 to illustrate how the politics of the dynasties had its impact over the maritime trade and the relations between China and the Malay world. The further change “in low-value imports is reflected in the change in the Chinese fiscal regime” (p. 51) in relation to foreign products. This policy changed in the 12th century when a differentiation between low-value and high-value foreign products was officially declared. Here the author makes an important conclusion based on all the pieces of evidence he has gathered that the declared liberalization of Chinese trade has not reached its full extent as the court still tried to control the private shipping through several restrictions, including the period of stay. The restrictions did not give the expected results and not long after that the Chinese trade began to be dominated by private Chinese traders. The above description of Heng’s analysis shows how deeply he has went into his research and how clearly and thoroughly he has studied everything related to the maritime Chinese trade. His broad knowledge of both China and maritime Southeast Asia can be also perceived by his analysis of the Srivijayan-Javanese conflict (Chapter 3) and the descriptions of political and social life in both counterparts. Another intriguing part of the research is devoted to the change of the nature of the missions that the kingdom Srivijaya of Northern Sumatra sent to the Chinese emperor. On p. 84 the author marks the “shift from mere commercial exchange to diplomatic outreach with the intention of eliciting a favourable response from the Song court” and draught the logical conclusion that the change comes with the 1003 Srivijaya mission. Further on, Heng describes the efforts of the Srivijayan missions to attract the attention of the Song court and to enjoy special treatment, which they finally achieved. The shift of the nature of the missions is linked with change in administration of the Southern Song court, which will lead to new directions of the Chinese foreign policy. During the Northern Song period one major even stood out and that is the Decree of 1123, which Heng relates to the lack of diplomatic missions from previous Chinese partners and attempt of imposing new political legitimacy and not to missing trade exchanges. What Derek Heng clearly shows is how every change in the nature of the missions, the political class, court (in the case of China), economic and political reorientation of the ruling class and other factors influence the bilateral relations between the relevant Chinese court and its partners from maritime Southeast Asia. These changes sometimes led to reshaping of partners’ foreign policy and sometimes it was vice versa. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the foreign representations that both parties have established in order to facilitate the exchange between them. From the beginning, professor Heng makes the important distinction between the Song missions, which were privately driven, and the Malay representations, which were driven by state interest. During later periods this difference no longer played any role at all. The first and most important official Malay representations were in the southern Chinese ports of Guangzhou and Quanzhou. Throughout the ages the foreign representations had to change as the trade and the interests had changed. Derek Heng successfully describes the history of the foreign agents before the 10th century and through the discussed period in order to show its influence over and how it was influenced by the changing nature of relations. Through several chapters the questions of the foreigners in China and Chinese abroad is also described and discussed and thus the monograph enters into one more field of scientific discussion – about the Chinese minority in maritime Southeast Asia and the origins of some of the foreigners in China. The monograph stresses also the role the foreigners/agents played in bilateral trade and other types of relations and how they facilitated them. In order to make its research even more complete the author dedicates one chapter to the different types of products that were exported from China with destination maritime Southeast Asia. For some of the products the archaeological data completed the picture. It should be noted that Heng specifically has pointed the manufactured products as China at that time already had superior manufacturing sector, if compared with Southeast Asia, at least. Here Derek Heng discusses also the use and the way of manufacturing the currency used by the Chinese and by their trade partners in maritime Southeast Asia. This numismatic section can be placed among the many of the highly valuable insights of the book. For the specialists and all those interested in statistics and products exchanged the author provides more than detailed appendixes at the end of the book. The first appendix gives a full account of the Chinese import to the Malay region during the discussed period and is divided by type of products and ports in the Malay region. The second appendix describes the ceramic data, which the author has analysed in order to make his research. The third appendix is dedicated to the Malay imports to China in the 13th and 14th centuries, again divided by products and ports. This book may be recommended for specialists and academics, as for those who have general interest in Southeast Asian history in the discussed period. Moreover, the author has synthesised the rich data, he has collected during his research, in tables, photographs and maps, which make the comprehension of the main ideas even smoother. It can be easily read and understood, has solid methodological and detailed historical background. This monograph fills an important gap in the contemporary debate about the historical development and trade relations and history of both China and maritime Southeast Asia.

Zornitza Grekova, PhD, post-doc student at the Alma Mater University Research Complex in Social Sciences, Sofia University