6 Enter the Europeans
From the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries has been
called the ‘age of commerce’ in Southeast Asia.^1 Part of the initial
impetus for this period of increased trade and prosperity came from
Admiral Zheng He’s voyages, which established conditions for regular
maritime trade. The seizure of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511
marked the violent arrival of Europeans in Southeast Asia, though
their activities at first had little effect on trading relations between
China and the Nanyang. More important from the point of view of
both China and Southeast Asia was the lifting, in 1567, of the Ming
ban on private overseas trade. Even the arrival of the Dutch did not
at first disrupt trade patterns. As the Dutch grip strengthened, how-
ever, they were able to impose a monopoly over most of the spice
trade, notably from the Maluku islands, with critical effects on indigen-
ous commerce. The so-called junk trade between the Nanyang and
China continued, however, until it was progressively eclipsed by
European shipping between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth
centuries.