civilisation, and by so doing were failing to fulfil their duty to the
emperor. At no time were these communities used as a means of
exerting Chinese influence on Southeast Asian rulers, even though in
places they performed politically sensitive tasks, such as tax collection.
From the point of view of local rulers, Chinese were tolerated along
with other semi-permanent merchant communities, and were not seen
as a threat to the political order. Indeed they were encouraged, for it
was above all the China trade and how this was organised that deter-
mined the prosperity of Southeast Asian port cities.^5
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, illegal Chinese trade
increased, especially along the Fujian coast, to which officials, eager
for exotic goods, turned a blind eye. Chinese ships sailed to Luzon,
Brunei, Ayutthaya, the north Java coast and Melaka, while coastal
trade continued with Vietnam and Champa. Ming attempts to sup-
press this illegal trade led merchants to band together and arm their
vessels. Smugglers thus became pirates in official eyes, no better than,
and often confused with, the Japanese pirates (wako) who plagued the
China coast. In retaliation, China first restricted, then in 1560
banned, all direct trade with Japan. Sophisticated trade networks
developed in response to official suppression, in which Chinese,
Southeast Asian, and by then early European traders were involved.
The ‘pirate’ problem persisted, however, until the Ming legalised
private trade in 1567, after which it quickly disappeared.
China, Southeast Asia, the Portuguese, and the Dutch
The Portuguese capture of Melaka in 1511 did little to change trading
patterns, though Chinese as well as Malay vessels at first tended to
avoid a port where Muslims were unwelcome. In time, however, the
Portuguese presence, particularly the activities of private Portuguese
merchants, began to stimulate a competitive demand for Southeast
Enter the Europeans