marriage alliances and his meritorious deeds, all of which were
intended to reinforce his right to rule in the eyes of his subjects.
Given this purpose, it is not surprising that there is little
mention of tributary missions to China. No mention was made of
China because to have done so would neither have enhanced a king’s
glory, nor reinforced the Southeast Asian (Hindu/Buddhist) worldview.
By contrast, the records kept by the Chinese of embassies received from
even the smallest and most remote Southeast Asian principalities did
reinforce the Chinese worldview by magnifying the virtue and might of
the emperor as ruling ‘all under Heaven’. It was for this reason that
tribute missions were minutely recorded and their importance consis-
tently exaggerated by Chinese court officials (who even falsified
accounts and mistranslated documents to make their point).
Expansion of contacts: trade and religion
In 280 CE the northern Jin dynasty reunified China, though their
victory was short-lived. A number of Southeast Asian kingdoms,
including Funan and Champa (known to the Chinese as Lin-yi), took
the opportunity to establish official relations with the new regime. Over
the next disturbed century, however, very few embassies were recorded
from Southeast Asia, though it might have been expected that the loss
of central Asian trade routes would once again have stimulated Chinese
interest in the Nanyang. What did generate renewed interest and con-
tacts in the fifth and sixth centuries was the growth of Buddhism as a
religion, both in China and in Southeast Asia, mainly in the Mon areas
of southern Burma and Thailand, in the Malay peninsula, and in
Indonesia (in both southern Sumatra and central Java).
Trade was often disrupted during this period by war and rebellion
in either China or Southeast Asia. Along the coast of central Vietnam,
the Cham attempted to extend their domains, while further south
Funan was already a declining power. Progress was steadily being made,
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia