94 Boundaries and Beyond
tribute missions were not only granted t ax exemptions, but were also
accorded other privileged treatment. Siam was deβinitely perceived to
be more useful to China than Korea, Liuqiu and the Western barbarians.
Korea and Liuqiu were considered merely submissive, but they offered
few beneβits to China. The Western countries were later thought to be
ungrateful because they repaid the beneβits from China’s tea, rhubarb,
porcelain and silk, with the opium poison, as one commentator
summed up.^140
Persistent Anxieties about Maritime Crisis and
Lost Opportunities
Despite the non-threatening image of the Nanhai states, the Chinese
remained sensitive to threats that might come from the sea. The maritime
prohibition of the Ming government in the sixteenth century targeted
the incursions by the Wo and the Portuguese as well as the perceived
threat that might be caused by Chinese seafarers. In the seventeenth and
early eighteenth century, Japan and the Dutch were perceived as the two
major threats.
The incursion of the Wo in the sixteenth century is a familiar case
and does not require another mention. However, the stereotypical image
of late imperial China as being totally ignorant of current international
conditions might not always be correct. The high-ranking court ofβicial
Xu Guangqi is a case in point. His image of a threatening Japan is worth
citing at length. Xu gave a detailed description of the events leading
to the rise of the three successive military leaders—Oda Nobunaga
(1534‒82), Hideyoshi (1536‒98) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542‒1616).
He even accurately describes Hideyoshi’s humble origins and Nobunaga’s
murder by a treacherous vassal. He saw Nobunaga as ten times more
ambitious, cleverer in strategies and more unpredictable than Hideyoshi.
Given a longer time, he would have become a cause of calamity, and Xu
was certain he had intended to invade China. The events of Hideyoshi’s
campaign in Korea (1592), the Ming government coming to the aid of
their tributary state, his death (1598) and the withdrawal of the Japanese
armies after a second invasion in force in 1597 are described accurately
and in detail. Xu also mentioned the rise to power of the Tokugawa
family. The founder of the dynasty, Ieyasu, was seen as equally keen as his
predecessors to expand trade. Xu predicted that the Tokugawa leaders
would continue to covet Jilong and Danshui in Taiwan in the south and
- HGTZ, 5: 13b.
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