26 Boundaries and Beyond
characterized by successive maritime and territorial powers from the
times of Funan and Srivijaya to Malacca. Each of them was an undisputed
leading power, controlling the strategic sea route in maritime trade
between India and China. The early βifteenth century witnessed the Zheng
He expeditions that re-established China-Southeast Asia relations and re-
connected the China Sea to the Indian Ocean, contributing to the rise of
the last indigenous maritime territorial power: Malacca. The sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries brought a change that saw the emergence of
multiple harbor-states, featuring a major shift from the regional primacy
enjoyed in former times to the parallel roles played by a number of port
polities.^90 Each of them functioned autonomously and yet formed an
integral part of the long-distance trade in Asian waters. It was in this
period that Chinese seafarers emerged as the major players in the East
Asian Seas. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the new era also
ushered in new players from Europe.
Areas of Production and Trading Zones in the
Malay-Indonesian Archipelago
How the long-distance trade in maritime East Asia functioned can be
observed from the linkages in the regional trade at different transaction
layers. In simplest terms, the different layers connected the areas of
production to local harbors and from them to a regional port that might
also serve as an emporium in interregional trade. Each of the layers had
its respective role as “collecting centers, feeder points and entrepôts”.^91
The activity often involved a multitude of players from different ethnic
groups. The transaction chain commenced with the household-to-
household collection of local commodities directly from the small
producers by peddlers. Different groups of dealers appeared at each level
of the transactions. The upper layer of activities consisted of wholesalers
who would buy in large quantities and sell the commodities to the long-
distance traders from other regions.^92
- J. Kathirithamby-Wells, “Banten: A West Indonesian Port and Polity during the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, in The Southeast Asian Port and Polity,
ed. J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers (Singapore: Singapore University
Press, 1990), pp. 107, 120. - The three terms are used in Leong Sou Heng, “Collecting Centres, Feeder Points
and Entrepots in the Malay Peninsula, c. 1000 BC‒AD 1400”, in The Southeast
Asian Port and Polity, ed. J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers, pp. 17–38. - For a discussion of multiple layers in long-distance trade, see Modernity and
Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, ed. Leila Fawaz and A.
Bayly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 28–33.
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