Commodity and Market 49
the permission of the Qing court to purchase tea, raw silk and porcelain in
Guangzhou. Very soon it gained ascendancy over other European traders
to become the major tea exporter from China to Europe. Gaining control
of two important commodities, namely Indian textiles and opium, in the
second half of the eighteenth century βirmly established the dominant
position of the British in the China trade.
The rise of Bangkok and British Singapore in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries signaled the eclipse of Manila and Batavia.
These new commercial hubs took over as the two new emporia in
maritime East Asia, becoming centers of the Chinese junk trade. Thanks
to its geographical location at the heart of Southeast Asia, Singapore
was especially successful in attracting traders from the Indian Ocean,
Southeast Asia and China. It was a true trade emporium and regional hub
right from its inception. In his work on the βirst 50 years of Singapore
trade, Wong Lin Ken sums up its situation in the following words:
(It) consisted largely of the transshipment of European
manufactures, Indian Opium, and Straits produce to China, and
of the transshipment of Chinese manufactures and produce to
Europe and America.^173Wong highlights two of the main trading groups which contributed to
Singapore’s rise to pre-eminence. One was made up of the free traders
who had created a demand in Europe for such articles as sugar, while
pushing the sale of such European goods as cotton piece goods, cotton
yarn, βire-arms and glassware, amongst other items, in the Archipelago.^174
The other group was composed of Chinese junk traders, the majority
from Amoy. In 1835, for example, almost one half of Singapore’s total
trade with China was undertaken by Chinese junks. Chinese junk traders
brought along “Chinese goods demanded by the Chinese settlers”, that
“consisted of earthenware of different sizes and patterns, βlooring tiles,
coping stones, paper umbrellas, Chinese confectionary, dried and salted
fruits, dried vegetables such as mushrooms, Chinese medicine, silk shoes
and silk, Chinese cloth, straw, joss-sticks, tobacco specially cured to suit
the palates of the Chinese residents, nankeen cloth, and gold lace. The
value of these goods was extremely high.”^175 For their return voyages,
they purchased “raw cotton, cotton yarn, cotton piece goods, opium,
arms and ammunition, and Straits produce from the Chinese dealers in
- Ibid., p. 106.
- Wong Lin Ken, “The Trade of Singapore, 1819–69”, Journal of the Malayan
Branch Royal Asiatic Society 33, 4 (Dec. 1960): 199. - Ibid., p. 111.