interest in the sea. Attempting to answer this question lies beyond the dimen-
sions of this paper, but perhaps geography of location has something to do with
it. Europe has a lengthy, indented coastline, and it encloses several inland seas.
In short, the physical presence of the ocean is overwhelming as compared with
East Asia. Parts of East Asia may once have been vigorously maritime, as they
are now, but they are not oceanic in a cultural sense.
Uses of the Sea
We can define several ways in which humans use the sea. As source, the sea has
provided salt and fish, and fish are still a major source of protein for more than a
billion people. Increasingly, the sea is a source of energy. Nearly one-third of the
oil and gas the world now consumes comes from the seabed. Methane hydrates
offer a future potential energy source. And the sea is increasingly regarded as a
source of renewable energy, as humans learn to exploit the fluctuating tides, the
movement of waves, and water temperature differentials.
For millennia, the Austronesian world has enjoyed its direct physical encoun-
ter with the sea as a source of pleasure. The Atlantic world discovered the beach
in the early nineteenth century, first finding it attractive because salt water, both
by ingestion and by immersion, was considered conducive to good health. Later
the therapeutic yielded to the hedonistic, and the seashore became identified with
relaxation and recreation, swimming and boating. With cultural globalization,
these pursuits have spread across the world, including Pacific Asia. Missionaries
of the nineteenth century discovered the pleasures of Beidaihe; now China’s
governing elites savor it. Deng Xiaoping even directed that his ashes be scattered
offshore there.
Ocean has also played a major role as arena, both active and passive: active as a
place of struggle and combat, where navies fight and pirates prey on their victims,
passive as moat and strategic buffer. The Taiwan Strait enabled the losing side in
the Chinese Revolution to flee to a secure base and make a fresh start in 1949.
Taiwan subsequently became rich, tapping a highly successful maritime
economy. For the last five hundred years, but not before, the English Channel
has served as a protective moat for Britain. It frustrated Napoleon and Hitler,
cheating them both of ultimate triumph because they could not move their
victorious armies over that watery space. More recently the memory of the great
moat served as a psychological barrier to the digging of the ‘‘Chunnel.’’
As avenue the ocean has served as medium for the flow of goods, people,
and ideas—until 150 years ago the only such avenue. Today information and
people travel largely by means other than salt water, but at least 90 percent of
world trade by volume is still borne by the ocean. Coal, wheat, running shoes,
computer screens, automobiles, and much else all travel on the oceanic highway.
But more than half of the total volume consists of oil.
Imperial China and the Sea 21