(Page 12 of 18) - A Case Study of Historiography of Event: �1840�-A Significant Year for the Incorporation of China authored by Shih, Miin-wen.

The early 15

century was a period of Chinese expansion. The Ming in the center

not only conquered the northern nomads and re-subjected them to the tributary
world-system but also sent fleets westward to the Indian Ocean seven times. This
wave of Chinese maritime expansion disrupted Muslim trading, and eventually
brought a new balance and stabilized the center of gravity of the Far East in the
East Indies. As Braudel points out:

“The beginning of the fifteenth century … was marked by the revival of China
under   the   Ming   dynasty   which   liberated   the   country   from   the   Mongols   in   the
year after 1368, as well as by an extraordinary wave of maritime expansion, an
event   which   has   been   much   discussed   but   still   remains   in   many   respects   a
mystery,   from   its   origins   to   its   interruption   in   about   1435.   The   foreign
expeditions   by   Chinese   junks,   which   went   as   far   field   as   Ceylin,   Hormuz   and
even the Zendi Empire on the African coast, drove back or at any rate disrupted
Muslim trading. The voice of the East now speak louder than the Center or West.
And it was at this time …, that the center of gravity of this huge super-world-
economy became stabilized in the East Indies, with their busy ports of Bantam,
Atjeh, Malacca and much later-Batavia and Manila.” (ibid.: 485-6)

Geographically, the East Indies is located halfway between China and Japan on
one  hand,   and  the  Indian  Ocean  on  the   other.  Asian  traders  especially   Chinese
merchants  and  Indian  merchants  met  there.  Silk,   cotton,   spices,  pepper,  pearls,
gold, silver, perfumes, coffee, rice, and opium, etc., were gathered there. But it
was the Portuguese who captured the center of the very great trading complex of
Malacca,  the  center  of  communications  between  the  Pacific,   India,   and  Europe
since the early 16

century (Braudel: 1984: 529; Hardy & Dunke, 1949: 45). A

century later the Dutch took possession of Batavia and founded a model
capitalist trading company known as V.O.C. The center of the Far eastern trade
then shifted to Batavia around the 1630s, when the V.O.C. could control and
direct the vital network of the country trade, and kept trading with Japan through
the only port, Nagasaki, and the Portuguese were expelled (Braudel, 1984: 530).

By getting to the East Indies first, the V.O.C. successfully ousted its cousin, the
British   East   India   Company.   However,   this   did   not   mean   that   the   British   East
India   Company   lost   a   base   in   the   Far   East   because   the   Dutch   drove   out   the
British East India Company. It merely meant that from then on the British would
pay much more attention to its company’s activities in India (Braudel, 1984: 498;
Hardy & Dunke, 1949: 73). However, the monopoly of trade in the East Indies
by the V.O.C. probably contributed partially to the demise of Dutch hegemony in
the   Far   East,   which   Braudel   questions:  “But   in   doing   so,   did   they   [the   Dutch]
perhaps   forfeit   the   chance  of   success   in   India   —  which   later   proved   to   be   the
foundation of any durable achievement by the other newcomers to the East, first
the Muslims and later the Westerners?” (Braudel, 1984: 498).

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 not only marked the end of the Franco-British
struggle for hegemony, but also the starting point of Britain’s undertaking “a

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