The Maritime Trade Between Europeans And Southeast Asia In The First Half Of The 17^th Century

The Portuguese entered Malacca in 1511, with the aim to control the maritime trade in this region. The Spanish, and then the Dutch followed the footsteps of those Portuguese to Southeast Asia. These Europeans had a deep impact on the maritime trade of Southeast Asia. Considering the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch as a new commerce force in Southeast Asia, the author will in this thesis thoroughly analyze the maritime trade between the Europeans and Southeast Asia in the first half of the 17^th century.Thus, this dissertation looks first at the early development of maritime trade in Southeast Asia, and the Europeans' intrusion into this area. Then it explores the shift of the Portuguese trading base (from Malacca to Macao), and the maritime commerce situation at the time. This dissertation also analyzes the Spanish Galleon trade in Manila, and the success of Dutch trade with the gradual establishment of a prosperous trading center based in Batavia. Finally, this dissertation dwells on the trade competition in Southeast Asia between Europeans and other maritime traders(i.e.Chinese & Japanese), and the social influence of Europeans' trade on Southeast Asia.The above careful historical analysis contributes to conclusions which are drawn as follows:Firstly, both the Portuguese triangle trade and its later trade with Macao as the base strongly promoted and stimulated the maritime trade between China and Southeast Asia.Secondly, with the discovery of the navigation route between Manila and Acapulco, the Spanish Galleon trade came to connect China and Southeast Asia closely with Europe and America, which made Manila become a new Global commercial center.Thirdly, Dutch's maritime trade in Indonesian waters was successful. They not only quickly built up the Spice trade hegemony in the Moluccas Islands, but also preliminary achieved self-governed factory networks. Because of the fast development of the long distance trade route between Southeast Asia and Amsterdam, the Dutch established a trade base in Batavia, which furthered the Southeast Asia-European trade, and Asia's inner trade such as Southeast Asia and India-Persian-Arabic trade, and China-Japan trade.Fourthly, At this time, the Chinese and the Japanese maritime merchants were relatively strong competitive commercial powers. Seen from certain perspective, they had an obvious advantage, yet, when seen from the overall picture, the Europeans' maritime trade in Southeast Asia gained an upper hand.Finally, Europeans' maritime trade in Southeast Asia also had some positive social influence, such as improving economic development of Southeast Asia and stimulating culture exchanges between east and west.To conclude, the Europeans were the true dominating maritime trading force in Southeast Asia at the time and they helped subsume the region into the world system.