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Maritime Silk Road

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This article is about the historic Maritime Silk Road. For the Chinese sea route infrastructure initiative, see 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. For other uses, see Maritime Silk Road (disambiguation).
Austronesian proto-historic and historic (Maritime Silk Road) maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean[1]

The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route[2] is the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, eastern Africa, and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE.[3] The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia who sailed large long-distance ocean-going lashed-lug trade ships (like the jong).[4]: 11 [5] The route was also utilized by the dhows of the Tamil merchants in South Asia,[4]: 13  and the Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond.[4]: 13  China also started building their own trade ships (chuan) and followed the routes in the later period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries CE.[6][7]: 17 

The network followed the footsteps of older maritime networks in Southeast Asia,[8][9][10][11] as well as the maritime spice networks of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, India, and the Indian Ocean, coinciding with these ancient maritime trade roads by the current era.[12][13]

The term "Maritime Silk Road" is a modern name. The ancient maritime routes through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean had no particular name for the majority of its very long history.[4] Despite the modern name, the Maritime Silk Road involved exchanges in a wide variety of goods over a very wide region, not just silk or Asian exports.[7]: 17, 20, 149, 168  These goods include ceramics, glass, beads, gems, ivory, fragrant wood, metals (both raw and finished goods), textiles, food (including grain, wine, and spices), aromatics, and animals, among others. The goods carried by trade ships varied by region and port.[7]: 132–133, 186, 216 

History[edit]

Further information: Austronesian expansion, K'un-lun po, Djong, and Junk (ship)
One of the Borobudur ships from the 8th century, they were depictions of large Javanese outrigger vessels. Shown with the characteristic tanja sail of Southeast Asian Austronesians

The Maritime Silk Road developed from the earlier maritime trade networks established by Austronesians in Southeast Asia. The Maritime Jade Road, a jade trade network, in Southeast Asia which sprang in Taiwan and the Philippines was an independent trading network in operation thousands of years before the Maritime Silk Road. This independent network was in existence for 3,000 years from 2000 BCE to 1000 CE. The trade was established by links between the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Philippines, and later included parts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and other areas in Southeast Asia. Lingling-o artifacts are one of the notable archeological finds originating from the Maritime Jade Road.[8][9][10][11] During the operation of the Maritime Jade Road, the Austronesian spice trade networks were also established by Islander Southeast Asians with Sri Lanka and Southern India by around 1000 to 600 BCE.[12][13]

By around the 2nd century BCE, the Neolithic Austronesian jade and spice trade networks in Southeast Asia connected with the maritime trade routes of South Asia, the Middle East, eastern Africa, and the Mediterranean, becoming what is now known as the Maritime Silk Road. Prior to the 10th century, the eastern part of the route was primarily used by Southeast Asian Austronesian traders, although Tamil and Persian traders also sailed the western parts of the routes.[4][7] It allowed the exchange of goods from East and Southeast Asia on one end, all the way to Europe and eastern Africa on the other.[7]

The thalassocratic Srivijaya empire at its maximum extent in the 8th to 11th centuries, showing their control of the straits of Malacca and Sunda

Austronesian thalassocracies controlled the flow of trade in the eastern regions of the Maritime Silk Road, especially the polities around the straits of Malacca and Bangka, the Malay Peninsula, and the Mekong Delta; although Chinese records misidentified these kingdoms as being "Indian" due to the Indianization of these regions.[4] The route was influential in the early spread of Hinduism and Buddhism to the east.[14] The Austronesian trade routes to China also passed through the Tonkin Gulf. Several trading ports thrived in the area, and the region of Jiaozhi (Northern Vietnam), in particular, accumulated enormous wealth.[15] Han and Tang dynasty Chinese records also indicate that the early Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to South Asia booked passage with the Austronesian ships (which they called the k'un-lun po) that traded in Chinese ports. Books written by Chinese monks like Wan Chen and Hui-Lin contain detailed accounts of the large trading vessels from Southeast Asia dating back to at least the 3rd century CE.[16]

Austronesians were already sailing as far as East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula even during the earlier period. They colonized the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa some time in between the 1st century CE to the 6th or 7th centuries CE.[17][18][19] It remained a part of the Maritime Silk Road, along with the nearby African, Arab, and Persian trading ports of Kilwa Kisiwani and Zanzibar (Tanzania), and other ports along the mainland coasts of modern Somalia, Kenya, and Mozambique.[20]

Srivijaya, an Austronesian polity founded at Palembang in 682 CE, rose to dominate the trade in the region around the straits of Malacca and Sunda and the South China Sea emporium by controlling the trade in luxury aromatics and Buddhist artifacts from West Asia to a thriving Tang market.[4]: 12  It emerged through the conquest and subjugation of neighboring thalassocracies. These included Melayu, Kedah, Tarumanagara, and Mataram, among others. These polities controlled the sea lanes in Southeast Asia and exploited the spice trade of the Spice Islands, as well as maritime trade-routes between India and China.[21]

By the 7th century CE, Arab dhow traders also ventured into the routes earlier pioneered by Persian traders to Sri Lanka, pushing deeper east into Srivijaya and Guangzhou, leading to the earliest spread of Islam into Southeast Asian polities.[4]

By the 10th to 13th centuries, there was an economic boom in maritime trade, led primarily by the fact that the Song dynasty of China started building its own trading ships (chuán) capable of sailing sea routes, despite the traditional Chinese Confucian disdain for trade.[4] This was partly due to the loss of access by the Song dynasty to the overland Silk Road.[4] Song maritime technology was developed from observing Southeast Asian Austronesian ships. Before this, Chinese ships were essentially fluvial (riverine) in nature and operation and weren't seaworthy.[22][5]

The Song started sending trading expeditions to the region they referred to as Nan hai (Chinese: 南海; pinyin: Nánhǎi; lit. 'South Seas'), mostly still dominated by Srivijaya, venturing as far south as the Sulu Sea and the Java Sea. This led to the establishment of new trading ports in Southeast Asia (like in Java and Sumatra) that specifically catered to the Chinese demand for goods like "dragon's brain perfume" (camphor) and other exotica. Quanzhou also became a major Chinese trading port during this period, joining the older trading port of Guangzhou. Both became tightly linked to their Southeast Asian counterparts, leading historians to characterize the distinct trading circuit in this region as the "Asian Mediterranean", from its similarity to the Mediterranean Sea Trade.[4] However, the Song enacted a 9-month limit on how long trade ships can stay at sea, limiting the range of Chinese trade ships to Southeast Asia.[6][23]

Asia in the 14th century showing the maximum extent of Majapahit and its relative position to other participants of the Maritime Silk Road

Arab and Tamil traders also increased their participation with direct trade to Chinese ports through the Strait of Malacca in the 10th to 13th centuries. The surprise naval expeditions in 1025 of Rajendra I of the Tamil Chola Empire against Srivijaya's ports along the strait, may have been motivated by Srivijaya's attempt to regulate or block Tamil trading guilds.[4] The Chola invasions ended Srivijaya's monopoly on the Strait of Melaka routes for around a century, during which many of the Srivijayan cities were occupied by the Chola. Srivijaya was left greatly weakened and was eventually subjugated by Singhasari by around 1275, before finally being absorbed by the successor thalassocracy of Majapahit (1293–1527).[24][25]

China was invaded by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century. Chinese shipping during this period was monopolized by the state, via foreign Muslim merchants partnered with the Yuan government in ortogh relationships. Though unlike the Song, the Yuan lifted the 9-month limit, allowing Chinese trade to venture as far as South Asia. The Yuan also attempted naval invasions on Japan, Majapahit, and Vietnam (Austronesian Champa, and Kinh Đại Việt). All of which failed.[6][23] China itself was later devastated by floods, drought, and famine. Concurrently, the Black Death was sweeping through Europe and Western Asia. All of these factors led to a slump in trade along the Maritime Silk Road in the 14th century.[4]

In the late 14th century, the city-state of Palembang (the former capital of Srivijaya) sent an envoy to the Hongwu Emperor, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (which overthrew the Yuan), to reestablish trade routes. The ruler of Palembang was hoping to regain the city's former wealth, independent of Majapahit. Hayam Wuruk of Majapahit, angry at the actions of the vassal state, sent a punitive naval attack on Palembang in 1377, causing a diaspora of princes and nobles to the Kingdom of Singapura. Singapura, in turn, was attacked and sacked in 1398. Parameswara, originally from Palembang and the last ruler of Singapura, fled to the western coast of the Malay Peninsula and founded the Sultanate of Malacca in the early 15th century.[26]

During the same period in the early 15th century, the Ming dynasty launched the expeditions of Zheng He, with the goal of forcing the "barbarian kings" of Southeast Asia to resume sending "tribute" (i.e. regular trade routes) to the Ming court. This was typical of the Sinocentric views at the time of viewing "trade as tribute". Zheng He's expeditions were short-lived, as the drain in imperial funds and the threat of invasion from the north led the Xuande Emperor to cease the expeditions. He enacted the hai jin laws shortly after, and banned outgoing trade altogether. Although ultimately, Zheng He's expeditions were successful in their goal of restoring trade relations with Southeast Asia (in this case, Malacca) and the Ming Dynasty.[4] By the mid-15th century, the Sultanate of Malacca had gained effective control of the Strait of Malacca. Further weakening Majapahit's influence greatly, which was already suffering from internal rebellions.[27] Trade from Malacca continued to arrive in Chinese ports in the brief period prior to the fall Majapahit, the Portuguese invasion of Malacca, and the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu invasions.[4][6][23][28]

Decline[edit]

Global Trade Routes of the Spanish and Portuguese Empire

The Maritime Silk Route was disrupted by the colonial era in the 15th century, essentially being replaced with European trade routes.[7] Shipbuilding of the formerly dominant Southeast Asian trading ships (jong, the source of the English term "junk") declined until it ceased entirely by the 17th century. Although Chinese-built chuán survived until modern times.[29][5] There was new demand for spices from Southeast Asia and textiles from India and China, but these were now linked with direct trade routes to the European market, instead of passing through regional ports.[7][4]

By the 16th century, the Age of Exploration had begun. The Portuguese Empire's capture of Malacca led to the transfer of the trade centers to the sultanates of Aceh and Johor. The Spanish Empire in the Philippines established the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, which acquired trade goods like Chinaware and silk from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and spices (mostly from the Spice Islands of Moluccas) for the markets in Latin America and Europe. All of which were traded over the Pacific to Acapulco in Mexico and throughout the Spanish Americas; and also later traded via the Flota de Indias (Spanish treasure fleet) from Veracruz in Mexico to Seville in Spain and onward throughout Europe. The Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade route was the first permanent trade route across the Pacific. Similarly, the West Indies Spanish treasure fleet was the first permanent transatlantic trade route in history. Both bypassed the Indian Ocean Maritime Silk Road entirely.[4]

Archaeology[edit]

Archaeological evidence of the Maritime Silk Road include numerous shipwrecks recovered along the route.[23][5] These include the Arabian dhow Belitung wreck dated to c. 826, the 10th century Intan wreck, and the Western-Austronesian vessel Cirebon wreck dated to the end of the 10th century, all of which were recovered from the Java Sea.[4]: 12 

Extent[edit]

Although usually spoken of in modern times in the context of the Eurocentric and Sinocentric demand for luxury goods and exotica by the Roman and Chinese empires, the goods carried by the trading ships varied by which product was in demand by region and port.[4][7] They included ceramics, glass, beads, gems, ivory, fragrant wood, metals (both raw and finished goods), textiles (including silk), food (including grain, wine, and spices), aromatics, and animals, among others. Ivory, in particular, was a significant export of east Africa, leading some authors to label the western leg of the trade route as the "Maritime Ivory Route".[7]

It was also not small-scale trade or high value-low volume trade as some earlier historians had assumed. The goods carried by recovered shipwrecks show that they engaged in merchant capitalism. A very large number of goods, often mass-produced, were traded along the route.[4]

The trade route encompassed numbers of seas and ocean; including South China Sea, Strait of Malacca, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Bengal, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The maritime route overlaps with historic Southeast Asian maritime trade, spice trade, Indian Ocean trade and after 8th century—the Arabian naval trade network. The network also extend eastward to the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea to connect China with the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.[4][7]

World Heritage nomination[edit]

In May 2017, experts from various fields have held a meeting in London to discuss the proposal to nominate "Maritime Silk Route" as a new UNESCO World Heritage Site.[30]

Politicization[edit]

Main articles: 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and Project Mausam

The academic research on the ancient Maritime Silk Road has been appropriated and mythologized by modern countries for political reasons. China, in particular, uses a mythologized image of the Maritime Silk Road for its Belt and Road Initiative, first proposed by Xi Jinping during a visit to Indonesia in 2015. It attempts to reconnect the old trade routes between the port cities of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and assumes erroneously that Chinese sailors played a major role in developing the route.[4]

India has also mythologized the Maritime Silk Road with Project Mausam, launched in 2014, which similarly attempts to reconnect old trade links with surrounding countries in the Indian Ocean. India also portrays itself as playing a central role in the Maritime Silk Road, and also often depicts its trade connections and cultural diffusion as "Indian colonizaton" under the vision of a Greater India.[4]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Manguin, Pierre-Yves (2016). "Austronesian Shipping in the Indian Ocean: From Outrigger Boats to Trading Ships". In Campbell, Gwyn (ed.). Early Exchange between Africa and the Wider Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 51–76. ISBN 9783319338224.
  2. ^ Wang, Qiang (2020). Legendary Port of the Maritime Silk Routes: Zayton (Quanzhou). Qiang Wang. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-4331-7040-9.
  3. ^ "Maritime Silk Road". SEAArch.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Guan, Kwa Chong (2016). "The Maritime Silk Road: History of an Idea" (PDF). NSC Working Paper (23): 1–30.
  5. ^ a b c d Manguin, Pierre-Yves (September 1980). "The Southeast Asian Ship: An Historical Approach". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 11 (2): 266–276. doi:10.1017/S002246340000446X.
  6. ^ a b c d Flecker, Michael (August 2015). "Early Voyaging in the South China Sea: Implications on Territorial Claims". Nalanda-Sriwijaya Center Working Paper Series. 19: 1–53.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Franck Billé; Sanjyot Mehendale; James W. Lankton, eds. (2022). The Maritime Silk Road (PDF). Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-4855-242-9.
  8. ^ a b Tsang, Cheng-hwa (2000). "Recent advances in the Iron Age archaeology of Taiwan". Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. 20: 153–158. doi:10.7152/bippa.v20i0.11751 (inactive 2024-04-12). ISSN 1835-1794.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2024 (link)
  9. ^ a b Turton, M. (17 May 2021). "Notes from central Taiwan: Our brother to the south". Taipei Times. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  10. ^ a b Everington, K. (6 September 2017). "Birthplace of Austronesians is Taiwan, capital was Taitung: Scholar". Taiwan News. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  11. ^ a b Bellwood, Peter; Hung, H.; Lizuka, Yoshiyuki (2011). "Taiwan Jade in the Philippines: 3,000 Years of Trade and Long-distance Interaction". In Benitez-Johannot, P. (ed.). Paths of Origins: The Austronesian Heritage in the Collections of the National Museum of the Philippines, the Museum Nasional Indonesia, and the Netherlands Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde. ArtPostAsia. ISBN 978-971-94292-0-3.
  12. ^ a b Bellina, Bérénice (2014). "Southeast Asia and the Early Maritime Silk Road". In Guy, John (ed.). Lost Kingdoms of Early Southeast Asia: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture 5th to 8th century. Yale University Press. pp. 22–25. ISBN 9781588395245.
  13. ^ a b Mahdi, Waruno (1999). "The Dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean". In Blench, Roger; Spriggs, Matthew (eds.). Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts languages, and texts. One World Archaeology. Vol. 34. Routledge. pp. 144–179. ISBN 978-0415100540.
  14. ^ Sen, Tansen (3 February 2014). "Maritime Southeast Asia Between South Asia and China to the Sixteenth Century". TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia. 2 (1): 31–59. doi:10.1017/trn.2013.15. S2CID 140665305.
  15. ^ Li, Tana (2011). "Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) in the Han period Tongking Gulf". In Cooke, Nola; Li, Tana; Anderson, James A. (eds.). The Tongking Gulf Through History. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 39–44. ISBN 9780812205022.
  16. ^ McGrail, Seán (2001). Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to the Medieval Times. Oxford University Press. pp. 289–293. ISBN 9780199271863.
  17. ^ Herrera, Michael B.; Thomson, Vicki A.; Wadley, Jessica J.; Piper, Philip J.; Sulandari, Sri; Dharmayanthi, Anik Budhi; Kraitsek, Spiridoula; Gongora, Jaime; Austin, Jeremy J. (March 2017). "East African origins for Madagascan chickens as indicated by mitochondrial DNA". Royal Society Open Science. 4 (3): 160787. doi:10.1098/rsos.160787. hdl:2440/104470.
  18. ^ Tofanelli, S.; Bertoncini, S.; Castri, L.; Luiselli, D.; Calafell, F.; Donati, G.; Paoli, G. (1 September 2009). "On the Origins and Admixture of Malagasy: New Evidence from High-Resolution Analyses of Paternal and Maternal Lineages". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 26 (9): 2109–2124. doi:10.1093/molbev/msp120.
  19. ^ Adelaar, Alexander (June 2012). "Malagasy Phonological History and Bantu Influence". Oceanic Linguistics. 51 (1): 123–159. doi:10.1353/ol.2012.0003. hdl:11343/121829.
  20. ^ "Did You Know? Madagascar on the Maritime Silk Roads". Silk Roads Programme, UNESCO. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
  21. ^ Sulistiyono, Singgih Tri; Masruroh, Noor Naelil; Rochwulaningsih, Yety (2018). "Contest For Seascape: Local Thalassocracies and Sino-Indian Trade Expansion in the Maritime Southeast Asia During the Early Premodern Period". Journal of Marine and Island Cultures. 7 (2). doi:10.21463/jmic.2018.07.2.05.
  22. ^ L. Pham, Charlotte Minh-Hà (2012). Asian Shipbuilding Technology. Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-92-9223-413-3. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  23. ^ a b c d Heng, Derek (2019). "Ships, Shipwrecks, and Archaeological Recoveries as Sources of Southeast Asian History". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History: 1–29. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.97. ISBN 9780190277727.
  24. ^ Kulke, Hermann (2016). "Śrīvijaya Revisited: Reflections on State Formation of a Southeast Asian Thalassocracy". Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient. 102 (1): 45–95. doi:10.3406/befeo.2016.6231.
  25. ^ Munoz, Paul Michel (2006). Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet. ISBN 981-4155-67-5.
  26. ^ "The Majapahit era". Britannica. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
  27. ^ Leyden, John (1821), Malay Annals (translated from the Malay language), Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
  28. ^ Tan Ta Sen & al. Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. ISBN 978-981-230-837-5.
  29. ^ Manguin, Pierre-Yves (1993). "The Vanishing Jong: Insular Southeast Asian Fleets in Trade and War (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)". In Reid, Anthony (ed.). Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era. Cornell University Press. pp. 197–213. ISBN 978-0-8014-8093-5. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctv2n7gng.15.
  30. ^ "UNESCO Expert Meeting for the World Heritage Nomination Process of the Maritime Silk Routes". UNESCO.
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