The Chinese in Maritime Southeast Asia: Trade and Merchant Communities in 17th-century Insulindia

The Chinese in Maritime Southeast Asia: Trade and Merchant Communities in 17th-century Insulindia tells the remarkable story of Chinese minority through an examination of the VOC’s abundant sources, which record relations between the Chinese and the Dutch rulers who relied upon them. The 17th century represents a turning point in the global history of trade, as connections between Asian and European markets increased dramatically at this time. The Dutch East-India Company (or VOC) was central to this process, but— counter to the VOC’s aims—the winners of the game in maritime Southeast Asia were often Chinese merchants, the only economic agents capable at the time of both trading in major Southeast Asian commercial hubs and developing exchanges with China and Japan. The Chinese operated with a flexibility of means and a fluidity of management that allowed them to react rapidly and quickly gain returns on investment. In Batavia, as in other Southeast Asian emporiums, the increasingly numerous and diverse Chinese elites assumed direct responsibility for the management of their community, making them the most important non-European free community—in wealth as in number—in the city during the second half of the 17th century.