KAWAMURA, Tomotaka

SUGIHARA, Kaoru

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Title<Special Focus>Introduction: Reconstructing Intra-SoutheastAsian Trade, c.1780‒1870: Evidence of Regional Integrationunder the Regime of Colonial Free TradeAuthor(s)SUGIHARA, Kaoru; KAWAMURA, TomotakaCitationS utheast Asian Studies (2013), 2(3): 437-441Issue Date2013-12URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/180026RightType Journal ArticleTextversionpublisherKyoto University437Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3, December 2013, pp. 437–441©Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto UniversitySPECIAL FOCUSIntroduction:Reconstructing Intra-Southeast Asian Trade, c.1780–1870:Evidence of Regional Integration under the Regime of Colonial Free TradeKaoru Sugihara* and Tomotaka Kawamura**This special focus provides a set of statistical knowledge on intra-Southeast Asian tradefrom the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, to better understand the waysin which Southeast Asia became integrated into both long-distance trade and intra-Asiantrade.  In so doing, it explores aspects of how and why some of the traditional tradingnetworks of the region survived the Western impact and came to play a vital role in theprocess of regional integration.In 1985 Kaoru Sugihara suggested that there was a growth of intra-Asian trade inthe period 1880–1913, under the impact of the Industrial Revolution in England and thesubsequent diffusion of industrialization in Europe and the United States.  Unlike otherparts of the non-European world, he argued, the rate of growth of intra-Asian trade  duringthis period was faster than that of long-distance trade between the West and Asia.  Overthe last quarter of a century, relationships between long-distance trade—which is thetrade between the West (United Kingdom, industrial Europe, and the United States) andAsia—and intra-Asian trade—which is the trade between India, Southeast Asia, China,Japan, and other Asian countries—have been vigorously explored; and trends in Asian regional integration, reflected in intra-regional trade, migration, and remittances, havebeen highlighted.  Among the major observations is that during the high colonial era,from 1870 to 1914, Southeast Asia experienced the highest rate of export growth amongAsian regions through its incorporation into both world and regional economies at almostequal speeds (Sugihara 1985; 1996; 2005).* 杉原　薫, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8677, Japan Corresponding author’s e-mail: k-sugihara@grips.ac.jp**川村朋貴, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, JapanK. SUGIHARA and T. KAWAMURA438However, there has been little statistical work on Southeast Asian trade before 1870, to understand how the region responded to the Western impact as compared to otherAsian regions, especially after the demise of the Dutch East India Company’s monopolyat the end of the eighteenth century.  Difficulties with data, due to territorial changes and the lack of data on local and regional commerce conducted by Asian merchants, prevented progress toward a fuller understanding.  It is only during the last 15 years or so that leading scholars have begun to pay attention to this period and empirical research hasbeen assembled, with the spirit of revising the traditional picture that the period waseconomically “static,” if not in decline or disintegration, and that little could have beenchanged or transformed in the way of local and regional commerce.  Anthony Reid andothers have argued that the period between the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an era of dynamic commercial expansion, questioning the view that there was noexpansion comparable to those in the earlier “age of commerce (c.1450–1680)” and thecolonial high noon (c.1870–1940) took place.  In particular, the years between about 1760 and 1850 saw a distinct commercial expansion in the region, which was stimulated by a remarkable growth in Chinese junks and migration from southern China, an increase inlocal Malay shipping, and the impact of British private traders.  During this period, Reid argues, Southeast Asia appears to have experienced an even greater increase in shippingand exports than during the high colonial period (Reid 1997; 2004).Meanwhile, Sugihara argues that there was a growth in intra-Asian trade during thefirst half of the nineteenth century, partially revising his earlier assumption that regionaltrade started to respond to the Western impact in earnest in the late nineteenth century,and that the nature of this early nineteenth century expansion was substantially a tradein necessities such as rice and cotton cloth for ordinary people, similar in character to intra-Asian trade at a later stage, rather than a trade induced by country traders and the“opium triangle.”  He notes that Penang and Singapore were key contributors to the growth of multilateral trade patterns in and around Southeast Asia, integrating bothtraditional trade and the impact of long-distance trade into a coherent whole (Sugihara2009).  It should also be remembered that Hiroyoshi Kano suggested a similar perspec-tive on the expansion, strong continuity, and transformation of intra-Southeast Asiantrade from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, although he did not fully explorethe availability of trade statistics and other sources (Kano 1991).  This focus builds onthe above works and suggests that there was a growth of intra-Southeast Asian trade inthe early to mid-nineteenth century, reflecting active interactions between the new Dutch and English engagements in long-distance trade and the rise of Asian merchantsin Southeast Asia, centering on Java, Singapore, and other major colonial ports andencompassing large areas of the “Outer Islands” and non-Dutch parts of Southeast Asia.Introduction 439The three papers offer a detailed statistical study of the local and regional trade of Singapore, Java, and the Dutch Outer Islands.  Making use of both English and Dutchstatistical sources, the papers discuss the impact of the transition in long-distance trade from the dominance of the Dutch East India Company to the regime of colonial free tradeunder the Anglo-Dutch Commercial Treaty on local and regional trade in Southeast Asia, and the role that imports of English cotton textiles, Java’s coastal trade, and exports of non-colonial products from the Dutch Outer Islands to China and other Asian countries played in transforming regional commerce.  An intended historiographical contributionis a reinterpretation of Dutch trade data in a broader regional context, especially againstthe rise of British trading posts.More specifically, Atsushi Kobayashi’s paper traces the growth of Singapore’s intra-Southeast Asian trade from the 1820s to 1852.  Singapore began as an intermediary in local and regional trade before developing into a fully equipped international entrepôt,and it is here that we see most clearly the interactions of local and regional trade networks and the impact of imports of Lancashire textiles from Britain.  While imports of cheapmachine-made cloth must have induced local demand, the product’s distribution across the region depended on the development of both an efficient Chinese trading networkand its active relationships with local traders.  Exchange of primary products for localconsumption, including rice, was an integral part of the growth of multilateral trade pat-terns, now centered on Singapore.  While Java’s trade with the Netherlands continuedto be the single largest component of Southeast Asia’s trade throughout this period, thegrowth of local and regional trade, encompassing most of the territories under Dutch control, was driven by the principle of free trade by 1840, under the full enforcement of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.  With this change in mind, the other two papers reex-amine Dutch data to extract information on intra-Southeast Asian trade.  Ryuto Shimada’s paper attempts to qualify the picture that Java’s trade was dominated by long-distancetrade, especially with the Netherlands, by examining the persistence of coastal trade from the late eighteenth century onward, involving Chinese and other non-Dutch merchants,and the resurgence of trade with the Outer Islands in the second half of the nineteenthcentury.  He backs his argument about the structure of trade in the first quarter of thenineteenth century, for which reliable annual data are missing, with reference to datafrom both the late eighteenth century and the second half of the nineteenth century, tomake a judgment of long-term change in the structure of trade.  Atsushi Ota’s paper supplements this Java-centered account by focusing on the Dutch Outer Islands trade,to argue that non-colonial products, predominantly for the Chinese market, were oftenmore important than colonial products bound for Europe, and that this “China-orientedtrade structure” continued well into the nineteenth century.  His data do not cover theK. SUGIHARA and T. KAWAMURA440entire Outer Islands (important trading posts in Aceh, North Sumatra, Bali, and Lombokare not included), but his is the first systematic attempt to suggest that the linkages between the imports of British cotton textiles and exports of non-colonial products toChina and other parts of Southeast Asia as a mechanism of trade growth were present,not just via Singapore but across major trading ports, by the middle of the nineteenthcentury.Thus, our tentative hypothesis is that the disruptive break around the turn of thecentury as a result of the European regime shift from mercantilism to free trade was arelatively limited one, and that the basic patterns of intra-Southeast Asian trade, includ-ing Java’s coastal trade and Outer Islands trade, survived and acted as a vital agent in theregion’s integration into the international economy during the first half of the nineteenthcentury.  We do acknowledge increased activities of American, Chinese, British, French,Indian, and Bugis traders during the period 1780–1820, when trade regimes were largelydisrupted or absent.  Trade was subsequently restricted by the more forceful impositionsof Dutch and English colonialism.  Nevertheless, we suggest that a new regime dominated by Anglo-Dutch commercial relations emerged at the same time, and it opened up thepossibilities for regional integration across colonial borders in a way that would makeSoutheast Asia accessible to both the West and Asia.Our results remain a modest effort toward such an understanding, not least because our discussion is based solely on colonial trade statistics, without taking into account thepresence of unrecorded local and regional trade activities, which must have been sub-stantial.  We hope that this focus will further stimulate research in this area and con tribute to a fuller understanding of the continuity and discontinuity in Southeast Asian economichistory.This focus is the first part of the research outcome of two consecutive projects (April2010–March 2012 and April 2012–March 2013) under the funding of the InternationalProgram of Collaborative Research at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.  The first project was organized by Tomotaka Kawamura, and the first half of this introduction is based on the research proposal he wrote four years ago.  Unfortu-nately, he was not in a position to act as editor of this focus; Sugihara, the organizer of the second project, has edited it.  He is responsible for the content of this introduction.On behalf of all the authors in this focus, we thank an anonymous referee for extremely insightful comments, from which we have greatly benefited.Accepted: August 19, 2013Introduction 441ReferencesKano Hiroyoshi 加納啓良.  1991.  Ajia Ikinai Koeki to Tonan Ajia Shokuminchi Shihaiアジア域内交易と東南アジア植民地支配 [Intra-Asian trade and colonial rule in Southeast Asia].  In Ajia KoekiKen to Nihon Kogyoka 1500–1900アジア交易圏と日本工業化 1500–1900 [Asian trade sphere and Japanese industrialization 1500–1900], edited by Takeshi Hamashita and Heita Kawakatsu 浜下武志，川勝平太，pp. 52–67.  Tokyo: Riburo Poto. (New edition 2001, Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten.)Reid, Anthony.  2004.  Chinese Trade and Southeast Asian Economic Expansion in the Later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: An Overview.  In Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, edited by Nola Cook and Li Tana, pp. 21–34.  Singapore: NUS Press; London: Rowman & Littlefield.―.  1997.  A New Phase of Commercial Expansion in Southeast Asia, 1760–1850.  In The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750–1900, edited by Anthony Reid, pp. 57–81.  Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press.Sugihara Kaoru 杉原　薫.  2009.  The Resurgence of Intra-Asian Trade, 1800–1850.  In How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850, edited by Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy (with collaboration of Om Prakash and Kaoru Sugihara), pp. 139–169.  Leiden: Brill.―, ed.  2005. Japan, China and the Growth of the Asian International Economy, 1850–1949. Oxford: Oxford University Press.―.  1996. Ajia-kan Boeki no Keisei to Kozoアジア間貿易の形成と構造 [Formation and structure of intra-Asian trade].  Kyoto: Mineruva Shobo.―.  1985.  Ajia-kan Boeki no Keisei to Kozo アジア間貿易の形成と構造 [Formation and struc-ture of intra-Asian trade]. Shakai Keizai Shigaku社会経済史学 [Socio-economic history] 51(1): 17–53.

<Special Focus>Introduction: Reconstructing Intra-Southeast Asian Trade, c.1780–1870: Evidence of Regional Integration under the Regime of Colonial Free Trade

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<Special Focus>Introduction: Reconstructing Intra-Southeast Asian Trade, c.1780–1870: Evidence of Regional Integration under the Regime of Colonial Free Trade

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