CHINA
TRADE'S GLORIOUS EMPIRE
ea:
'It purifies the blood, dispels heavy dreams, chases away
stupidity, and strengthens Venus.' At the outset, Europeans
drank tea mainly for medicinal reasons. When they started
to drink it for social reasons as well during the first half
of the eighteenth century, China's ports began to attract
an ever-greater number of western merchants. With much of
Europe hooked on the drink, the VOC
and other European companies lined up in Canton to get a piece
of the action. European traders offered silver, tin, pepper,
sandalwood, birdsnests and other tropical import products
as barter to purchase tea and porcelain.

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Tea
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Batavia: City at the Crossroads
n
1619, the VOC decided to establish
its headquarters at the crossroads of the intra-Ocean traffic.
The location chosen, Jacatra (renamed Batavia), was close
to the Portuguese-dominated Straits of Melaka, where the traffic
lanes from both the Indian Ocean and the China Sea came together.
Both the Dutch and Chinese had interests in common in the
Southeast Asian markets, and both strongly affected the fortunes
of insular Southeast Asia.
The Formosa Experiment
rom
their centre at Batavia, the VOC
tried to capture a share of the China Sea trade, especially
that from Fujian. Shortly after the initial conquest of Jakatra,
Governor General Jan Pieterszoon Coen felt bold enough to
attack the Portuguese trading post at Macao in order to break
the China-Manila trade connection. In the end, violent Dutch
attempts to exert dominion over the Chinese coastal settlements
failed. The Dutch instead settled down on Taiwan (Formosa)
in 1624. During the late 1630s, the connection between Batavia
and Taiwan grew into a principal trade link in the Indies
for the VOC , which imported silk
from Amoy, and later Tonkin, through Taiwan to trade for Japanese
silver.
Until the victory of Ming China under Cheng Ch'engkung
('Coxinga') over the VOC and consequently
the fall of Fort Zeelandia in 1662, the Company exercised
almost 40 years of political, economic and religious control
over the native Formosans. Dutch-Chinese commercial and agricultural
activities attracted the first wave of Chinese immigrants
to the island. VOC sources, such
as the recently published four volume 'Daghregisters' (accounts
of daily affairs) of Fort Zeelandia, form the single most
important historical resource for the study of pre-Chinese
Formosan society
China's Junks, Dutch Treasure
fter
the loss of Taiwan, the VOC was
not able to establish any form of direct trade with China
again. Military expeditions, diplomatic missions to Peking,
and endless pourparlers in Fuzhou were all in vain. Chinese
junks only began to sail to Batavia in great numbers after
the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1683, when Peking liberalized
the overseas junk trade of the southern provinces to Southeast
Asia. The period between 1690 and 1740 was the heyday of this
revitalized junk trade, primarily between Amoy and Batavia.
The junks brought valuable shiploads of saltpetre, raw silk,
porcelain and tea to Batavia, while the Chinese nachodas returned
with the pepper, textiles, and cloves much sought-after in
China.
The New Market of Canton
he
rapid increase in tea consumption throughout Europe was the
immediate reason that English traders began to navigate directly
from London to Canton in 1697. The VOC
in Batavia relied on revenue from the yearly cargoes of tea
brought in by Chinese junks. Imperial trade restrictions and
growing European competition, however, led to the VOC
decision in 1728 to navigate directly from Amsterdam to Canton
and Macao. A chain of Chinese trading houses or hong at Canton
then served as intermediate offices for the European tea trade.
When prices in Europe dropped owing to strong competition,
the Dutch tea trade came under regulation by a special VOC
China Commissie in 1756. Until the 19th century, China remained
the only major supplier of tea to the world market, and until
its dissolution the VOC remained
a major player in the global tea trade.
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