The world of Manila, Macau, Batavia, Hoi An, Ayutthaya, Xiamen, and Taiwan was made by the maritime Chinese. It became the conduit for a long inflow of silver that had profound effects on the Chinese economy and society. Roman Catholicism and Chinese conversion to it were normal features of this milieu. For historically contingent reasons maritime China was deeply estranged from the Qing state and its dominant elites, and this estrangement contributed to the elites' profound ignorance of the maritime world that would batter down China's doors in the Opium War.
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Leonard Blussé, Strange Company
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Nicholas Standaert, Yang Tingyun
David Mungello, The Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou
Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune
Ronald P.Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan
Wills, Pepper, Guns, and Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and China, 1662-1681. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Wills, Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K'ang-hsi, 1666-1687, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Wills, ed., Eclipsed Entrepots of the Western Pacific: Taiwan and Central Vietnam, 1500-1800. Aldershot and Burliington VT: Ashgate, 2002.
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