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137 SEVEN Economic Interests, Security Concerns, and the Tribute System Kangxi’s Response to Tokugawa Japan’s Licensing System O n June 4, 1701, a Manchu who could have been mistaken for a merchant sailed from Shanghai, one of many Chinese ports that had been open for trade with the outside world since 1684.1 Several days later, he suddenly appeared in Nagasaki, where not a soul could have guessed his identity or his mission. In 1978, nearly three hundred years later, his secret finally came to light: he was a low-ranking Manchu official named Morsen who had been dispatched by the Kangxi emperor to unearth the latest commercial news, in particular the nature of the trade then under way between Japan and China.2 When Kangxi was told that Morsen had set out on his voyage, he demanded to be informed the moment his spy returned.3 According to the Yongzheng emperor, the information collected on this trip had a profound effect on Kangxi’s decision to allow the Japan trade to continue.4 No other official is known to have been sent abroad for commercial espionage between 1300 and 1840.5 This indicates the importance the emperor placed on trade with Japan, which had been China’s main trade partner in East Asia since 1684.Among a myriad of other things,it provided about 60 percent of the copper used by the Qing in making coins. In other words,the stability of the imperial currency system rested on the Japan trade. On the other hand, Japan was a profound threat to regional security: in the sixteenth century it had provided safe haven to pirate bands harassing the China coast and also invaded Korea. Moreover, Japan was the only country in East Asia that refused to resume diplomatic ties to Qing China through the tributary channel.6 More important, the legacy left by the invasion of Korea in the 1590s made relations between Korea, Japan, and China sensitive and complicated. Under these complicated conditions, what policy did the Kangxi emperor and other Manchu rulers adopt? Since the early twentieth century, the history of Chinese trade with Japan has occupied the attention of Japanese scholars. But the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries remained largely unexamined until the 1980s.7 138 Chapter 7 Then came Matsuura Akira and Ōba Osamu, whose works on the Nagasaki trade laid the foundation for further explorations.8 Additionally, in the past two decades, Taiwanese scholars, notably Liu Xufeng, have published important articles on this trade, several of which have shed light on the copper question.9 Outside Japan and Taiwan, few scholars have contributed systematic studies to the field.10 Some have even pointed to the Manchu policy on Japanese trade as an example of the Qing’s supposedly closed maritime policy.11 In spite of this recent surge of interest, many relevant issues have remained unstudied. We still know very little about why the use of the Japanese calendar by Chinese private merchants in 1716 became a serious problem in the early eighteenth-century debate on the Nagasaki trade. In addition, little has been said about why Manchu rulers abandoned the traditional tributary discourse in handling trade with Japan, though they maintained tributary relations with all their other neighbors. Also, far more can be said about how Qing rulers balanced the economic benefits of the Japan trade against potential security problems. In this chapter I consider the Manchu policy on the Nagasaki trade in two historical contexts: first, the polarizing discourse of the tributary system ; second, China’s increasing hunger for silver and copper following the commercialization of the late sixteenth century. I focus on the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods because they were decisive—later emperors followed these earlier policies.12 1 To appreciate the trade policies of the Qing,it is important to begin with the Ming dynasty, whose experience contributed much to the Manchu perception of Japan and informed policy decisions. Before the Ming, private vessels carried most of the goods shipped from China to Japan.13 As noted, however, there was a historic switch in maritime policy during the Ming dynasty: private trade was for the first time completely prohibited and replaced with the tributary trade system . This change upset Japanese elites, who had long been able to acquire Chinese luxury goods without becoming entangled in dealings with the Chinese court.14 As it struggled with grave financial problems, the Ashikaga bakufu decided to try to develop trade with China.15...

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