Offshore Asia: Maritime Interactions in Eastern Asia before Steamships

8. Shipwreck Salvage and Survivors' Repatriation Networks of the East Asian Rim in the Qing Dynasty

8 SHIPWRECK SALVAGE AND SURVIVORS’ REPATRIATION NETWORKS OF THE EAST ASIAN RIM IN THE QING DYNASTY LIU Shiuh-feng Spurred by both the increasing collaboration between East Asian countries in research and more released or published historical data, topics related to the history of international exchanges in the maritime world surrounding China are drawing the interest of the academic community. Research on shipwrecks in East Asia focusing on China, Japan, Ryukyu and Korea in particular has produced a wealth of papers. But overall, their topics tend to focus on the salvage activities or individual events in a country or between two regions. Works dealing with salvage activities and repatriation systems covering the entire China seas and multiple countries are still few in number. This chapter intends to look into the mutual aid and repatriation cooperation between East Asian countries regarding shipwreck salvage and survivors from the 17th to mid-19th centuries and, thereby, to substantiate the existence of fixed repatriation routes and transit 212 Liu Shiuh-feng Map 8.1 Shipwreck Survivor Repatriation Networks of the East Asian Rim in the 18th Century Shipwreck Salvage and Survivors’ Repatriation Networks 213 harbours between regions. These routes were also intimately related to the international trade network within the traditional world order of East Asia. In this chapter, we dub this intricate network the “shipwreck survivors’ repatriation network”. The period covered in this chapter ends around the 1850s as the world order in East Asia was going through radical changes. The AngloChinese Treaty of Nanking signed in 1842 following the Opium War and subsequent appended treaties forced China to cede Hong Kong to the British Empire and to open such ports as Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai for foreign trade. Other Western nations hastened to take advantage of the situation to negotiate treaties with China that would allow their ships to sail freely in the opened ports. At about the same time, Japan, Korea and Ryukyu also opened up their ports to Western trade. As the traditional order in East Asia gradually crumbled, the ways by which countries handled and repatriated foreign shipwreck survivors also changed. How East Asian countries dealt with foreign civilians rescued from the sea after the mid-19th century is another topic for research. THE FORMATION OF THE EAST ASIAN SHIPWRECK SALVAGE AND SURVIVORS’ REPATRIATION SYSTEM The East Asian waters in the 17th century were essentially closed as a result of the maritime ban by China’s Ming and Qing regimes and Japan’s Sakoku (national seclusion) policy. Nevertheless, the ban did not completely stop people of the coastal communities from engaging in activities at sea, and maritime accidents in the event of natural disasters never ceased to occur. The handling and repatriation of foreign shipwreck survivors always involved international interactions. Under normal circumstances, the safe repatriation of the civilians was ensured only if they had drifted to a country with which their home country had diplomatic ties or trade relations, or drifted to an area where a friendly government had jurisdiction. Arano Yasunori has provided considerable insight in his comprehensive research on the shipwreck survivor repatriation system between Japan and China, Korea, and Ryukyu in the 17th and 18th centuries.1 His subsequent investigations of the shipwreck salvage and survivor repatriation between China and Japan, China and Ryukyu, China and Korea, Japan and Korea, and Korea and Ryukyu also offered valuable information.2 But as described earlier, studies on the shipwreck salvage and repatriation activities in East 214 Liu Shiuh-feng Asia involving multiple countries have been scarce. The studies by Arano Yasunori primarily made use of Japanese historical data. He did not elaborate on the situations inside China nor on the shipwreck salvage systems of other countries. Building on prior research and using hitherto neglected historical documents, this chapter attempts to explore the shipwreck salvage and survivor repatriation networks of the East Asian rim. The chaos in the East Asian waters during the late Ming and early Qing quietened down gradually after the Qing Dynasty unified China with the surrender of the Zheng regime in Taiwan in 1683. In 1684, the Qing government lifted the maritime ban and issued an imperial decree, ordering the Board of Rites to inform China’s tributary states to render aid to Chinese ships that had floated into their territories, and to repatriate survivors.3 Similarly, China would do the same for foreign shipwreck survivors. The government policies in...