The Reflection of Historical Diamond Economic Pathway in c.900–1650: Asia Pacific, China, and Maritime Silk Roads

Ali Akbar Anggara; Wei-Hwa Pan; Ching-Te Lin

doi:10.33581/ra0tqy51

Authors

Ali Akbar Anggara Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto, Central Java, Indonesia 53182
Wei-Hwa Pan Department of Business Administration, College of Management, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan 64002
Ching-Te Lin Department of Leisure Services Management, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan 413310

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33581/ra0tqy51

Keywords:

Maritime Silk Roads, Southeast Asia, Song–Ming China, Economic History, Global Trade Networks

Abstract

This article reinterprets the economic and cultural linkages between China, Southeast Asia, and the broader Asia–Pacific world during c.900–1650 through what may be termed a historical diamond economic pathway. At its core, the study situates Southeast Asia as the pivotal “axis” of the maritime silk roads that connected the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Drawing on textual, archaeological, and comparative historical sources, it reconstructs two principal phases of maritime development: the Song–Yuan commercial expansion (c.900–1350) and the Ming-era Age of Commerce (c.1400–1650). The findings highlight that, although overseas trade constituted a modest share of aggregate output, it played a transformative role in shaping coastal economies, technological diffusion, and cross-cultural exchange. Song liberalization of maritime policy, the Mongol maritime turn, and the Ming voyages under Zheng He each contributed to new circulation patterns of commodities such as ceramics, pepper, and cotton textiles. The paper also underscores the emergence of diasporic merchant networks as Arab, Indian, Malay, and Chinese that organized commerce through interlocking regional circuits. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative historical synthesis emphasizing multi-source triangulation and network interpretation. By re-envisioning the long-distance maritime economy as a “diamond” linking four vertices such as China, India, the Islamic world, and Southeast Asia the paper reframes the pre-modern global economy as a polycentric and interconnected system rather than a precursor to later European dominance.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989). Before European hegemony: The world system A.D. 1250–1350. Oxford University Press.

Anggara, A. A. (2025). A Strategic Competition Between China and Japan in the Indo-Pacific: Case From The Whoosh High-Speed Train Projects in Indonesia: 印太地区中日战略竞争: 以印尼 Whoosh 高速列车项目为案例. Studies in Science of Science, 43(11), 810-829.

Anggara, A. A., Aryoko, Y. P., Dewandaru, R. O., Kharismasyah, A. Y., & Fatchan, I. N. (2025). Does maintaining resources, diversification, and internationalization matter for achieving high firm performance? A sustainable competitiveness strategy for China Taipei firms. Sustainability, 17(4), 1576.

Brown, R. M. (2010). A Ming gap? Data from Southeast Asian shipwreck cargoes. In G. Wade & S. Laichen (Eds.), Southeast Asia in the fifteenth century: The China factor (pp. 359–383). NUS Press.

Bulbeck, D., Reid, A., Tan, L. C., & Wu, Y. (1998). Southeast Asian exports since the fourteenth century: Cloves, pepper, coffee, and sugar. KITLV Press.

Chan, H.-l. (1988). The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsüan-te reigns, 1399–1435. In F. W. Mote & D. Twitchett (Eds.), The Cambridge history of China (Vol. 7, The Ming dynasty, 1368–1644—Part I, pp. 182–304). Cambridge University Press.

Chang, P.-tsun. (2019). The rise of Chinese mercantile power in maritime Southeast Asia, c. 1400–1700. In G. Wade & J. K. Chin (Eds.), China and Southeast Asia: Historical interactions (pp. 221–240). Routledge.

Christie, J. W. (1998). Javanese markets and the Asian sea trade boom of the tenth to thirteenth centuries A.D. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 41(3), 344–381.

Findlay, R., & O’Rourke, K. H. (2007). Power and plenty: Trade, war, and the world economy in the second millennium. Princeton University Press.

Finlay, R. (1991). The treasure-ships of Zheng He: Chinese maritime imperialism in the Age of Discovery. Terrae Incognitae, 23(1), 1–12.

Hansen, V. (2020). The year 1000: When explorers connected the world—and globalization began. Penguin.

Heng, D. (2009). Sino-Malay trade and diplomacy from tenth through the fourteenth century. Ohio University Press.

Henley, D. (2015). Ages of commerce in Southeast Asian history. In D. Henley & H. G. C. Schulte Nordholt (Eds.), Environment, trade and society in Southeast Asia: A longue durée perspective (pp. 120–132). Brill.

Landa, J. T. (1985). Trust, ethnicity, and identity: Beyond new institutional economics of ethnic trading networks, contract law, and gift-exchange. University of Michigan Press.

Liao, D. (2019). The Portuguese occupation of Malacca in 1511 and China’s response. In G. Wade & J. K. Chin (Eds.), China and Southeast Asia: Historical interactions (pp. 130–155). Routledge.

Liu, X. (2022). Silk Road trade and foreign economic influences. In D. Ma & R. von Glahn (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of China (Vol. 1, To 1800, pp. 203–240). Cambridge University Press.

Lo, J.-p. (2012). China as a sea power, 1127–1368: A preliminary survey of the maritime expansion and naval exploits of the Chinese people during the Southern Song and Yuan periods (B. A. Elleman, Ed.). NUS Press. (Original work published 1957)

Manguin, P.-Y. (2010). New ships for new networks: Trends in shipbuilding in the South China Sea in the 15th and 16th centuries. In G. Wade & S. Laichen (Eds.), Southeast Asia in the fifteenth century: The China factor (pp. 333–358). NUS Press.

Morgan, S. L. (2021). The Chinese economy. Agenda Publishing.

Ng, C.-k. (2017). Boundaries and beyond: China’s maritime Southeast in late imperial times. NUS Press.

O’Rourke, K. H., & Williamson, J. G. (2009). Did Vasco da Gama matter for European markets? Economic History Review, 62(3), 655–684.

Parker, G. (2013). Global crisis: War, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century. Yale University Press.

Ptak, R. (1993). China and the trade in cloves, circa 960–1435. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113(1), 1–13.

Reid, A. (1988). Southeast Asia in the age of commerce 1450–1680: The land below the winds (Vol. 1). Yale University Press.

Reid, A. (1993). Southeast Asia in the age of commerce 1450–1680: Expansion and crisis (Vol. 2). Yale University Press.

Reid, A. (1996). Long-term Chinese interaction with Southeast Asia. In A. Reid (Ed.), Sojourners and settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese (pp. 15–50). Allen & Unwin.

Reid, A. (1999). Charting the shape of early modern Southeast Asia. Silkworm Books.

Reid, A. (2009). Southeast Asian consumption of Indian and British cotton cloth, 1600–1850. In G. Riello, T. Roy, & O. Prakash (Eds.), How India clothed the world: The world of South Asian textiles, 1500–1850 (pp. 31–51). Brill.

Reid, A. (2010). Hybrid identities in the 15th-century Straits. In G. Wade & S. Laichen (Eds.), Southeast Asia in the fifteenth century: The China factor (pp. 307–332). NUS Press.

Rogers, J. E. T. (1882). A history of agriculture and prices in England (Vol. 3: 1401–1582). Oxford. (Original work published 1866–1902)

Schottenhammer, A. (2021). Consolidating Southeast Asia and the meaning of force in history: Pax Ming and the case of Chen Zuyi 陳祖義. China & Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies, 1, 130–168.

Schottenhammer, A. (2022). Foreign trade. In D. Ma & R. von Glahn (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of China (Vol. 1, To 1800, pp. 637–675). Cambridge University Press.

Sen, T. (2014). Maritime Southeast Asia between South Asia and China to the sixteenth century. TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, 2(1), 31–59.

Sen, T. (2016). The impact of Zheng He’s expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions. Bulletin of SOAS, 79(3), 609–636.

Sen, T. (2017). India, China, and the world: A connected history. Rowman & Littlefield.

T’ien, J.-K. (1981). Chêng Ho’s voyages and the distribution of pepper in China. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (2), 186–197.

van Leur, J. C. (1955). Indonesian trade and society: Essays in Asian social and economic history. W. van Hoeve.

von Glahn, R. (2016). The economic history of China: From antiquity to the nineteenth century. Cambridge University Press.

Wade, G. (2008). Engaging the South: Ming China and Southeast Asia in the fifteenth century. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 51, 578–638.

Wade, G. (2009). An early age of commerce in Southeast Asia, 900–1300 CE. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40(2), 221–265.

Wheatley, P. (1959). Geographical notes on some commodities involved in Sung maritime trade. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 32(2), 3–139.

Wolters, O. W. (1967). Early Indonesian commerce: A study of the origins of Srīvijaya. Cornell University Press.