John M. Jackson
jojacks2[at]vt.edu
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Barbarians at the Gate
Sino-Portuguese Relations, 1514-1522
copyright © John M. Jackson, 2004
With British victory in the Opium War of 1842, the once-formidable Chinese Empire was thrown into disarray. In ending the war, the Treaty of Nanking (and the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue) "opened China to the West and marked the beginning of a century of imperialist exploitation (Wakeman 137)." By extension, these initial "unequal treaties" can be credited with the Ch'ing Dynasty's eventual downfall and the rise of Communist power
Far from being a sudden onslaught, however, the Opium War was the culmination of East-West conflicts that had escalated since Portugal's "re-discovery" of China 300 years earlier. Almost from the beginning, the two cultures clashed; the first eight years of the Portuguese presence in China (1514-1522) served as a prophetic prelude to later events. China's initial relationship with Portugal, the empire's first significant, sustained contact with western Europe, was plagued by mutual arrogance, misunderstanding and distrust--characteristics that set precedents for future East-West relations. In this paper, I hope to show that the events of 1514-1522 were direct results of the ethnocentrism of two strong, divergent cultures and that they foreshadowed the conflicts arising in subsequent Sino-European relations.
As important as these events were, they have received relatively little attention from modern scholars. Writing in 1934, T'ien-tse Chang theorized that the neglect of early Sino-Portuguese relations could be explained by the nature of the surviving documentation. "Although important material exists," he wrote, "it has lain hidden in languages... which are either not much studied by Western historians, or unfamiliar to Chinese scholars" (1). Apart from Chang's work, the situation has remained largely unchanged. One historian, Ronald Bishop Smith, has mined much of the primary source material in Portuguese archives, but he seems to have had little interest in translating the material into English
One recent English-language work which may have proved helpful is Le-min Chen's Unexpected Visitors from the Iberian Peninsula. Unfortunately, this book--along with other potentially useful works--are rare and could not be obtained. Therefore, much of the research for this paper has relied upon general histories of Sino-European interaction. Although these sources are not exhaustive studies of the Portuguese in China, they provide important background for understanding the problems that arose in this first age of China's experience with the West.
To say that the two cultures--European and Chinese--existed in complete isolation from one another before 1514 would be a misstatement, however. There were several periods in history when it seemed that East and West would be permanently linked; each time, circumstances prevented the two cultures from maintaining significant ties.
The demand for Chinese silk in the Roman marketplace first brought China and the West into indirect contact through intermediary traders of western Asia. Deprived of reliable descriptions of China, the Romans invented fantastic myths regarding the people and lands of the distant East. These legends of eastern savages reinforced Rome's self-image as the world's cultural epicenter (Franke 1-2).
Unhappy with their dependence on Asian middlemen, Roman merchants established a direct sea route to China in the second century A.D. Though the new route did not transport large amounts of silk, the competition it gave the eastern traders made the fabric an affordable commodity for the masses (Hudson 76-77). Roman contact with China was short-lived, however. Even as the westerners dispatched unofficial merchant "embassies" to the Chinese court in the third century (Chang 2-3, Hudson 90), the Roman empire was losing vitality. Although the Romans had been able to introduce their empire's products--chiefly glass and textiles--to the Chinese marketplace (Hudson 96), there was not sufficient demand for Roman goods to make the Chinese seek out trade. Thus, the two powers soon lost contact with one another.
It was another millennium before China and the West re-established any form of significant direct communication. In the interim, the silkworm had been introduced to Europe (Hudson 120) and Nestorian Christianity had found its way to China (Cameron 19). China continued to have a vigorous trade, but its foreign contacts were restricted to Arabs and Persians, who maintained a strong presence in the Far East (Franke 7).
The Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century provided another opportunity for the two cultures to develop permanent ties. "When the Mongols unified Eurasia during the Yuan period," Wakeman writes, "it was momentarily possible for merchants like Marco Polo to travel under the protection of the great Khan all the way from the eastern Mediterranean to Peking" (112). Polo's account of his 17 years as an officer in Kublai Khan's court provided the West with its first in-depth description of China--albeit from an imperial Manchu point of view (Franke 12). Clinging to ancient myths surrounding the East, Polo's contemporaries found his description of the Mongol empire unbelievable (Franke 14-15). Still, Europe looked to the Mongol Empire optimistically, as the West searched for allies against its Moslem enemies (Hudson 135). Communication and trade between East and West flourished during the Yuan period. Especially significant to the Europeans was access to the spice trade of the Far East (Hudson 160).
The establishment of the native, conservative Ming Dynasty in 1368 again closed China to the West. With Moslems controlling the lands and seas dividing them, Europe and China were further isolated from one another for the next 150 years (Cameron 124). During the Mongol hegemony, Europe had become increasingly dependent upon the spices of East Asia--spices that were useful in improving the taste of winter-stored meats (Cameron (127). After the Ming's establishment, the European demand for spice proved a windfall for the traders of western Asia, who sated the European spice demand at an enormous profit for themselves. Just as it had with the ancient silk trade, Europe's isolation from China made it dependent upon middlemen for eastern goods (Cameron 127). And just as the earlier silk monopoly had spurred Roman exploration, so too did the spice monopoly incite Europeans to seek alternative routes to Asia.
The search for new eastern routes was not a cooperative one; the late fifteenth century found the major European powers competing to capture Asia's lucrative spice trade. In this struggle to reach the East by ocean, perhaps no other nation was better prepared than Portugal. Bounded on the east by Spain, the Portuguese had early established a strong economic link to the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal's long coastline fostered the development of strong maritime trade and nautical superiority. Meticulous cartography and skillful shipbuilding lent the Portuguese added advantages in maritime exploration (Boxer 27).
Not only were the Portuguese more prepared for exploration than most other powers, they were perhaps more motivated as well. Long-standing conflicts with Islam made the Portuguese drive to the East a religious crusade as much as an economic one. Writes Boxer, "It was this mixture of the deeper passions--greed, wolfish, inexorable, insatiable, combined with religious passion, harsh, unassailable, death-dedicated--that drove the Portuguese remorselessly on" (xxii).
As the Portuguese searched for a way to circumnavigate Africa and reach the East, they sought to spread the domain of Christendom. They were sanctioned in their efforts by a Papal Bull of 1455 which granted them carte blanche to "subdue and to convert pagans (even if untainted by Muslim influence) who may be encountered in the regions lying between Morocco and the Indies" (Boxer 21). With papal authority, the Portuguese conquered those peoples they encountered. As the "discoverers" of new lands, they felt no remorse for the atrocities they visited on natives (Chang 66). On the contrary, the Portuguese regarded these new lands as theirs to enjoy and exploit as they wished. Furthermore, states Chang, "Considering themselves the vassals of God, they justified themselves in whatever they did to the 'heathens' of Asia" (67).
The Portuguese juggernaut continued rapidly south along the African coast, then around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean by 1495. The Portuguese raped, pillaged and plundered with a philosophy that equated trade with piracy and piety with conquest. Ever victorious against weaker powers, the Portuguese may have felt they were divinely blessed. It was only when the Westerners entered China that their invasion was countered by a power that--at that time--could match their own.
While the strength of Portugal was based largely upon the recent scientific advances of Europe's explosive Renaissance, China's own technological achievements had been acquired through centuries of steady technological development (Cameron 127, Franke 5). Even as Europe was making monumental leaps forward, however, Chinese culture had become somewhat static. The empire's technological acumen was perhaps dulled by complacency and a conservative dynasty, apprehensive of threats to its rule (Cameron 123). Still, China remained the East's dominant power.
Although the Chinese were perhaps no less ethnocentric than the Europeans, their arrogance manifested itself much differently. Since the earliest of times, the Chinese had regarded all other peoples as yi, or "barbarians" (Cameron 13). Though they were able to distinguish differences among other cultures, the Chinese placed these cultures together at the bottom of a social hierarchy that left room for only themselves at the top (Wakeman) 111). China had been, in fact, the most developed Asian culture for centuries. Through long-standing tradition, the lesser nations of Asia acknowledged China's dominance by dispatching gifts via tribute missions to the Chinese court. These missions did little to inflate dynastic coffers; as a show of their largesse, the Chinese reciprocated with gifts to their tributaries that were even more valuable than those received (Chang 27). Rather, these tributes were important in reinforcing the image of China as a benevolent paternal figure to other nations.
The Chinese hierarchical ideal did not go unchallenged, however. The Japanese and Mongols, for example, were little inclined to concede Chinese superiority. "Yet," as Wakeman writes, "there were enough countries seeking trade and intercourse with China who paid their respects as tributaries to lend credence to the ideal" (111). Though it recognized the military strength of other nations, China never relinquished its self-perception as the Central Kingdom--the home of true civilization. Through years of contact with their militant neighbors, the Chinese had learned to appease them--to "manage the barbarians"--and still gratify their own conceit. The arrival of the unfamiliar, imposing Portuguese in Asia would eventually present a new challenge to China's position in the cultural hierarchy.
Chinese merchants first encountered the Portuguese at Malacca in 1511 (Chang 33). In the 16 years since the Portuguese had first entered the Indian Ocean, they had effectively ousted the Arabs and replaced them as the intermediary between Europe and Central Asia (Hudson 193). Not complacent with their prior successes, the Portuguese continued looking for opportunities to expand their new Asian empire. In 1509, the Portuguese sailed east to Malacca seeking spices and information about the Chinese, of whom they had heard reports since first landing in India in 1498 (Franke 19). As the gateway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Malacca was an important trading center. Though Ming China had largely withdrawn from maritime trade, its merchants still sailed to Malacca. The island was, in fact, one of the many Chinese tributaries (Hudson 195).
At Malacca, the Portuguese--under Lopes de Sequiera--found an entrenched Arab mercantile presence. Jealously clinging to their last stronghold in the Far East, the Arabs persuaded the Malaccan sultan to attack the newly arrived Portuguese. Sequiera escaped, but not before many of his men were captured or killed (Hudson 199).
While the Portuguese returned to India and considered their defeat, the Sultan of Malacca became involved in a petty war with a rival kingdom. In 1511, the sultan apparently forgot his place in the Chinese empire. He requisitioned the junks and crews of visiting Chinese merchants to transport his troops in battle (Chang 33, Hudson 199).
Meanwhile, Affonso de Albuquerque--the newly appointed viceroy of India--had arrived at Malacca with a new fleet of 18 Portuguese ships and began negotiations for trade concessions and the return of Portuguese prisoners (Hudson 199). When these negotiations collapsed, Albuquerque prepared to lay siege to the city. As he did so, the Chinese merchants--indignant at Malaccan presumptuousness--offered their assistance to Albuquerque. The Chinese were much impressed when Albuquerque declined, expressing concern for the merchants' safety. Actually, wrote Hudson, the Portuguese were probably more interested in insuring that they would be the sole beneficiaries of victory's spoils (201).
So ended the first Sino-Portuguese contact. The Chinese merchants returned home and reported Portugal's military strength and apparent friendly intentions toward the empire. They also reported the insubordinate actions of the Malaccan sultan. The Portuguese, meanwhile, had conquered Malacca and immediately set about administering their new possession. Albuquerque left a protective force in Malacca and returned to India, dispatching reports to Portugal's King Manoel and awaiting further instructions regarding the Chinese (Hudson 202).
Perhaps impatient with official channels, Portuguese merchants were undertaking their own voyages to China by 1514. Though sanctioned by Jorge de Albuquerque, the new governor of Malacca, these initial missions had no official status. Rather, they were private efforts to assess the feasibility of developing trade relations with the Chinese (Franke 20).
The first of these "merchant embassies" was headed by Jorge Alvarez, who landed at the Chinese island of Tunmen if 1514. Here, Alvarez erected a stone monument bearing the Portuguese coat-of-arms and engaged in trade (Franke 200). Alvarez's stay on Tunmen was a commercial success. He not only witnessed the abundant riches of China, but also sold his own goods at great profit. Alvarez soon observed that there was as great an economic potential in transporting south Asian spices to China as in sending them on to Europe (Hudson 202-203).
In a letter written in 1515, Italian Andrea Corsali described Alvarez's voyage. The Italian granted high praise to the Chinese. "They are a people of great skill," he wrote, "and on a par with ourselves." Even here, though, the idea of European superiority is apparent. Though Corsali acknowledged that the wealth and skill of the Chinese matched Europeans', he described the Chinese as being "of an uglier aspect, with little bits of eyes." The Chinese were also, in Corsali's estimation, "pagans" (Chang 36).
Even before first-hand descriptions of China's wealth reached Europe, the Portuguese were preparing for an official diplomatic mission. On April 7, 1515, Fernao Peres d'Andrade sailed from Lisbon bound for India. There, he would assemble a flotilla and sail for China via Malacca (Chang 38). After several misadventures, d'Andrade left Malacca in June 1517. Accompanying him was Tomaso Pires, a Portuguese apothecary who was fated to serve as the Portuguese ambassador to Beijing (Cameron 133).
Upon arriving in the Bay of Canton in August 1517, d'Andrade applied to the local pei-wo--the coast guard commander--for permission to proceed to Canton. After a delay of some days, the pei-wo granted his permission (overstepping his authority in doing so), and d'Andrade sailed up the Pearl River to Canton (Chang 41).
At Canton, d'Andrade committed the first of many Western blunders; he ordered his ships to hoist their flags and fire a cannon salute (Cameron 134-135). The Chinese were outraged by what they considered an open display of aggression in a port of trade. Though they were ostensibly pacified when d'Andrade explained that these actions were intended as displays of respect, the Chinese long remembered the breach of conduct. Writes Franke, "Thus began the long series of misunderstandings, mutual mistrust, and contempt, which were to cause so much harm in the future, and which right up to the present time are characteristic of the relations between China and the West" (21).
Despite his early faux pas, d'Andrade seems to have conducted himself well and regained Chinese good will. Appeased by d'Andrade's apologetic manner, the Chinese allowed him to engage in trade and to land his embassy. Illnesses among his crew and threats of piracy to the force he had left at Tunmen forced d'Andrade to shorten his visit, however. The Portuguese commander returned with his squadron to Malacca, but not before offering remuneration to any Chinese who held claims against the foreigners (Cameron 138).
The Portuguese embassy, under Pires, remained in Canton, where they were schooled in Chinese protocol. The local Bureau of Trading Junks superintendent, Ku Ying-hsian, finding no precedent for relations with the Portuguese, prepared a report for the throne and awaited permission to send the embassy to Beijing (Franke 21).
While Pires awaited word from Beijing, another Portuguese flotilla arrived at Tunmen in August 1519. Led by Simao d'Andrade, a brother of Fernao, this second mission rapidly destroyed any good will that the earlier mission had established (Chang 47, Cameron 143). Through arrogance and avarice, Simao d'Andrade reinforced the Chinese perception of the Portuguese as merely another horde of barbarians. Under d'Andrade, the Portuguese erected fortresses on Tunmen and assumed control of the island's commerce (Chang 47-48). Encountering no opposition, they settled in and practiced the methods that had already earned the Portuguese so much wealth and hatred elsewhere in Asia. They refused to pay customs duties, beat a Chinese customs official, and generally ignored Chinese authority. Moreover, the Portuguese incited local brigands to attack villages on the mainland and took captives to export as slaves (Franke 27, Cameron 143-144). Soon, rumors radiated out from Canton about these new barbarians, and the Portuguese reputation for savagery knew no bounds. Tales of Portuguese cannibalism--however unlikely--illustrated the view that the Chinese had of their new visitors (Cameron 143). Considering the many real atrocities committed by the Portuguese, it is not surprising that the Chinese could believe them capable of this one as well.
Meanwhile, Pires and his companions lingered in Canton, awaiting permission to journey to Beijing for an interview with the Wu-tsung Emperor. Finally, in 1520, permission was granted; the Canton officials had been bribed not to inform the court of Simao d'Andrade's misdeeds (Chang 49). On January 23, Pires left for Beijing with his entourage, gifts for the emperor, and a letter from King Manoel (Cameron 142).
Peres' mission proved a total failure. When opened at Beijing, the original letter from Manoel to the Wu-tsung Emperor differed greatly from the translation prepared by Chinese interpreters. Though the interpreters claimed the translation had been altered to reflect Chinese customs of address, the court believed it an act of duplicity; they also found Manoel's letter to be arrogant and presumptuous. After all, the court considered Pires a tribute-bearer, not the representative of an equal nation.
Unfortunately for Pires--and East-West relations--his arrival at Beijing also closely coincided with belated news from Canton of d'Andrade's activities. Accompanying this blow to Pires' credibility was an envoy from the Malaccan sultan, eager to remind the court that Portugal had seized Malacca--a Chinese tributary--just nine years earlier (Cameron 142-143). Surprisingly, even after the many charges had been leveled against the Portuguese, Emperor Wu-tsung defended them. "These people do not know our customs," he said; "gradually, they will learn them" (Chang 50).
Two high court officials, Ch'iu Tao-lung and Ho Ao, were less forgiving, however. They reiterated the aggressions of the Portuguese: the seizure of Malacca and the conduct of Simao d'Andrade. Neither did they forget Fernao d'Andrade's firing of cannon at Canton in 1515. In recounting the Portuguese offenses, Ho assailed the presence of foreigners in China as a threat to the empire's well-being. While Ch'iu's suggestions centered on restoration of the Malacca tributary, Ho argued for the expulsion of all foreigners from China (Chang 51). Due in large part to Ch'iu and Ho's influence, Pires and the other Portuguese were declared spies and ordered to be escorted back to Canton. They arrived there in August 1521 and were to be detained while the Chinese considered their fate (Cameron 144). (As events unfolded on the coast, the embassy's fate was sealed; the would languish and die in Canton prisons (Wakeman 114.))
As Pires returned to Canton, orders came from Beijing that all trade was to cease and all foreigners be expelled. A new Portuguese merchant fleet had just arrived at Canton, however, and refused to depart. It was perhaps inevitable that armed conflict would erupt; their patience taxed beyond endurance, the Chinese attacked. Though reinforced and possessing superior artillery, the small Portuguese fleet was greatly outnumbered. After a long stand-off and a final fierce battle, the remaining Portuguese force escaped and returned to Malacca (Chang 54-55).
Apparently unaware of the situation's gravity, the Portuguese sent another fleet--commanded by Martim Affonso de Mello Coutinho--to Tunmen in July 1522. Not long after their arrival there, another naval battle ensued, and the Portuguese were again repelled (Chang 60). The Chinese likely congratulated themselves for their victory over the European barbarians. The empire had been purged of its threat from foreigners, and China could again bask in the glow of its own self-aggrandizement.
China's economy had become too dependent on trade to remain economically isolated for long, however. By 1530, Canton was again opened to trade--though not to the Portuguese (Franke 30). Instead, the Portuguese spent the next few decades trading covertly off the Chinese coast while currying the Ming Dynasty's favor. Eventually, they were permitted to return to trade in China. In 1557, the Chinese allowed them to establish a trading post on Macao, south of Canton. Acting as trade intermediaries between a feuding Japan and China, the Portuguese developed a lucrative trade at Macao that would last many years (Wakeman 114-115). Though China still considered the Portuguese barbaric, the trade the foreigners brought the empire earned them a grudging toleration. China managed these new barbarians by officially ignoring them and maintaining a strictly commercial relationship (Hudson 238).
The Portuguese were not the only Europeans building empires, however. As Boxer writes, "[The Portuguese] had awakened Europe, and the Dutch and the British were within a hundred years of their discoveries yapping at their heels, wolfish with greed" (xx). While the Chinese were largely able to deal with foreigners on their own terms for the next few centuries, they steadily lost ground to the West. Their early achievements had instilled in the Chinese a sense of inherent superiority, and the resultant isolationism and self-acclamation allowed the West time to bridge the technological gap. And while Europe was as confident of its own superiority as the Chinese, the Westerners had no reservations about foisting their culture on other peoples. Face with such an imposing force, the Chinese empire would pay dearly for its complacency. The Chinese were, in Hudson's words, "destined in the nineteenth century and after to be violently invaded, overwhelmed and radically transformed by the progressing civilization of the West" (236).
With the arrival of Portuguese traders off China's coast in 1514, East and West were finally--and irrevocably--linked. The next three centuries would be marked by appraisal, disparagement, conflict, and finally, war. In reviewing the events of 1514-1522, then, we can see the commencement of what Cameron calls "a tale of tragic confrontation: a clash arising from what is perhaps one of the fundamental misapprehensions of history--the idea that one race or people is innately superior to another" (13). Indeed, during this first age of Sino-European relations, neither party was innocent of such arrogance.
Works Cited
- Boxer, C. R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825. New York: Knopf, 1969
- Cameron, Nigel. Barbarians and Mandarins: Thirteen Centuries of Western Travelers in China. New York: Walker/Weatherhill, 1970.
- Chang, T'ien-tse. Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514-1644: a Synthesis of Portuguese and Chinese Sources. 1934. New York: AMS Press, 1973.
- Franke, Wolfgang. China and the West. Trans. R. A. Wilson. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1967.
- Hudson, G. F. Europe and China. Boston: Beacon Press, 1931.
- Wakeman, Frederic Jr. The Fall of Imperial China. New York: Macmillan-Free Press, 1975.