ABSTRACT
The Chinese economy has often been analysed from the viewpoint of her entire national economy. This chapter, however, focuses on local economies within various regions and relations between those regions. The chapter therefore discusses the structure of internal trade in China. The Chinese domestic market was one of the most important parts of the Asian market and Chinese merchants were critical to the dynamism of both markets. Shanghai was not only a significant port in the Chinese internal market, but also an important centre in the network of intraAsia trade, together with Singapore and Hong Kong (See Figure 6 .1) .
