ABSTRACT
Chinese governments had allowed both state and private trade to operate, but the Ming regime decided to close the private channel and leave open only the official one. Looking from the vantage point of Chinese economic power in Southeast Asia, this chapter aims to discuss search for the “big bills” in relation to its origin, which have been long ignored in the study of Chinese maritime history. It introduces the superiority of South and West Asians’ commercial power in Southeast Asia up to the end of Yuan dynasty and discusses the functions of Ming maritime policy in bringing about the power shift in Chinese favour. The chapter shows how the commercial interests of South and West Asians were almost completely eliminated in maritime Southeast Asia primarily as a result of the trade monopoly of the VOC. The Dutch VOC monopoly was restrictive to South and West Asians, but relatively opens to Chinese traders.
