ABSTRACT
A reminder of the hazards of a Eurocentric approach to the phenomenon of piracy, this chapter studies interactions between the Qing regime and pirates. Late imperial China saw the development of three overlapping maritime “regimes” along its coasts, namely, the imperial dynastic power, the European overseas enterprise, and the “pirates” themselves. Notably, the latter two regimes challenged the first in various ways. A reassessment of the Qing imperial claims of sovereignty in the face of activities labelled as piracy provides crucial understanding of the way empire was constructed. One may point at both parallels and dissimilarities between East Asian and Western forms of piracy, revealing how the various players off China’s coasts contended with each other over maritime space.
