The South China Sea Read Online Free PDF

good relations abroad and symbolically reinforced the domestic power of rulers against potential rivals. For the ‘tributaries’, it was just the formality required to gain access to the ports. It was this status as a ‘tributary relation’ that made Funan a gatekeeper both to the riches within its sphere of influence and to those over the far horizon.
    For almost three centuries Funan seems to have dominated the South China Sea trade, despite competition and attacks from its rivals. It used both diplomacy and force to maintain its position, coping with the ups and downs of the long-distance sea trade until the middle of the fourth century CE . Around that time high tolls and corruption in Chinese ports depressed business, out-of-work merchants turned to piracy and competing traders learnt to navigate their way around the Malay Peninsula, ending Funan's grip on the Isthmus of Kra. Merchants from other parts of Southeast Asia started to bypass Funan and deal directly with other ports further up the coast. Gradually Funan was eclipsed by its rivals. By the time sea trade revived again, after the fall of the Jin in China in 420 CE , it was other ports that would reap the benefits, in particular those further up the coast, in Champa.
    In contrast to Funan, where little remains, Champa has left massive monuments: great red brick towers dotted across what is now central Vietnam. Their Indian imagery is obvious; indeed even the name ‘Champa’ seems to have been borrowed from an Indian kingdom. Champa's roots lie in the Stone Age Sa Huynh culture that Wilhelm Solheim identified as part of the Nusantao network and its prosperity was built, like that of Funan before it, on a marriage between sea trade and the export of inland commodities: elephant ivory and rhino horn were two of the more exotic products which its forests could provide. Champa was not a centralised state, more a collection of settlements based in river valleys along the coast that recognised a main ruler. Throughout its thousand-year history, power frequently moved between the different valleys.
    Champa was rarely peaceful. It emerged out of the piracy that followed the decline in legitimate trade with China at the end of the fourth century. After the fall of the Jin, overland routes from China to the west were closed to southern China's new rulers, the Liu Song. As a result, they became dependent on maritime trade – which was being damaged by Champa's piracy. The threat was so bad that Liu Song forces invaded Champa in 446 and destroyed its capital. But they also declared themselves open to trade and Champa became an entrepôt – while continuing to tolerate, and sometimes encourage, piracy. At about the same time, Guangzhou on the Pearl River Delta became the main port of southern China and trade between the two – linked by the annual monsoon cycle – became highly profitable.
    But although Champa dominated maritime trade with China, it did not have a monopoly. Other trading ports began to develop relations too. The kingdom of Taruma in western Java and other rulers in Sumatra had sent embassies by 460. One thing all these places had in common was their adoption of elements of Indian religious and political culture: Hinduism at first and later Buddhism. Kingdoms referred to themselves by the Sanskrit term mandala – wheel – and the rulers as cakravartin – wheel-turner. They saw themselves as centres of networks, rather than states with defined borders. Their legitimacy came less from physical control over territory and more from recognition by other rulers. Relations between them were fluid and less powerful centres might have allegiances to more than one mandala . But this legitimacy needed to be backed up by military power. To maintain their centrality mandalas needed to be able to force subordinate polities into line when necessary.
    The use of ‘Indian’ ways of governing and the continuing spread of Indian religion in the region is evidence of