Southeast Asia, China, and the ‘maritime Silk Roads’, c.900-1650

Abstract

Southeast Asia was at the centre of the global economy between the tenth and seventeenth centuries. Some of its ports became important entrepôts of the ‘maritime silk roads,’ a network of routes and communities that linked the wealthy empires from West and South Asia with those of East Asia. The trade flows comprised high-value luxury goods like fragrances, ceramics, gems, and fine textiles consumed by elites and later more widely consumed lower-value textiles, earthenware, and foods. Complex multi-layered networks and diaspora communities of merchants, artisans, and seaman along these sea routes enabled the flow of goods, people, information, and technologies.