MACAU, A CHINA E O JAPÃO : UMA RELAÇÃO HISTÓRICA (SÉCULOS XVI-XVII)
This article analyzes the historical evolution of relations between China and Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on the fundamental role of Macau as an intermediary entrepôt. The author contextualizes the diplomatic and commercial fluctuations between China and Japan sinc...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2003
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40006/2710 |
| Summary: | This article analyzes the historical evolution of relations between China and Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on the fundamental role of Macau as an intermediary entrepôt. The author contextualizes the diplomatic and commercial fluctuations between China and Japan since antiquity, highlighting the impact of the Mongol invasions and the emergence of *wako* piracy as a consequence of the restrictions on maritime trade imposed by the Ming dynasty. The study demonstrates how political instability and imperial prohibitions on direct trade created an economic vacuum that would come to be filled by the Portuguese.
The research emphasizes that the catalyst for this dynamic was the exploitation of rich silver mines in Japan from the 1530s onward, whose metal presented a value and quality superior to those of other Eastern markets. Faced with the Chinese need for silver and the Japanese demand for silk, Macau emerged as the indispensable link in a tripartite commercial system. Through a historiographical analysis grounded in the transition to the Early Modern period, Leonor Diaz Seabra concludes that Macau's prosperity resulted from its ability to mediate political tensions and economic complementarities between the two Asian powers, consolidating a trade route that defined the city's geopolitical relevance in the context of Southeast Asia. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |