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Chinese Settlement in the Mekong River Delta, 1400-1700: A New Interpretation

It is commonly assumed that a sustained Chinese presence in the Mekong River Delta first occurred during the late seventeenth century, when Ming loyalist refugees fleeing from their homeland sought and received permission from the Nguyen lord of Cochinchina, in present-day central-southern Vietnam, to settle down and open up the land. In fact, a close examination of primary documents, some of them rarely utilized, reveals that the Chinese presence in the delta long preceded the seventeenth century. Moreover, the Ming loyalists themselves were independent actors who participated in the scramble for this sparsely populated frontier through cooperation and competition with Cochinchina, Cambodia, and Siam, as well as strategic submission to one or more of the three state actors. At the same time, they faced opportunities and constraints in the politics of their homeland, including the triumph of the Manchus and China's reemergence as a naval power. Through an examination of Chinese settlement in the Mekong Delta, this talk highlights how they reflected and contributed to the "Chinese century" in eighteenth-century Southeast Asia. Xing Hang is Associate Professor of History at Brandeis University. His interests include early modern maritime East Asia, Eurasian comparative history, and overseas Chinese. He is the author of the Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c.1620-1720 (2015). He is currently working on a project about Chinese settlement and state-building on the Vietnam-Cambodia border during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. UHM Chinese historian Wensheng Wang and Southeast-Asian anthropologist Miriam Stark will discuss his remarks. This talk is co-sponsored with the UHM Department of History & the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Event Sponsor
Center for Chinese Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Pauli Tashima, 808-956-2663, china@hawaii.edu, , Mekong Delta Webinar (PDF)