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Pinqua’s example is one of the few we have of an outside merchant working for many years as a successful porcelain dealer and then becoming a Hong merchant. At the time of his appointment in 1782, Pinqua had thirty-five years of experience dealing with foreigners and had earned a good reputation as a dependable and trustworthy merchant. However, despite that past experience, it proved to be insufficient to overcome the challenges he faced as a Hong merchant. Not only did that new position require him to trade in a much wider variety of goods, but Pinqua also had to assume the debts of failed men, which meant he needed to trade in much larger volumes in order to generate enough income to service those payments. As a Hong merchant, he was called upon by Chinese officials — including the emperor — to supplement administrative budgets when they failed to meet the needs at hand. Even though Pinqua was said to be ‘rich’ when he began his appointment, within five years he was having serious cash flow problems. Pinqua’s demise is testimony to the negative influences that surrounded the Hong merchants and led to most of their businesses ending in failure.
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Anqua was a prominent Chinese merchant who was active in Amoy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He supplied cargos to the ships of the East India companies as well as private vessels from India. In the early years of the eighteenth century, Anqua had a falling out with officials in Amoy which resulted in his business accumulating a substantial debt. He nonetheless continued to trade with foreigners and he owned a junk which sailed to Canton. In 1704, Anqua relocated to Ningbo and Chusan where he continued to supply cargos to foreign ships. He eventually gained the favour of an official in Beijing, who honoured him with a special licence to trade. In 1713, Anqua moved to Canton, but he was not able to gain a foothold in the trade there, as he had previously done in Amoy. In 1723, he returned to Amoy, and then disappears from the records.
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The Canton Register
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Leanqua and Anqua were prominent merchants in China who were unknowingly two of the founding fathers of what later became known as the Canton System 'yikou tongshang' (一口通商). The Qing government opened China to foreign trade in 1684, but it took several decades of experimenting with different policies before a common set of regulations emerged. The two partners operated in the period from 1685 to 1720, so they experienced at first hand all of the difficulties during these early years of the development. They were involved in both the Chinese junk trade to Southeast Asia and the foreign trade at Canton. They had very extensive connections with suppliers in China's interior and they regularly dealt with prominent merchants throughout Southeast Asia, including Java, Malaysia, and Siam. They also developed close relations with officers of the Dutch, English, and French East India companies.
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This collection of articles transcends our usual time markers by covering the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Crossing the traditional historical barriers can often lead to new discoveries. When we explore interactions beyond traditional borders we often find continuities where there were previously only divisions and similarities where there were only differences. The case studies in this volume discuss a wide range of topics from economics, cross-dressing and extraterritoriality to personal biographies, Chinese art and Confucian education. They provide a broad view of China’s interactions with the outside world over a 150-year period.
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- Journal Article (6)