Chinese Overlordship and Western Penetration in Maritime Asia: A Late Ch'ing Reappraisal of Chinese Maritime Relations

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Abstract
Historians have attached a great deal of importance to Wei Yüan's geopolitical work, the Hai-kuo t'u-chih (The illustrated treatise on the maritime kingdoms), because of its use of Western source materials and its treatment of the West. While its importance as the first major Chinese study of the West should not be minimized, this should not obscure the fact that the Treatise was primarily a reassessment of the history of China's relations with the Asian maritime world, particularly South-east Asia and India.It was as much a rediscovery of China'spast involvement in this tributary sphere as it was a discovery of the West. This paper will attempt to describe the way in which Wei Yuan became involved in the problem of the West and to analyze and describe his view of the traditional Asian maritime world and the implications of Western expansion into this sphere.

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