Page 39 - Export Porcelain and Globakization- GOOD READ

during these years. The trade pattern for tea had changed from the “silver for tea” into
the “cotton and opium for tea” or the “cotton and opium for porcelain” scheme. In the
beginning of the country trade, Indian cotton was the major export article to China.
Opium made up only about 15% between 1775 and 1800. Starting from 1820 opium
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became the most important export product and the trade balance became highly
negative for China. From then trade turned into the “opium for tea and silver” scheme.
However, at that time the Eurasian porcelain trade with China had already ended. The
EIC stopped the import of porcelain in 1791. Private trade on EIC ships continued and
also some country traders facilitated a reduced porcelain trade between China and
India. The Diana which sunk in 1817 in the Strait of Malacca had a big porcelain
cargo (plate 147) for India after having sold cotton and opium in Canton.
The EIC lost its Asian trade monopoly in 1833 and private merchants were able to
expand their trading activities in Canton. When the Chinese government tried to stop
the silver drain by detaining the British opium smugglers in Canton, the opium war
was the response. The first opium war ended in 1842 with the unequal Treaty of
Nanjing. With the treaty, the Canton system ended, four additional treaty ports had to
be opened for trade with foreigners: Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai, and
Hong Kong Island – just 100 km to the south of Canton - became a Crown colony –
the first colonial possession of a Western power in China. In addition, 21 million
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silver dollars compensation had to be paid by the Chinese government .
In summary, if one tries to answer the question, how the huge porcelain export was
financed, different sources can be identified. We consider only the top five European
importers of porcelain, the Dutch VOC, the British EIC, the Swedish SOIC, the
Danish DAK and the French CDI, who together carried more than 90% of all Chinese
porcelain to Europe. The Swedish, Danish and French companies simply shipped
Spanish silver coins to Canton; the British EIC did the same until 1760. Then they
were able to increase the acceptance of European merchandise such as woolens and
metals. After 1770 the expanding country trade of British private merchants allowed
an indirect barter business of cotton and to a smaller extent opium for porcelain. Since
this pattern started rather late – it applied for only the last two decades of the EIC
porcelain trade – one can assume that probably only 10 million pieces have been
indirectly “bartered” for European and Indian goods and only 10% of these have been
indirectly financed by the opium trade. The VOC – similar to the Portuguese – started
its porcelain trade, right from the beginning, in the early 17th century as an
intra-Asian trade with Fort Zeelandia and Batavia as the main hubs. Not much silver
was exported by the VOC until 1680. However, when the Dutch started direct trade in
Canton in 1729, the mass imports of porcelain also had to be purchased by increasing
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silver imports from Europe . Similar to the EIC, in the second half of the 18th
century, they increased the emission of bills of exchange to foreign citizens in Asia.
3.1 The Customers
We have studied the ceramic products, the trading routes, the carriers and
merchants, the economics of the trade, but have hardly cast an eye on the ultimate
customers in Europe, in the US or in West Asia. The European 17th and early 18th
century customers were wealthy families from the Netherlands and aristocrats from
all European courts. In many aristocrat collections of the early 18th century one
would find mainly Kangxi blue and white porcelain, Japanese and Chinese Imari,
Japanese Kakiemon and Chinese Famille Verte porcelain. Most of these types have
not been used as table ware but displayed in cabinets. Therefore vases, plates and
figurines dominate the collections. This changed in the 18th century when with the
mass imports the prices dropped. Porcelain was not only displayed, but became rather
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