Page 53 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

comprehensive account of the activities of the EEIC in China, and in many ways

provide insights into EEIC trade, and remain influential even today. Many studies of

institutions, policies, shipping and trade history are still to be drawn from Morse’s

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studies.
In 1937, a Chinese historian, Liang Jiabing 梁嘉彬, enlarged Morse’s studies by

combining Chinese records, and produced a profoundly influential book on Chinese

Hong merchants entitled History of the Thirteen Hongs of Canton (Guangdong

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shisanhang kao, 广东十三行考). From then on, Liang’s book became the main

source of Chinese export trade with foreign countries. It was not until the 1980s that

studies on China maritime trade from Chinese scholars’ increased. In 1985, the

Chinese Maritime Trade Research Centre was established in Xiamen, which founded

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the Journal of Chinese Maritime History. Most studies focused on the political

relations with foreign countries. 81 It was not until the 1990s, along with the

publication of Morse’s five volume studies on East India Company being translated

in Chinese, that research from Chinese scholars became more diverse in the subject

matters.

78 For example, K. N. Chaudhuri used Morse’s studies to analyse the institutional structures of
VOC and the EEIC and argues that the eventual creation of a factory system is the result of the
creation of machinery for physical operations of trade. Alongside the bureaucratization and other
factors, these led to the long term success of the East India Company. K. N. Chaudhuri, The
Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company: 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978).
79 Liang Jiabing was a descendant of Hong merchant. Guangdong shisanhang kao [History of the
Thirteen Hongs of Canton] (Shanghai, Guoli Bianyi Guan, 1937).
80 Jiansheng, ‘Jianguo liushinian lai zhongguo jindai jingjishi xueke yu yanjian’ [The
historiography of studies on Chinese trade history from 1949] Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu[Journal
of Chinese Economic History], 4(2009), pp.158-163.
81 Ibid, p.159.
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