The Zheng He voyages: a reassessment
Geoff Wade’s 2005 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 78, Part 1) re-examines the early fifteenth-century Ming maritime expeditions commanded by the eunuch Zheng He, situating them within the broader southern expansion programme of the Yongle emperor (r. 1403–24). Wade’s central thesis is that these voyages were not the “friendly diplomatic activities” of popular Chinese memory but rather an aggressive form of maritime proto-colonialism designed to impose a pax Ming across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean through military coercion and the control of strategic ports and trade routes.
Summary
Wade opens by cataloguing the dominant “orthodox” narrative of Zheng He as a peaceful envoy who “did not occupy a single piece of land, establish any fortress, or seize any wealth from other countries” (p. 37). He then dismantles this view by placing the maritime voyages in their proper structural context: they were the third of three simultaneous prongs of Yongle’s southward expansion, alongside the military colonization of the Tai polities in Yunnan and the full-scale invasion and occupation of Đai Viet (p. 39). The argument is that all three operations shared the same logic—military force applied to achieve political submission, economic extraction, and the projection of imperial legitimacy for a usurping emperor.
The core of Wade’s analysis draws on the Ming shi-lu (reign annals) to document specific acts of violence and coercion: the attack on Old Port in Sumatra (1407), the killing of 170 Chinese troops in Java and the subsequent demand for 60,000 liang of gold in compensation, the threat of a combined sea-and-land attack on Ava-Burma (1409), the invasion of Sri Lanka and capture of its king (1411), and the capture of Su-gan-la from Samudera (1415) (pp. 47–51). These episodes, Wade argues, reveal a pattern of “gunboat diplomacy” in which the fleets—carrying in excess of 20,000 military personnel—functioned as instruments of political coercion rather than commercial goodwill. The Wu-bei-zhi maps, which appear to derive from the voyages themselves, show the establishment of military garrison-cum-treasury depots at Melaka and Samudera, confirming the strategic intent to control the Straits of Malacca and the broader maritime network (p. 47).
Wade then extends his argument into the theoretical domain of colonialism, drawing on definitions by Osterhammel, Emerson, and Armitage to argue that the Ming maritime ventures constitute a “proto-colonialism”—control of nodal points and networks rather than settled territory—while the occupation of Đai Viet and the colonization of Yunnan represent fuller forms of colonialism (pp. 52–55). He explicitly compares the Ming model to the later Portuguese “protection racket” in the Indian Ocean, noting the structural parallels in the use of military coercion to extract tribute from trade (p. 51).
Key Findings
- Shipbuilding scale: The Fujian Regional Military Commission was ordered to build 137 ocean-going ships in 1403; Zhejiang and other commissions were ordered to build 1,180 ocean-going ships in 1405; the Ministry of Works was tasked with building 48 “treasure-ships” (bao-chuan) by 1408 (p. 45).
- Military composition of fleets: In one documented case, 26,800 of 27,400 personnel aboard were rank-and-file troops, irregulars, crack troops, sailors, and clerks; a 1427 Ming shi-lu reference to “10,000 crack troops who had formerly been sent to the Western Ocean” confirms the predominantly military character of the expeditions (p. 45).
- Đai Viet invasion mobilization: The official Ming shi-lu figure for the 1406 invasion was 800,000 troops (though Whitmore estimates 215,000 as more likely); by 1408 the Ming had established 472 military and civilian offices in Jiao-zhi and deported 7,600 tradesmen and artisans to Nanjing (pp. 42–43).
- Yunnan colonial extraction: The Tai Mao polity of Lu-chuan/Ping-mian was demanded to supply 15,000 horses, 500 elephants, and 30,000 cattle in 1397; annual silver levies were set at 6,900 liang and then tripled to 18,000 liang before being reduced back (p. 40).
- Java compensation demand (1407): Following the killing of 170 Chinese troops, the Ming demanded 60,000 liang of gold from the Western king of Java, explicitly threatening military punishment and citing the Annam invasion as precedent (p. 48).
- Continuity of maritime control: A 1445 Ming shi-lu entry records the capture of three Javanese traders sailing to Siam, indicating that Ming policing of regional maritime trade persisted for at least half a century after the formal end of the Zheng He voyages (p. 52).
Conclusion
Wade’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Zheng He voyages must be understood not as isolated acts of friendly diplomacy but as one component of a coherent imperial strategy of southern expansion that included full territorial colonization (Yunnan, Đai Viet) and maritime network control (the Western Ocean). He argues that the study of colonialism in Southeast Asia has been artificially constrained by the “salt water doctrine” and the assumption that only European powers were colonial agents; extending the temporal and civilizational boundaries of the concept reveals that Chinese imperial expansion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was colonial in nature, and that the failure of the Ming maritime venture to develop into sustained colonialism was a product of internal political dynamics (the death of Yongle, civil-minister opposition, and cost) rather than any inherent pacifism of Chinese maritime culture (pp. 54–55).
Context
- Primary archival base: The article draws heavily on the Ming shi-lu (reign annals of the Hongwu, Yongle, and Xuande emperors), the Wu-bei-zhi military compendium and its associated charts, and Ma Huan’s Ying-yai Sheng-lan (1433), supplemented by later Ming texts such as Zhang Xie’s Dong-xi-yang kao (1618) and Luo Mao-deng’s novel (1597).
- Historiographical contribution: Wade’s article intervenes in the Zheng He literature at the moment of the 600th anniversary (2005), challenging both the Chinese nationalist “friendship” narrative and the Western tendency to treat the voyages as precursors to European expansion. His framing of the voyages as “maritime proto-colonialism” and his explicit comparison with Portuguese imperial practice represent a significant reframing of the subject within Southeast Asian historiography.