Guangzhou

( Travellers | Cities | Routes | Trade Goods | Themes )

by Ken Wong

Guangzhou (Canton), located on the southern coast of China in the Pearl River delta, was an important centre of foreign trade and cultural exchange before the 16th century. Its origins date back to the Western Zhou period (c. 1111-771 BC) when a walled settlement was built by the Bai Yue people. It was absorbed by the kingdom of Chu in 887 BC and, later, incorporated into the Chinese empire under the Qin (221-206 BCE) and Han (206 BC - AD 220) dynasties. The city became known as Guangzhou in the 3rd century AD.

By the end of the Han dynasty, Guangzhou had become an important trade centre. Chinese silk, porcelain, and tea found their way to India and Mesopotamia on Chinese and non-Chinese ships sailing on a network of sea routes connecting Guangzhou with Southeast and South Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Supporting this activity were Guangzhou shipyards building “lou chuan,” a deck ship 100 feet high that carried many pairs of oarsmen on both sides and archers on the decks. Symbolic of the central importance overseas trade had for the city, a temple to Nanhaishan (God of the South Sea) was built in 594. Thirteen years later in 607, the first recorded official imperial mission to Southeast Asia to investigate trade possibilities with the Malay Peninsula was dispatched from Guangzhou. In the Tang dynasty (618-907) it became China’s most prosperous port city. There was direct trade between Guangzhou and the Persian port of Obolla on the Persian Gulf coast at the mouth of the Euphrates River. Guangzhou’s trade volume was significant enough so that in 714 an imperial foreign trade office was established to control exports and collect taxes on imports.

Not only a trade centre, Guangzhou was also a cosmopolitan city of diverse cultures. Buddhism and Islam became well established. Buddhism was introduced no later than 281 when monks from India established monasteries in the city. In 397-401, the forerunner of the Guangxiao Temple was erected to house Buddhist scriptures brought from India. Later in the 7th century, Hui Neng, the Buddhist patriarch, served as a novice monk at the temple. Islam arrived during Muhammad’s lifetime (570-632). Huaisheng Mosque, one of the oldest in China, was built in 627. The founder of the mosque was purportedly Mohammed’s maternal uncle. His tomb and the graves of other resident Muslims were placed in a cemetery for Muslims not far away from the mosque.

Indeed, Guangzhou was a place to which people from Southeast Asia, Indonesia, India, Ceylon, Persia, and Arabia came to trade, work, marry, and settle permanently. A law requiring a foreigner to remain in China if he married a Chinese woman was passed in 628. Clashes among different foreign groups occurred in 684. By the 8th century, the resident foreign population had grown to 200,000. The aforementioned foreign trade office established in 714 also had the responsibility of monitoring the activities of the foreign population. A foreign quarter in the city was established in 732. Relations between the city’s foreign and Chinese residents did not always go smoothly. A riot by resident Arabs and Persians occurred in 758 -- Chinese warehouses were looted and buildings burnt. Subsequently, Guangzhou was closed to foreigners for fifty years. Further restrictions on foreigners were promulgated in 836 when foreigners were forbidden to own land and houses and to live with Chinese.

After the Tang period, Guangzhou’s preeminence in China’s maritime trade was taken over by the Fujian coastal city of Quanzhou, whose location close to the Song capital of Hangzhou made it more accessible. Nevertheless, Guangzhou remained a thriving trade centre, growing in wealth and population, from the 10th to the 16th centuries. Its foreign trade with Southeast Asia increased during the Song dynasty (960-1279). A school for foreign children was built in 1108. During the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), foreign trade remained an integral part of the city’s economy. A Franciscan priest from Venice, Odoric of Pordemore, visiting Guangzhou in the 1320’s, thought it was greater than any European city of that time. He observed Chinese men with beards, apparent descendants of resident Arab traders who intermarried with the Chinese.

In 1514, the Portuguese arrived in Guangzhou. As it had during the Han and Tang dynasties, the city became the primary Chinese port for foreign trade and encounters with other cultures. A new era in Guangzhou’s long history as a centre of foreign trade and cultural exchange was about to begin with the coming of the Europeans.