Chinese and Western incursions
Southeast Asia, unlike many other parts of the world on the eve of European expansion, long had been a cosmopolitan region acquainted with a diversity of peoples, customs, and trade goods. The arrival of Europeans in force in the early 16th century (others had made visits earlier, beginning with Marco Polo in 1292) caused neither wonderment nor fear. Long-distance travel by then was no novelty, and already there was impressive precedence for the arrival of foreign delegations rather than of individual trading vessels. A century before the Portuguese first arrived at Malacca in 1509, that port and a number of others in Southeast Asia had been visited by a succession of Chinese fleets. Between 1403 and 1433 Ming-dynasty China had sent several enormous flotillas of as many as 63 large vessels and up to 30,000 people on expeditions that carried them as far as Africa. The purpose of these journeys, led by the Muslim court eunuch Cheng Ho, was to secure diplomatic and trade advantages for the Chinese and to extend the sovereign lustre of the ambitious Yung-lo Emperor. Yet, except for efforts to regain Dai Viet (Vietnam) as a province, these expeditions had no permanent military or colonial ambitions and did not much disturb the Southeast Asian region. Perhaps in part because of the sound defeat the Vietnamese handed a Ming occupying army in 1427, China lost interest in its new and far-flung initiatives, and the voyages came to an abrupt end.
Europeans presented a rather different prospect for Southeast Asia, however, above all because they sought riches and absolute control over the sources of this wealth. The Europeans were few in number, often poorly equipped, and generally could not claim great technological superiority over Southeast Asians, but they were also determined, often well-organized and highly disciplined fighters, and utterly ruthless and unprincipled. Except for the Spanish in the Philippines, they were not interested in colonization but rather in the control of trade at the lowest financial cost. These characteristics made Europeans a formidable—though by no means dominant—new force in Southeast Asia. Except in a few locales and special circumstances, for the better part of 250 years Europeans could accomplish little politically or militarily without strong Southeast Asian allies. Individual adventurers often were useful to a particular Southeast Asian ruler or aspirant to the throne, but they were carefully watched and, when necessary, dispatched. Constantine Phaulkon, the Greek advisor to the Siamese court who was executed in 1688 on charges of treason, was only the most dramatic example. In economic affairs, Europeans soon discovered that they were quite unable, even by the most drastic means, to monopolize the spice trade for which they had come. They generally were forced to engage in commerce by Southeast Asian rules and soon found themselves dependent on the local carrying trade for survival. For these reasons, the celebrated Portuguese conquest of Malacca in 1511 did not signal the dawn of an age of Western dominance in Southeast Asia. The majority of the population and much of the trading activity deserted the port, the sultan moved his court elsewhere, and by the end of the 16th century Malacca was a backwater; the Malay trade flourished elsewhere into the 18th century.
Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the Western presence represented nothing more than a minor irritant. European commercial tools, especially the ability to amass large amounts of investment capital, were different and, from a capitalistic point of view, more sophisticated and dynamic than those of the Southeast Asians. The Dutch and British East India companies often were able to make inroads on certain markets simply by having a large amount of money available, and it was possible for them to adopt long-term strategies by carrying large deficits and debts. Although company directors in Europe warned against the dangers—and costs—of involvement in local affairs, the representatives on the spot often could see no other course. Thus, soon after permanently establishing themselves on Java in 1618, the Dutch found themselves embroiled in the succession disputes of the court of Mataram and, by the late 1740s, virtual kingmakers and shareholders in the realm. Finally, Europeans did bring with them much that was new. Some items shaped Southeast Asian life in unexpected ways: the chili pepper, which the Spanish introduced from the New World, came to hold such an important place in the region’s diet that today Southeast Asian cuisine can hardly be imagined without it. Another import, however, was coffee, with a more ominous effect. Smuggled into Java in 1695 against Dutch East India Company rules, coffee by the early 18th century had become a company monopoly produced through a unique relationship between the Dutch and the local Javanese elite in a system that prefigured the one adopted by the 19th-century colonial state.