Cochinchinese coin casting and circulating in eighteenth-century Southeast Asia

Abstract

While much has been written about Chinese business networks in modern Southeast Asia, there has been little discussion about the coins used in the various trade ports and their origins. Moreover, when they have been studied, coin casting and circulating have been examined mostly within specific local contexts, with only vague references to China and the Chinese. In this essay I explore the links of the coin business between eighteenthcentury Cochinchina and the different ports of Southeast Asia. The new evidence seems to indicate that close connections existed on this important front of Chinese business, particularly between mining in Tongking, copper and zinc importing from Japan and China, coin casting in Cochinchina, and circulation in the neighboring countries of China, Cambodia, and Siam, in the eighteenth-century archipelago.