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Article: The company's Chinese pirates: how the Dutch East India Company tried to lead a coalition of pirates to war against China; 1621-1662.
- Article from:
- Journal of World History
- Article date:
- December 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 University of Hawaii Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When the Dutch arrived in East Asia in the early seventeenth century, they had trouble persuading Chinese officials to grant them trade privileges. Yet these same officials gave official titles to Chinese pirates as part of a "summon and appease" (zhaofu) policy in the hope that the pirates would abandon crime for more civilized pursuits. Alter a decade of frustrations, the Dutch decided to take a page from the pirates' playbook and tried to unite the pirates to attack China. The pirate war against China did not go well for the Dutch, who failed to unite the pirates under their leadership. Nonetheless, they did eventually reach a modus vivendi with Chinese officials and ...