CHINA AND THE SEA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20556, 6 May 1930, Page 8

CHINA AND THE SEA.

HORROR OF TITE DEEP.

VOYAGES IN EARLY, DAYS,

INTRODUCTION OF JUNKS. PIRATES AND HUGE RANSOMS. BT PUTNAM TVEALB. (Copyright.) No. 11. PEKING, March 3. For nearly a thousand years, after tho period of tho early " embassies" referred to in tho previous article, China had <no ships of hor own, hut. used thoso of other nations, just as she does to-day. Fu-hsien, tlio first great Buddhist missionary from China, who passed through Java from India in A.D. 412, on his homeward journey, was on an Indian or Persian ship; attempting to sail direct to Canton from Java, instead of coasting up the shores of what are now Siam, [Annam and Tonkin, ho was carried by storms to Shantung and wrecked, and his vivid pages describo tho Chinese horror of the sea.

Two hundred years later the Buddhist pilgrim, Yi ChiYig, who proceeded to India on his first voyage in A.D. 671, took ship at Canton —where ho declares thero wero many Brahmin temples—and narrates how he sought tho acquaintance of an " Imperial envoy " and how together they arranged with the master of a " Persian ship " for passages to the next port, small coasting vessels being still the only means of travel.

With the riso of Islam in the seventh century tho China trade, directed from tho Persian Gulf, passed into Muslin hands, and was slowly and methodically improved by tho use of scientific knowledge, and by a study of tho monsoons. From tho ninth to tho sixteenth century it was indeed virtually an Arab monopoly, just as it becamo a Portuguese monopoly in tho seventeenth century, and an English one a hundred years later. Introduction ol the Junks. Chinese junks, as known to-day, only began to bo built after tho Arab trade had been well established. A great increase in size camo in tho eleventh and twelfth centuries when regular overseas vessels for the South Seas were constructed, in which merchants travelled with their wares, each housed in his own compartment. It was on such a ship that Marco Polo voyaged to the Persian Gulf on his return to Europe, a vesBel possibly displacing 400 tons, and no doubt piloted by Arabs. Long voyages ,were not uncommon according to the records, but it significant that when the first Portuguese reached Malacca under Albuquerque in 1509, they saw there for the first time Chinese junks. None of these then undertook thp voyage to India, the limit of Chinese navigation as to-day being tho Malay Archipelago. Chinese sea power and sea knowledge have, therefore, always been as now—of little consequence in the affairs of the ration. In the thirteenth century, under the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, who had the energy of a foreigner, attempts .were indeed made to use the fleets engaged in the coasting trade for imperial purposes, military expeditions being launched against both Java and Japan. J But, in both instances, they ended disastrously and wero not repeated, tho junk settling down to its limited role of a coast trader. , Tho tall graceful sails set high abovo the square, squat hull tell their own story; it was necessary for the canvas to bo so rigged as to catch the breezes above tho high river and canal banks, while the flat bottoms were specially constructed so that ships might jrest easily on the mud at low tide. Tradition ol Piracy. When western navigation reached China in tho sixteenth century robbery had become so rifo in every estuary that seafaring and piracy wero almost synonymous terms; there still remains the tradition that this is so. The Portuguese conquistadores wero given Maceo as a reward for driving off huge fleets of pirato junks menacing the Canton estuary; it had become difficult for tho officials to administer the region owing to tho huge ransoms the pirates demanded. Government vessels, although armed with carronades, wero mere ho3t-. ages; it was impossiblo for them to go a mile away from an anchorage. Water has indeed always been China's Nemesis; the only method that could be thought of to deal with the famous pirate Koxinga by the Manchu Emperor, Kang Hsi, in the 17th century was to withdraw all tho population along the coasts so that no food or supplies would be available. Until 50 years ago it was actually a punishable offence for officials to send despatches ®by any method except along the post-road; communication by water was never thought of as anything but a hostilo enterprise beyond official knowledge. In 1858, when Lord Elgin arrived off Shanghai to make a treaty and required to proceed to Tientsin by sea, his sailingmaster had difficulty in finding any Chineso pilot who- knew the coasts of his own country sufficiently well to navigate | to Taku Bar.

Ignorance and Prejudice. In the interval -what has been learned is negligiblo. Practically every Chinese steamer is to..day captained and officered by Europeans, the maintenance even in a moderate state of efficiency of vessels being a constant struggle and all maritime laws and precautions tending to disappear in a maelstrom of ignorance and prejudice. As for latter-day piracy this has been so developed by putting pirates on board as passengers, (hat every bridge has become a fortified steel cage, even such vessels as Canadian Pacific liners carrying a corporal's guard between Hongkong and Shanghai that is,always on tho alert and has orders to shoot to kill. This latest proposal is therefore the most fantastic of all Canute-like mandates issued by Nanking; its acceptance would mean that shipping in China must go the way of tho railways and regular communication cease. Already the commandeering of Chinese steam vessels for use in the civil war has had such disastrous results that native shipping companies are disappearing, vessels being burned, shipwrecked or lost in the most callous manner. Nothing better illustrates the stage we have reached in international relationships than to have jt gravely proposed to expose tho foreigner to the same treatment. (Concluded.)