UCLA

This dissertation examines the early history of Chinese people traveling and migrating overseas (c. 800–1127 CE). Despite the political, cultural, and economic significance of ethnic Chinese communities across much of the world today, as well as international interest in China’s involvement in the greater domain of maritime Asia, very few attempts have been made to understand the origins of Chinese people living and traveling beyond Chinese borders. Through the examination of primary sources written in Classical Chinese, Kanbun, Arabic, Old Malay, and Old Javanese, as well as the material record of shipwrecks and former port cities, this dissertation explores the earliest records of Chinese people living and trading outside of China, the regions where they were active, the communities they formed or joined, their reasons for traveling long distances, and how their migration was viewed both within and beyond China. Such an analysis reveals that Chinese people were active across a wide region that spanned from Kyoto to Baghdad, that they cooperated closely with native inhabitants and rulers in the areas they traveled to, and that they frequently intermarried with the local populace. Even during such early times, it is evident that they formed cohesive region-based networks, that much of their success depended on informal connections with political leaders within and beyond China, and that settlement overseas was determined by their own interests and initiatives. Such a study demonstrates how Chinese migrants and their descendants became a vital component of the cosmopolitan entrepôts that characterize the history of exchange across maritime Asia over the last millennium.