Hai jin (海禁 literally "ocean forbidden") was a ban on maritime activities during China's Ming Dynasty and again during the Qing Dynasty. It is commonly referred to as "Sea Ban". Intended to curb piracy, the ban proved ineffective for that purpose, while imposing huge hardships on coastal communities and legitimate sea traders.
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Under the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Emperor was the first to propose the policy to ban all maritime shipping in 1371[1]. The only way that foreigners might visit Ming China was via the tribute system. The policy contained 3 parts.
The ban was lifted in 1405 and reinstated in 1550, but then lifted in 1578.
Depending on the state of the policy, the earliest possible date is 1368. The latest possible year which terminated the policy is 1567[3].
Zheng Chenggong was a military leader from the Ming government situated in the coastal region, capable of threatening the Qing. In 1647, another sea ban was issued to limit foreign trade with severe punishment imposed. In 1655 the "Frontier Shift" was imposed in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong. It required coastal residents to move in land 30–50 li (est. 15 to 25 kilometers). All private boats and ships were burned. Small rafts were not allowed at sea. In 1684, the ban was stopped, trading was reopened under Kangxi Emperor. In 1685 a "Taxation Rule for Sea Trade" was drafted by Yiergetu[4].
《南明史》History of South Ming:
From 1652 onwards, the Qing court began ordering populations along the entire southern coast to be forcibly relocated inland, to stop them from giving aid and comfort to the enemy through trade. Faced with an enemy in inaccessible areas along the coast, the Qing chose to take the non-state spaces of the littoral to their logical extreme by creating a sanitary cordon of walls and watchtowers between the people and the sea. All coastal navigation and trade was banned, but the effect of the prohibitions and relocations was simply to make the Zheng base in Xiamen an even bigger centre for smuggling trade, with relocated communities now engaging in overland smuggling to Xiamen in order to sustain themselves.—[5]
The Ming government first labeled the Japanese raiders as "dwarf pirates", and soon discovered many to be renegade Chinese who joined ronin samurai to battle the Ming regime[2]. By the early 17th century, virtually all pirates on China's coast were various Chinese ethnicities such as the Han, though they continued labeled as wokou.
The purpose of the Ocean Prohibition is unclear and disputed; the only certainty is that the law prohibited private ships from sailing in the ocean.
Some have argued that the Hai jin marked a retreat from maritime activities such as the voyages of Zheng He and was symptomatic of a technological decline and stagnation that would culminate in China's 19th-century humiliation by Europe. This view has been popularized by the Chinese film, River Elegy.
The ban was also seen as a deceptive proposal, since it prevented the rise of any self-sufficient economies along the coast. Eventually new economies could not be born, and no power was drawn away from the existing imperial courts[6], thus making this ban a political move.
The law worked a great hardship for coastal dwellers and stimulated rebellions, piracy and a great wave of overseas migration. Traditionally, southeast Asia was the preferred destination for Chinese emigrants (see Liang Dao Ming).
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