Chung Sungil

Tsushima Pusan Silver Nagasaki Dutch international trade history

This article compares the volumes of trade in Northeast Asia, a little studied problem because of the difficulties in interpreting the Tsushima documents, but one which helps to place Northeast Asian trade within global trade. The author compares trade volumes passing between Korea and Japan in Pusan and between Japan and the Dutch in Nagasaki and concludes that prior to the 1690s, the Korea-Japan volume was greater, but after the 1690s, the Japan- Dutch volume was greater. Reasons for the change had little to do with official ceilings set by the Tokugawa shogunate, because Tsushima was able to circumvent any restrictions and send false reports to the bakufu. The Japan-Dutch trade was tightly monitored and falsification was impossible. Rather, the reasons for the higher Korea-Japan trade and its subsequent drop probably lay in the devaluation of Japanese silver in the 1690s.