Abstract
In looking into the modern period of Asia, previous studies have generally had two problems as their major research foci. One is the response of Asian countries to European expansion and the other-if it is indeed different-is the general relationships of Asian countries with their Western counter-parts. In other words, the modern history of Asia has been considered from the viewpoint of Western intrusion. Consequently, the history of modern Asia per se has been replaced by descriptions of Euro-Asian relationships. As this view of modern Asian history took the relation between the West and the East beginning with direct intercourse as its starting point, the notion of analyzing Asia's own internal relations and tracing the continuities between premodern and modern Asia was not consciously considered. Furthermore, the study of modern Asia has been valued and even recognized only in terms of the degree of interrelation with Western countries. Such an understanding of modern Asia was based only on a west-centred comparative study and on indirect appraisal. As a result, the internal ties that united the Asian area, an area defined by its own historical characteristics, might be overlooked or even regarded as a residue of an "ancien regime" and, as such, targets to be abolished. From the perspective of economic history, this research lopsidedness seems to be reflected in the study of the so-called "triangular trade", which has been considered to have initiated the modern economic history of Asia. At the risk of oversimplification, we can perhaps say that the general under-standing has been that the trade relations between Great Britain, India and China were established by British cotton capital with a view to using the relation between the three as a medium for developing the Asian market. Looked at from a different aspect, the general understanding seems to be that Asia started its modern economic period by becoming a part of the consuming market for Western products. The inevitable result is that the already existing internal Asian trade relations have been "invisible" and ignored. The issues of traditional intra-Asian trade relations can be classified under the following two headings: (1) The "Junk" trade and its creation of an Asian-wide trade network; (2) Silver circulation and traditional trade settlement using silver as a supporting factor of the Asian trade network. The characteristics of Asian modernization can be clarified by studying these two.
