A reminder of the hazards of a Eurocentric approach to the phenomenon
of piracy, this chapter studies interactions between the Qing regime and
pirates. Late imperial China saw the development of three overlapping
maritime “regimes” along its coasts, namely, the imperial dynastic
power, the European overseas enterprise, and the “pirates” themselves.
Notably, the latter two regimes challenged the first in various ways.
A reassessment of the Qing imperial claims of sovereignty in the face
of activities labelled as piracy provides crucial understanding of the
way empire was constructed. One may point at both parallels and dissimilarities
between East Asian and Western forms of piracy, revealing
how the various players off China’s coasts contended with each other
over maritime space.