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China's seaborne trade in the early modern period consisted of three sectors - government trade, tribute trade and private trade. The first two were particularly active in the early 15th century, whereas private sea trade, both legal and illegal, was more dominant in later periods. The articles in the first part of this book mainly feature the early 15th century. They discuss structural issues and also deal with Cheng Ho's voyages into the Indian Ocean and the later accounts of this. The next part surveys the period dominated by private trade, with comparisons between the Chinese and the Portuguese trading systems. Part Three discusses views of the "other", in this case Chinese views of maritime Asia. This involves detailed investigations of ethnographic accounts and aims to show that much work hitherto taken at face value by historians, should be reinvestigated in the light of sinocentric ideas and traditional Chinese rhetoric.