Opportune Climbers: The Wokou Surge During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the East China Sea was a place of interaction between different cultures and societies. During these centuries, there was a large increase in pirate groups, known as wokou. How Asian governments choose to deal with the wokou dilemma and how the wokou themselves responded to such policies mark this period different from others. Also, we see an influx of European merchants into Asia at the same time, making the line between merchant and pirate an arbitrary one as Europeans used any means to gain access to the Chinese market. The establishment of global maritime links and trade affected the surge and collapse of inter-Asian pirate networks operating during this time as the wokou took opportunities where they saw them and created their own when none were available. Asian governments used the wokou to compete with European powers while Europeans in turn, used them to gain a foothold in trade networks, which allowed the wokou to play both sides of the coming power struggle to further their own goals. This battle between East and West created a fertile zone for pirates to grow by taking advantage of the power struggle between Asia and Europe happening during these centuries. They were considered many different things depending on the position of the viewer. The wokou represents a middle ground between Asia and Europe, and were considered many different things depending on the position of the viewer. By using their lives as a lens to look through, we can understand the larger picture of a globalizing maritime trade happening in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.