by Nancy Reagin
“You Old Pirate”: Merchant Bandits on the Edge of Empire
One of the first scenes in which we are introduced to Luke Skywalker in A New Hope depicts him lamenting that his home planet Tatooine is, for lack of a better term, remote: “Well, if there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from.” This is a common lament of many young men and women, who long to be a part of something bigger than what their relatively isolated and sheltered youth has offered them. The quotation also demonstrates something more significant (and more literal), however, about the planet’s place in the galaxy. Tatooine is very much on the edge of the galaxy spatially, but also politically and economically. It is on the edge of territory controlled by the Republic and later the Empire, so its location is ideal for activities of questionable legitimacy. We know that the planet is a haven for pirates, gangsters, and a mafia-like organization run by Jabba the Hutt. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the description of Mos Eisley spaceport, as well as its famous Cantina.
Overlooking Mos Eisley, Obi-Wan Kenobi states rather dramatically, “Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” He then ends with the somewhat gratuitous warning that “We must be cautious.” Although the various ports along the South China Sea in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not quite this dangerous, the region was nonetheless filled with piracy, naval battles, and characters who—through sheer charisma and business acumen—built up illicit commercial empires of trade. Although Lynn Pan was writing specifically about early modern trade in Asia, her words could also be applied to Tatooine: “It was difficult to know where piracy ended and contraband trading began. Indeed foreign trade was simply one vast smuggling operation.”3 Other parallels are found in the various ports of southeastern China, such as Xiamen and Guandong, which were far removed from the center of Chinese imperial power in Beijing. At times, when the dynasty was experiencing turbulence and existential threats from corruption and foreign pressure, these ports were almost entirely outside of official control and became centers of illicit activity in an entirely extra-legal seaborne economy.4 In the Star Wars galaxy, Outer Rim worlds such as Tatooine and the mining outpost of Cloud City resemble these early modern Asian ports, thriving on the fringes of established states.
Just as the Republic and the Empire exercise little real power over remote planets, so the Ming dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644, struggled to maintain control over peripheral areas such as the southeastern coastal ports. This was especially true in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. To be sure, the dynasty tried its best to enforce trading bans against groups such as the Japanese, who were viewed as lawless pirates. These bans simply drove trade into the arms of merchant bandits, who used remote coastal ports as centers of international trade that spanned the entire region from the Indonesian archipelago in the west to the port cities of Japan in the east.5 Although the Ming dynasty was occasionally able to crack down on piracy by defeating a fleet of pirate ships, this was a temporary victory. There was a seemingly endless supply of other merchants eager to take over the lucrative trading opportunities that these networks represented, just as Lando Calrissian quietly takes over the lucrative mining outpost of Cloud City two years after the Battle of Yavin.6
In the sixteenth century, China and Japan, the traditional powers in East Asia, were struggling for political and economic stability. Although the Republic falters due to internal threats, China’s Ming dynasty entered a terminal state of decline as China suffered attacks from Mongol tribes to the northwest, pirate bands from the sea, and a large-scale Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592 to 1597: all of which were events that drained the treasury of funds and stretched military resources thin.7 Corruption within the ruling elite, along with other factors, caused a popular rebellion that ultimately led to the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. During the same period, Japan was also in a chaotic state of endemic warfare known as “the Warring States Period.” The country was fragmented into half a dozen large power blocks at this point, all competing violently with one another for supremacy within the archipelago. It would not be until the turn of the seventeenth century that a semblance of lasting political order would be enforced on the country by the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Tokugawa spent the next half-century trying to augment their power at the expense of the other warlords and foreigners who came to Japan in an effort to tap into the rich silver mines of the country.8
While power struggles flare at the center, opportunities open on the edges of a political system. We know from various clues interspersed throughout Return of the Jedi that Jabba the Hutt is a gangster who exploits the remote location of Tatooine for his own nefarious ends. He runs a smuggling operation, which apparently includes the smuggling of spice. Han Solo’s loss of that cargo incurs Jabba’s displeasure, which leads to Solo’s encasement in a block of carbonite and his display, trophylike, on the wall of Jabba’s palace, most likely as a warning to other would-be debtors. Also, similar to the bandits who dominated China’s lawless ports and the emperors they defied, Jabba boasts his own fleet, including an ostentatious pleasure barge.
Jabba’s barge is as much a vehicle used for intimidation as it is for pleasure. (Return of the Jedi)
Pirates of the South China Sea employed grand ships identical to those of the authorities who tried to contain them.
Pirate bandits on the edge of China’s empire took a similar approach and established their trade networks in the port cities of southeast China. They then used their extensive contacts, often with overseas Chinese kin, in the same way that Jabba uses his Hutt clan, to secure trade with places such as the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and the ports of Java. One such merchant was Li Dan, who was born in the city of Quanzhou in Fujian province. He ultimately immigrated to the port city of Hirado in western Japan, where he established a far-ranging merchant empire with contacts in Manila, Taiwan, and China. Li Dan is most famous for pulling a confidence trick on the head of the British East India Company, Richard Cocks, in Japan during the early seventeenth century, in which he took ever-increasing amounts of money from the poor Englishman in return for trade in China. What Mr. Cocks was unable to fathom, apparently, was that he was being duped, and that Li Dan had no real intention of allowing the English to cut into his lucrative trading operation.9 Jabba wouldn’t have shared well with others, either.
When Li Dan died in 1625, his operation was taken over by another Chinese merchant, Zheng Zhihlong.10 In cooperation with the Dutch East India Company, Zheng engaged in unofficial trade in Taiwan and eventually in western Japan, which brought him into competition with the Dutch.11 Although this trade by Chinese merchant bandits was tolerated in Japan, it was definitively and totally banned by the Ming dynasty. In that sense, people such as Li and Zheng were categorically considered pirates by Chinese authorities, although some might see them as entrepreneurial merchants. The story took a strange turn when Zheng Zhihlong, after having defeated a large Ming fleet in 1628, switched over to the Ming cause and was awarded the title of admiral, in which capacity he fought for the Ming, while he continued to ply his own personal trade from Southeast Asia to Japan for some years, although he was later executed by the invading Qing dynasty. Zheng Zhilong’s work as pirate and patriot continued with his son, Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga), who led the resistance against the invading Qing dynasty after 1644.
Like Zheng Chenggong, the seventeenth-century pirate and patriot, Lando Calrissian eventually takes up arms against the usurping Empire. (The Empire Strikes Back)
Zheng Zhihlong’s career goes to show that where no particular government is able to exercise control, local actors will step in to fulfill the commercial needs of the region and to exploit commercial niches for their own often great profit. In that respect, Zheng’s life most closely parallels the story of Lando Calrissian, a smuggler, a gambler, and an opportunist who runs Cloud City for a short time under the nose of the Empire until coming to Va
der’s notice. Lando’s conversion to the Alliance cause is a wiser choice than Zheng’s political experiments, as the former baron-administrator becomes one of the heroes of the Battle of Endor.
“Business Is Business”: From Independent Traders to Multinationals
Zheng Zhihlong and Lando Calrissian were not the only morally flexible characters to spot business opportunities in areas that were vulnerable due to power struggles in the center: in Holland and England, seafaring merchants saw that there were rich pickings to be had in the South China Sea, as well. When Dutch and English merchants began to sail to the East Indies for trade in the 1590s, several small companies outfitted fleets to journey from Europe to Asia and bring back valuable cargoes of spice and other luxury goods that would fetch high prices on the European market.12 These companies were essentially formed for the length of a single voyage, and when the voyage was complete, the profits were divided up among the investors, and the companies dissolved. If a voyage failed to return because the ships were lost or other problems arose, then the investors were simply out of their investment, which was often quite substantial. Another difficulty was that as European investors realized the potential profits to be made in the Asian trade, more and more companies were formed to pursue that trade. This surfeit of companies led to a glut of spices in the market and, consequently, a crash in their prices in Europe. For the Dutch, the solution was the creation of a singular body, the Dutch East India Company, whose acronym, VOC, actually means the United East India Company.13
The new company came about in 1602, after long and complicated negotiations among various merchants from across the Netherlands.14 Now, instead of several companies competing, there was only one company to control the supply, so as to manipulate the price of Asian luxury goods. Similar tactics are employed by the Commerce Guild and the Trade Federation in the run-up to the Clone Wars. Furthermore, to minimize losses and ensure the long-term survival of the company, the company mandated that investors would only buy “stock” in the company and would be obliged to keep their investment in the company for a fixed term in return for a yearly dividend.15 A British equivalent, the British East India Company, came into being in 1600 but lagged behind the VOC for many years as a commercial and political success.
These two companies, the world’s first joint stock companies, are often termed the first multinational corporations in world history. Both companies established a series of trading posts, called factories, across Asia: from India in the east to Japan in the west. They tied together capital from across Europe with the production and distribution of spices and other luxury goods in Asia. Like the Trade Federation, the VOC constructed a variety of its own ships, making up a large fleet used in pursuit of trade, diplomatic, and military goals.16 Its British counterpart, the East India Company, rented out its ships, at least during the seventeenth century. Many of these great ships were actually built in India for company use, produced from local resources and dominating the lucrative trade route from India to the Chinese coast.
The Trade Federation’s origins are similar to these companies’ creation. Several commercial organizations apparently came together to create a more powerful and effective organization more capable of enforcing its trade policies and dominating trade routes.17 Like the VOC and the British East India Company, the Trade Federation is not shy about using military force to pursue its own economic and political objectives, as it does on Alaris Prime, on Naboo, and in many systems.
The overall organization of the Trade Federation and the VOC also seem quite similar. The Trade Federation is headed by a powerful viceroy, Nute Gunray. The VOC had a very similar structure, at least at the top of its hierarchy: the company was directed in the Netherlands by a group called the Herren Zeventien, or “Gentlemen Seventeen,” which was responsible for setting company policy overall. In addition, the day-to-day governance of the company was undertaken by a group of councilors at a city called Batavia (present-day Jakarta) and headed by a powerful figure called the governor general. Powerful governors general, such as Jan Pieterszoon Coen, resembled Trade Federation viceroys such as Nute Gunray in that through sheer force of will, they were able to imprint their own political, economic, and military views on the company in Asia.18
Trade Federation viceroy Nute Gunray has powers similar to those of the early trading company leadership. (The Phantom Menace)
Jan Pieterszoon Coen felt that he answered to no one as governor general of the VOC.
“A Blockade of Deadly Battleships”: Tactics of Isolation and Intimidation
The VOC was created not simply to carry out trade with far-flung regions of the globe, namely, South and Southeast Asia, but also as an instrument of war: the vessels that its shipyards built to carry cargo were also well armed.19 The company’s foundation during a prolonged war with Spain and, by extension, Portugal (literally named the Eighty Years’ War) meant that one of the primary responsibilities of the fleet was to intercept Iberian shipping at every opportunity, both as a way to inflict damage on a hated rival and as an avenue to economic gain. In legal jargon, we would call the VOC’s actions privateering, rather than outright piracy, because a state of declared war existed. Military action was important for the early VOC.20 This violence soon became a normal and necessary part of the VOC’s operations in Asia, directed not only against the Spanish and the Portuguese, but also against indigenous rulers and populations, as the Dutch sought to consolidate their position across Asia and to enforce their monopolies over the export of local spices.21
Just as the commercial entities of the Star Wars galaxy dominate small planets with their massive ships of war and commerce, the great East Indiamen, the vessels sent out from Europe to Southeast Asia, were ships of war, as much as they were of peace. These ships were exceedingly well armed, not simply for defense against would-be pirates, but for offensive action in the East Indies. The same situation can be observed in the Trade Federation: it is not simply an organization dedicated to the pursuit of filthy lucre, but is eminently willing and able to resort to warfare to further its economic aims.
Both the VOC and the Trade Federation used blockades to achieve their strategic goals. The Star Wars saga begins with the Trade Federation engaged in a planetary siege of Naboo in order to protest the Senate’s taxation of trade routes. Similar tactics, albeit for different motives, were used by the VOC against its arch-enemies the Spanish and the Portuguese. The VOC’s blockade of Goa, a port city on the west coast of India that served as the Portuguese headquarters in Asia, was an almost annual event in the seventeenth century. Although the blockades were never completely successful, they did manage to severely disrupt Portuguese trade in Asia.22 In another instance, the Dutch East India Company attempted a massive invasion of the Portuguese settlement in Macao in southeastern China in 1622 that, because of poor planning and even poorer execution, resulted in a hasty withdrawal to the island of Taiwan. Finally, in an alliance with the English East India Company, the VOC imposed a blockade of the Spanish port of Manila in the early seventeenth century that succeeded in capturing several ships but ultimately failed to drive the Spanish out of the Philippines.23
The Dutch East India Company could pursue these militaristic goals because the charter that created the company in 1602 specifically allowed the company to act as a representative of the Dutch state in all foreign affairs in Asia. The company also made treaties with independent rulers in Asia, and it went to war without waiting for authorization from Europe, just as Nute Gunray orders the illegal occupation of Naboo. Some scholars have gone so far as to describe the Dutch East India Company as either a state within a state or a quasi-state.24
VOC warships imposed their rule on the coastal kingdom of Cochin in 1656.
Trade Federation tanks invade the peaceful world of Naboo. (The Phantom Menace)
It is extremely difficult to separate politics from economics and both of those from war when dealing with the Dutch East India Company’s activities in Asia, and the same coul
d certainly be said for the Trade Federation, as it pursues its own policies through a combination of negotiation, manipulation, and, ultimately, war. The blockade of Naboo—as the Trade Federation attempts to force the Republic to accede to its wishes regarding the taxation of trade routes—is a complex dance of negotiation, given that the two Jedi sent to Naboo are supposed to negotiate on behalf of the chancellor. Like the Dutch and English trading companies, the Trade Federation practices gunboat diplomacy when it attempts to force the Queen to negotiate a treaty favorable to the Trade Federation and later uses outright force with a massive invasion to effect a fait accompli on the Senate.