Sino-Southeast Asian Exchange in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries CE

This talk re-assesses the nature and the extent of commercial and diplomatic relations between the states of the South Seas (i.e. maritime Southeast Asia) and the Tang Empire in the 7^th-8^th centuries CE. This period is commonly understood to be the height of Tang “cosmopolitanism,” but the evidence instead suggests a significant decline in the level of diplomatic and commercial exchange, with a concomitant decline in cultural influence, in both directions. The period thus represents a rather stagnant lull between two periods of more vigorous exchange: the Jiankang era (especially the 5^th-6^th centuries), and the late Tang commercial revolution (late 8^th century forwards). The paper explores Tang relations with the Cham state (in modern central Vietnam) and Srivijaya (in southeastern Sumatra), and with the Kunlun, a term used to describe people from maritime Southeast Asia.