Wee Kek Koon

Reflections | The Chinese eunuch who beat admiral Zheng He to Malacca, and the exchanges that followed between its rulers and China

Malacca in present-day Malaysia was once a sultanate ruling over an extensive territory. As such it had regular exchanges with China’s Ming dynasty court

With Portuguese invading, China, as Malacca’s protector, called on vassals to go to its defence in its hour of need, but in vain. Thus did colonial rule begin

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A drawing of ancient Malacca from a Travel Book by Giulio Ferrario. Once a powerful sultanate that cultivated ties with Ming dynasty China, it fell to Portuguese invaders in 1511. Photo: Getty Images

Wee Kek Koon

Published: 8:15am, 26 May 2024

I was on a liquor-drenched party boat that was sailing in the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest and most important shipping lanes in the world today, when I saw its namesake in the distance.

From the water looking ashore, one needs quite a bit of imagination to picture the modern Malaysian state of Malacca as one of the most important global trading hubs a few centuries ago.

But it was. At the height of its power and influence in the 15th century, the territories of the Malacca sultanate covered the entire Malay Peninsula, including Singapura (modern-day Singapore) and the Riau Islands in the south, and extended into parts of Sumatra across the strait.

Merchants from as far as the Middle East and the Ryukyu kingdom (present-day Okinawa) called at its port.

A 17th century map of Malacca. Photo: Getty Images

The most frequently cited interactions between Malacca and China revolved around the eunuch admiral Zheng He, who stopped over at Malacca five times between 1405 and 1431.