Macao

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

""This book offers annotated translations of documents touching on Dutch admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge and his voyage to Asia between 1605 and 1608. These translations are aimed at a contemporary English-speaking Asian readership interested in the early modern history of European trade, warfare and expansion in Southeast Asia with a focus on Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Researchers specialising in early European colonialism, international law, international relations, security studies, and diplomatic history will also find that the documents translated in this volume offer new and unfamiliar perspectives. Materlieff’s business acumen, military and diplomataic prowess as well as his vision of empire all have implications for examining not only European expansion into Southeast Asia, but also into other regions at large, including especially south Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Admiral Matelieff was a director of the Rotterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) formed in 1602. He was appointed fleet commander on one of the company’s first voyages to Asia. Matelieff’s mission was both commercial and military: he launched a major sea-borne attack on the Portuguese colony of Melaka, arranged for the signing of treaties with the rulers of Johor, Aceh and Ternate, and founded the first Dutch fort on the island of Ternate. His endeavours, however, to open the Chinese market for the Dutch company proved unsuccessful.
Following his return to the Dutch Republic in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of memorials and letters. In these he advanced recommendations for changing the way the company organized its fleets and conducted business. More importantly he offered  his Dutch contemporaries a vision of empire in Asia. The materials contained in this volume offer important observations of a perceptive analyst who was also determined to grasp the political and economic structures of Asia, and also of inter-state relations in across this vast region. At a time of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English engagement in Southeast Asia, Matelieff sought to critically assess and strategize on the ways in which Europeans were increasingly engaging with Asian polities and their rulers.
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"Four hundred years ago, the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius was commissioned by the United Netherlands’ East India Company (VOC) to write a defense of Admiral Jakob van Heemskerk’s seizure of a Portuguese merchant carrack in the Straits of Singapore (February 1603). At the time he was twenty-one years old. What Grotius produced between 1604 and 1606 is a comprehensive political and historical exposé on war. Today, this work is known as De Jure Praedae Commentarius, or “Commentary on Law of Prize and Booty”. Only part of this comprehensive manuscript was published during its author’s lifetime and is known as Mare Liberum or “The Free Sea” (1609).
Mare Liberum is essentially a propagandistic treatise and argues for Holland’s merchants to freely access emporia in Asia by unimpeded navigation across the high seas. The freedom of navigation forms a subset to the overarching arguments on the freedom of access and trade. This particular assessment of Mare Liberum stands in sharp contrast to past interpretations, insofar as these have placed the ‘freedom of the seas’ - and not the broader issues surrounding ‘free trade’ - at the forefront of scholarly attention. From this vantage point, Grotius was surprisingly consistent in his thinking on the broader issues of maritime trade and navigation.
During the first two decades of the seventeenth century, Grotius lent a helping hand in the process of forging political and commercial treaties between the VOC and Asian rulers. Far from championing peace and the freedom of navigation on the high seas for which the Dutch humanist is best remembered in modern times, Grotius should also assume a place among the intellectual fathers of Dutch colonial rule in Asia."""""

"The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the seventeenth century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It has long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia.

Drawing on maps, rare printed works, and unpublished manuscripts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Latin, Peter Borschberg provides new information on the diplomatic activities of Asian powers, and shows how the Portuguese and Spanish attempted to restore their political fortunes by containing the rapid rise of Dutch Power in the region. Key documents, transcribed and translated into English for the first time, make up a series of appendices.

The product of more than two decades of research in European libraries, archives, The Singapore and Melaka Straits will be of great interest to readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where little is known about this pivotal pre-colonial period. It is also an invaluable resource for historians and other students of early modern Europe and of the European presence in Asia.
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"O artigo revisita o “Incidente do Santa Catarina”, o famoso episódio da primeira embarcação portuguesa capturada pelos holandeses nos mares asiáticos, inserindoo no contexto mais vasto da rivalidade luso-holandesa no mundo malaio, mais concretamente nos estreitos de Singapura e Malaca. Através de uma cuidadosa análise de fontes europeias efectua uma avaliação completa das maiores consequências deste evento e das suas subsequentes implicações internacionais. Depois de 1603, não só se consciencializaram os dirigentes da Companhia Holandesa das Índias Orientais e os governantes da República Holandesa de como poderia ser lucrativa a política de pirataria e de pilhagem do inimigo, como também as autoridades portuguesas do Estado da Índia se tornaram progressivamente mais cientes das suas vulnerabilidades devidas às condicionantes geográficas. Dedica ainda alguma atenção à defesa legal dos interesses holandeses orientada por Hugo Grotius, o jurisconsulto holandês por muitos considerado o “pai do moderno direito internacional”. Deste artigo resulta igualmente muito evidente a importância efectiva dos mercadores macaenses para o Estado da Índia, a profunda expansão das suas redes mercantis para o Sudeste Asiático bem como, não obstante o facto de terem sofrido alguns reveses em consequência da pirataria da Companhia Holandesa das Índias Orientais, o modo como conseguiram recuperar desses abalos, com extraordinária agilidade e perseverança.

Download for free from:
http://www.icm.gov.mo/RC/TextPE.asp?No=11&ID=555"

One-stop public services and single window systems are primary goals of many e-government initiatives. How to facilitate the technical and data interoperability among the systems in different government agencies is a key of meeting these goals. While many software standards, such as Web Services and ebXML, have been formulated to address the interoperability between different technical platforms, the data interoperability problem remains to be a big challenge. The data interoperability concerns how different parties agree on what information to exchange, and the definition and representation of such information. To address this problem, the Hong Kong government has released the XML Schema Design and Management Guide as well as the Registry of Data Standards under its e-Government Interoperability Framework initiative. This paper introduces how the data modelling methodology provided by the Guide can be used to develop data interfaces and standards for e-government systems. We also discuss how the Macao government has formulated their data interoperability policy and has applied the Guide in their situation.