Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong

For much of the eighteenth century, Hà Tiên, situated on the present-day Vietnam-Cambodia border, was one of the most important entrepôts in maritime East Asia. Under the governance of the Chinese creole Mo (Mạc) clan, it prospered as a transhipment point between Northeast, mainland Southeast, and island Southeast Asia, as well as a financial center. The Chinese merchants who frequented the place simply called it “The Port.” At the same time, the Mo actively expanded into the hinterlands of the Mekong Delta and Gulf of Siam littoral, recruiting Chinese, Viet, Khmer, and Austronesian migrants to open up new land and exploit natural resources and mines. The Port’s prosperity owed much to the commercialization of the Qing economy and the formation of the Guangzhou System. It was the prototype of the free trade ports of Singapore and Hong Kong that emerged over a century afterward.