Great Clearance

The Great Clearance was a Qing policy of forced coastal evacuation and maritime prohibition, ordered by Kangxi in 1661. People living along the coast from Vietnam to Chekiang were compelled to move seventeen miles inland, while troops patrolled the evacuated zone and shipping was prohibited until 1693. The policy made the priorities of the Ming and Qing states concrete: to preserve political stability, they were willing to restrict commerce and foreclose opportunities for economic change.

Order and enforcement

The order reached across essentially the entire southern coast, then China’s most commercially active region. Its force did not rest on a ban alone: troops patrolled the coast to ensure that residents left. Until 1693, shipping was prohibited everywhere along the coast, subjecting coastal communities and trade to direct state control.

The ban was periodically reimposed during the eighteenth century. That recurrence made the restriction more than a temporary interruption: merchants could not be confident that overseas trade would remain permitted. Investments in ships, equipment, and trading relationships might be rendered worthless if the emperor abruptly reversed course and banned commerce again.

Political purpose and economic effects

The policy reflected a longstanding concern among Ming and Qing rulers that international trade could enrich merchants and embolden them, weakening the political order. The book connects this fear to the possibility of creative destruction: commerce could generate new wealth and interests beyond the state’s preferred control. By contrast, England’s institutions were being transformed during the era of Atlantic expansion. China’s withdrawal from international trade therefore marked a divergence at a consequential historical juncture.

Markets and domestic trade continued, and the government taxed the domestic economy relatively lightly. But the state did little to support innovation, and the restrictions on overseas trade discouraged the investment needed to build commercial connections. In the book’s account, the choice was not between state control and no economic activity; it was a choice to privilege political stability over mercantile and industrial prosperity. China’s economy subsequently stagnated through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and by the time Mao established his communist regime in 1949, China was among the world’s poorest countries.

Historical significance

The Great Clearance exemplifies how a policy intended to contain politically destabilizing change could also narrow the conditions for economic development. Its seventeen-mile relocation order and long shipping ban severed access to the coast by force; their later recurrence sustained uncertainty for would-be traders. The policy thus figures in the book not as an isolated administrative measure, but as part of a broader inward turn that left China less able to benefit from the commercial transformations taking place elsewhere.