Chip wars wouldn’t faze 17th-century Augustinian monks in the Philippines. The friars and their Spanish patrons might have waved away trendy economic concepts like reshoring and friend-shoring. Efforts to sideline China or ringfence manufacturing and technological development may well have met with guffaws.
Commonly described as being in retreat, globalization has taken many forms over the centuries. It didn’t begin when the Cold War ended or even in the late 1970s when Deng Xiaoping began opening China’s economy. Trade and investment links are in a constant state of evolution. That’s the takeaway from a compelling display on the banks of the Singapore River. For anyone depressed about contemporary attempts to erect barriers between goods, people and capital, a visit to the Asian Civilizations Museum should provide relief.
The exhibition, Manila Galleon: From Asia to the Americas, traces commercial links strengthened by the advent of Spanish rule in the Philippines and the voyages of Ferdinand Magellan, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Andres de Urdaneta. Such connections didn’t commence with conquest, but they were enhanced. The show doesn’t endorse imperialism. Singapore, a post-colonial success story, is too shrewd to uncritically laud the arrival of the European era. But it has also gained enormously from shipping; its port is one of the busiest and the government is plowing tens of billions of dollars into an upgrade. In short, trade is good. And a neat thing for Singapore to showcase, the more so if links with China and India, and the professional diaspora of those giant countries get to feature.
Not only are there displays of furniture, religious icons, silverware and porcelain, the museum is hosting lectures and conferences devoted to the galleon trade. “Globalization, as we would call it today, has been going on for quite some time,” Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation, an exhibition supporter, told a panel last week. “We have ups and downs. We appear to be in a down pattern now. If you read the media, especially, a lot of the stories are all depressing. Gloom, de-globalization, the end of society as we know it … it’s not as gloomy as all that.”
There’s a video game where kids get to fire a cannon at pirates. For those keen on the history of currencies and monetary policy, the commentary on the role of silver is useful. Chinese merchants wanted it and the Spanish mined the commodity in Mexico and Bolivia. The Spanish dollar gets its due as the reserve currency of the era. Exchanges of goods and services — with Asia as the vital link — are resilient.
The displays also hint at Singapore’s posture in a shifting landscape. The messaging reinforces the narrative presented at The Tang Shipwreck exhibit, a permanent feature of the ACM. The galleries devoted to the items salvaged from the wreck of a ship in Indonesian waters are part of a broader effort to position the tiny republic as being critical to long-established trade routes. According to this argument, British rule in Singapore was merely one chapter in an unfolding story.
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Such portrayals reveal a subtle shift in how Singapore sells itself, Natali Pearson conveyed in Belitung, the Afterlives of a Shipwreck, a 2023 account of the Tang collection’s torturous journey from the ocean floor during the Asian Financial Crisis to its new home. “The Singapore Story — the nation’s government-backed foundation narrative — has typically traced its origin to the idea of Singapore as a ‘sleepy fishing village’ that has undergone rapid transformation,” she wrote. “Recently, however, Singapore has thrown its efforts into extending the claims it makes to the past, teasing out a pre-independence, indeed precolonial history.”
Acapulco, a port on the western coast of Mexico, is depicted as a key trading hub. A multicultural city where many languages are spoken and business people from around the world gather. Ethnic Chinese communities in Manila were critical to the success of the supply chain. Goods destined for South America were shipped on from the port after galleons arrived. Others destined for Spain or other European markets were hauled by land to Veracruz on the other side of the isthmus. It’s not a big leap to conflate Singapore and Acapulco.
There are plenty of reasons to fret about the fragmentation of the global economy. Trade climbed to a record in 2022, but is projected to have declined last year and faces a difficult start to 2024. Tariffs and measures to discourage US firms, and those of its allies, from investing in Chinese technology appear entrenched. Foreign direct investment has declined from 3.3% of gross domestic product in the early 2000s to 1.3% over the last five years, according to a recent paper by International Monetary Fund economists.
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There will be winners and losers in this. A report from Bank of America Corp economists identified Vietnam as among the former. Mexico, a partner and neighbor of the US, is often depicted as a beneficiary. But China, which has increased its own industrial presence in these nations, is far from out of the picture. Nuance is everything. China supplies key components for major Vietnamese exports. Moreover, while global growth in goods trade has peaked, services — especially in the digital arena — are going great guns.
Singapore knows this and is adept at hedging bets. On the lawn next to the museum is a statue of Stamford Raffles, the East India Co official credited with founding the port that propelled Singapore to prosperity. In front of the ACM are busts of very different men, Deng and Ho Chi Minh among them.
All would appreciate that commerce can be messy and defy easy stereotypes. What matters is that it keeps evolving. As enticing as slogans are, they aren’t always helpful. Globalization wasn’t born when Starbucks opened stores outside the US and didn’t end with the subprime meltdown or Donald Trump.
The Manila Galleons tell us not to be discouraged. The artisans who decorated jars with Augustinian emblems would approve, along with the Chinese who painted bowls commemorating the coronation of a Spanish monarch. That’s a real public service. - Bloomberg Opinion
