China and the Philippines: Borders and Violence in 1603

• In Event: 60. Crossing and Contesting Borders in Island and Mainland Southeast Asia

Abstract

Will competing claims between world powers lead to violence? Or will shared interests preserve the peace? These questions are not new to the South China/West Philippine Sea. They were once answered at the turn of the seventeenth century, when Manila was home to some 20,000 Chinese immigrants, known then as Sangleys. In 1603, the Sangleys were almost entirely wiped out by a coalition of Spanish, Japanese, and Filipino fighters, and this tragic incident demarcated, for the first time, a clear border between Chinese and Philippine state power. That boundary has since been reimagined from several perspectives and is now once again hotly contested.
This paper uses Ming and Spanish sources to probe these origins, arguing that the China-Philippine border began, not as a geographic line, but instead as a human buffer. Caught between two incompatible visions of global power, the Sangleys were themselves the original border. When that border—secured by their dual allegiance—was contested, they also became this dispute’s original victims. Understanding this incident serves two important purposes. First, it demonstrates the limitations of current territorial claims based on eras when borders were not determined by the absolutes of cartography. How, for instance, could mobile transnational humans be mapped as thin static lines? And second, 1603 is a critical cautionary tale of what can happen when mutual suspicions overwhelm common interests.

Author

• Ethan Hawkley, Wesley College