This book provides a complex panorama of the political and commercial relations between Song and Yuan China on the one side, and the ‘Malay’ world on the other side. As such it definitely fills a gap in the field of maritime history. Comparable accounts in European languages, written from the bird's-eye view, usually focus on earlier times or later periods, especially the fifteenth century (Zheng He's voyages) and the arrival of the Iberians; moreover, they rarely link changes occurring on the continent, inside China, to developments in insular Southeast Asia, on the ‘opposite shores’ of the South China Sea. One example is Paul Wheatley's monograph The golden Khersonese (Westport: Greenwood, 1973): it explores a variety of Chinese texts with data on the Malay Peninsula and other territories, but it does not take full account of the Chinese scenario itself. Derek Heng has tried to overcome this problem. He draws on a large set of Chinese sources related to both the maritime sphere and China ‘proper’; this includes many entries in the dynastic annals, the Song huiyao collection (which has always been difficult to access), the Wenxian tongkao and a number of ethnographical texts. Besides these works he also makes use of epigraphical evidence and archaeological research. Moreover, the geographical frame of his study is clearly defined: it extends from the China coast (Hangzhou, Mingzhou, Quanzhou, Guangzhou) to the Malay Peninsula, the eastern side of Sumatra, and the northern and western coasts of Kalimantan. Java and eastern ‘Indonesia’ also appear in Heng's book, but they play a subordinated role at best. The areas of modern Thailand and Vietnam are left untouched.

Chapter 1 prepares the stage: it summarises Sino–‘Malay’ interaction during the first millennium CE. The author believes that during certain periods, so-called Kunlun traders and other non-Han groups dominated long-distance traffic across the South China Sea, while the Chinese, as commercial agents, were not yet important. Exchange was mainly in high-priced commodities. Towards the end of Tang rule one can also observe the formation of a flourishing foreign community in Guangzhou.

Chapter 2 looks at the internal situation in China from the tenth century onwards. There were periods when the central government attempted to control trade, almost to the point of monopolising it, as for example during parts of the Northern Song dynasty. At other times, for instance under the later Yuan, deregulation led to rapid growth in the private sector. Generally, the author is very consistent in his efforts to create a multi-layered model of Sino–foreign interaction; in short, he distinguishes between a ‘state level’, regional dimensions, and other strata of exchange. In that context he also investigates the role of important power groups. A famous case was the Ortaq ‘block’ in Mongol times. According to Heng, this clique exerted strong influence over some of China's leading ports; among other things, it supported the rise of Muslim communities, thus possibly contributing to the decline of the Malay presence in mid-Yuan China.

Irrespective of such shifts and changes, the Chinese market as a whole, more than anything else, was the principal driving force behind the growth of maritime interaction across the South and East China Seas, from the tenth through to the fourteenth century. This becomes evident upon reading chapter 3 and the subsequent sections. However, now and then, the author may not have felt too comfortable about this constellation, because he also seems to underline the weight of Srivijaya, the leading ‘Malay’ power in the period under review. The question is: how important was Srivijaya really? Does it qualify as one of China's ‘equals’? It is perhaps true that this polity, as indeed most of Southeast Asia, became involved in what has recently been labelled an ‘Early Age of Commerce’ (see Geoff Wade's article in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40, 2 (2009): 221–65). However, many locations that partook in it were utterly small in relation to the commercial giant at the northern fringes of the Nanhai.

Srivijaya tried to keep a kind of balance between the Cholas in South India and Song China, as Heng argues quite brilliantly; yet, until this very day, the internal setting of Srivijaya has remained an item of scholarly dissent. For this reason, it still proves quite difficult to really relate the rhythm of that state's tribute missions to the changing framework governing Song China's external sector. Heng explores these issues at great depth, but many questions, I am afraid, will never be answered. Even such books as Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, ed. Hermann Kulke et al. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009; also reviewed in this issue of Journal of Southeast Asian Studies) and Hans Bielenstein's Diplomacy and trade in the Chinese world 589–1276 (Leiden: Brill, 2005) cannot bridge the ‘void’. The story of Sino–Malay relations, there can be no doubt, is heavily ‘biased’, on account of the written sources, nearly all of which are in Chinese, and due to China's extraordinary clout.

Although certain dimensions outlined in the discussion may only be considered as hypothetical, and not as confirmed images, many of Heng's ‘visions’ are quite innovative. One example is the reforms initiated by Wang Anshi in the eleventh century. Their impact on overseas trade has rarely been investigated in recent writing. These sections are remarkable, indeed. The segments on commodity flows (chapters 5 and 6) also make good reading. Heng examines their changing composition at both the Chinese and Malay ends, taking account of different ports, their growth and decline, and their hinterland, especially in China. He provides useful tables and convincingly argues that, by and large, Sino–Malay trade gradually shifted from high-value to low-value products.

There are also several interesting sections on the role of Chinese overseas merchants in Southeast Asia, and on the temporary presence of Malay and other non-Han groups in China, especially in the so-called fanfang, or foreign quarters, of Guangzhou and Quanzhou. Yet, in many cases, written sources are difficult to interpret. Elsewhere, it has been argued, for example, that wealthy Song families kept thousands of African slaves in medieval Guangzhou — see Don Wyatt, The blacks of premodern China (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). Heng is much more prudent in that regard; he does not raise such doubtful issues, but tries to keep a critical distance towards his texts. Still, now and then he is quite liberal as well. Wang Dayuan's references to the unusual behaviour of Champa women is taken as a hint for intermarriages and of the same man we hear that he was probably specialised in the trade with certain commodities. None of this is impossible, and although I am inclined to think that Heng is correct in his views, not everyone might support these ideas.

To conclude my remarks: what is good about this book lies in the fact that it is well structured, easy to read, and not overloaded with too many details. Heng has clearly moved away from the purely ‘philological’ (and overwhelmingly ‘ethnographical’ analysis) to creating a complex historical model for Sino–foreign interaction in the South China Sea — a construction that is fresh in kind and certainly apt to ignite new research along similar lines. In that sense, one should also accept the fact that many books were not listed in his bibliography such as the work on Melaka (by M. Jacq-Hergoualc'h), J. Dars's French history on China's ‘navy’, E. Schafer's short monographs on Hainan and the Min state, and several rather ‘heavy’ Chinese items (by Liao Dake, Xu Xiaowang, etc). In sum, Sino–Malay trade and diplomacy sets a new frame for examining cross-Nanhai relations during the late medieval period. Also, it can be read with profit by all those interested in possible analogies between the past and the present, because a better understanding of the past may suggest ‘how states in Southeast Asia would react to, and approach, China's present return to its historical position as a key economy and political entity in Asia’ (p. 216).