This chapter compares two types of bonded labour emigration, the coolie trade and emigration to Southeast Asia, and reconsiders the reasons for the decline of the former. Given the global expansion of migration, interest in emigration throughout history has increased, and the Chinese diaspora has recently also begun to attract more scholarly attention. However, work on the coolie trade, which became a research focus in the field of Chinese modern history by the 1980s, has declined because of the shift in interest from the coolie trade to Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia and North America. Nonetheless, many aspects of this trade have received attention. For example, P.C. Campbell's Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries within the British Empire (1923) considered the coolie trade in the British Empire, while E. C. Arensmeyer in ‘British Merchant Enterprise and the Chinese Coolie Labour Trade 1850-1874’ (1979) studied the role of the British government in the coolie trade and its relation- ship with British merchants. Qing government policy against the coolie trade has also attracted the attention of scholars. Furthermore, the emigration system, resistance against the coolie trade and the rescue of kidnapped persons have already been analysed, along with the situation in the area of immigration.
However, although many scholars have studied this topic, some issues remain Unexamined.
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