Podcast: China Silver Trade

The silver trade between China, Japan, and Spain from 1500-1800 is discussed. China initially used paper money but switched to silver due to concerns about counterfeit currency. Spain faced financial problems and bankruptcy due to the trade. The Manila voyage required extensive planning and preparation. India's import of silver caused an imbalance between the Americas and China. Suggestions to address the imbalance included shipping gold, decreasing exports, and increasing imports. China now uses various metals for currency while the US uses dollars and Europe uses euros. Hello. Thank you for listening to my podcast. My name is Celica Lowe, and I am going to be discussing some of the origins of the silver trade between the years of 1500 and 1800. The silver trade was between China and Japan and Spain. Eventually, the Americas would become involved, and even with a few other countries. To start off with, we can talk about the Chinese tax system. They started off using paper money. They were actually the first ones to event paper money, but it didn't last long because China was worried that people were going to take advantage and print it out. Because of that, China goes to metals, specifically silver. There was just so much silver coming in from Japan and Spain during that time, which is ironic because people were so worried about the whole money situation, like the printed money situation, and they just had to deal with it with silver instead. Unfortunately, for Spain, according to Ashley, an assistant professor, claims that they dealt with a lot of financial problems along with bankruptcies. Even right now, people are still working in those caves, even though there's almost no silver left. It just really shows the greediness in people. Why are we making people work for almost nothing at this point? A voyage called the Manila was constructed in 1571. It was referred to the Entry Pot, which is French for port or city that has goods being exported to and from. The Manila was an annual journey that required extensive planning and work. It makes you think about what it really looked like with all of that silver on board, and how much did they actually have to prepare, and did they really have to wait eight to 12 months to do a trip? Something that stood out to me was that India actually came into the picture and imported millions of ounces of silver, causing a huge imbalance between the Americas and China. China and almost everyone else was getting tons of silver in overflow that made the value into nothing. The Salt Lake Tribune commented on a few ways to actually get back on track, like shipping gold instead of silver, decreasing exports and increasing imports, and increasing sales on council bills. The Americas imbalance was the domino effect, with how much it really came crashing down on everybody else, while they were already failing. All of this leads to China using more metals for their currency, not specifically just silver, while the US uses dollars and Europe uses euros. I think that's really interesting that now the world can use different kinds of currencies, and it can still go around. That wraps it up, and thank you for listening to my little insider and research of what I found about the China silver trade.