Indian Ocean trade never truly disappeared. Beginning in the 15th century, however, with the expansion of European exploration and China’s withdrawal from international affairs, the world’s economic ...

Timeline: A Chronology Of the Ming Voyages First Voyage 1405–1406. Zheng He commanded a fleet of 317 ships, almost 28,000 men, their arms and supplies. ... Chinese Trade in the Indian Ocean. China's ...

Chintz, calico, pyjamas: How India’s Indian Ocean textile trade rose in the east and set in the west Craftsmen and traders from the subcontinent influenced global tastes in fabrics for centuries.

Histories of pearl diving in the Indian Ocean – as in a central scene of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea – are continued in today’s illegal abalone trade.

Other West Indian Ocean countries, given their dispersed geography and location, face major threats from illegal trade of their natural resources, coupled with illegal drug trade convergence using ...