Global circulation of silver between Ming‐Qing China and the Americas: combining historical texts and scientific analyses

The circulation of silver between the Americas, Europe, and China has provided a critical impetus for modern globalisation since the 16th century. Even though substantial documentary information has been collected and processed, there is still an on‐going debate about its underlying mechanism and the nature of the economic model. This article argues that the scientific analyses of the silver bullion and coins of Ming‐Qing China and the Americas can offer a new source of information on this issue. Our pilot study shows that the silver concentration in the Ming and Qing silver bullion is higher than that of America, by around 3% and 8% respectively. In particular, the Qing silver bullion made in different reigns shows a remarkably consistent silver content. Such a difference in the fineness could further contribute to colossal arbitrage noted by scholars for decades, resulting in high volumes of global trading fundamentally driven by the higher price of silver in China. While quantifying its exact economic and political impacts still appears a distant prospect, as the current database is rather sketchy and many intermediate processes remain unclear, integrating scientific analyses into historical research illustrates a number of new patterns, which helps rethink the global silver circulation in the early modern period