C.R. Boxer describes how porcelain, silks and, above all, tea formed the basis of a lucrative trade between the Chinese and Dutch in the eighteenth century.

After Shang ordered them to withdraw to Taiwan on September 19 of 1622, the Dutch raided Amoy on October and November. The Dutch intended to “induce the Chinese to trade by force or from fear” by raiding Fujian and Chinese shipping from the Pescadores.

Though domestic trade moved in all directions, foreign trade was pretty one-sided. Qing China had an incredibly favorable balance of trade with Western countries, meaning China exported way more than it imported. The most important foreign good China imported was not a good at all but a currency: silver, to be exact.

AMSTERDAM — In 1558, a single Portuguese trading ship returning from Asia carried 1,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain. A Dutch ship making the same journey 50 years later brought 60,000 pieces. And by 1638, about 900,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain were transported via Dutch trading vessels.

The colonial period was brought to an end after the 1662 Siege of Fort Zeelandia (Anping Fort ) in Tainan by Koxinga’s army who promptly dismantled the Dutch colony, expelled the Dutch and established the Ming loyalist anti-Qing Kingdom of Tungning.

The Netherlands shares with the United States a liberal economic outlook and is committed to free trade. The Dutch were allies with the United States in the Korean War and the first Gulf War and have been active in global peacekeeping efforts in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The BeNeLux Countries where already working together earlier and therefore Belgium and Luxembourg can be seen as very close allies to The Netherlands. The ECSC and EU have grown though the years with more countries joining the union.

For 2021, Netherlands is ranked 37 of 140 out of the countries considered for the annual GFP review. It holds a PwrIndx* score of 0.6391 (a score of 0.0000 is considered ‘perfect’).

Central government plays an active role in protecting human rights in the Netherlands. One of those rights is protection of privacy. Advances in IT can pose a threat to people’s privacy. The government continually monitors whether new policies or legislation are needed in order to better protect human rights.

The Netherlands is not the first country in Europe you think of when someone mentions Vikings. It is Denmark, Sweden, and Norway that is located in northern Europe and share the closest ties to the Vikings and maybe to the Dutch Vikings.