[namaria]

There has been supra regional integration (not just marginal - noticeably influencing domestic economies and politics too) since the time Roman merchants plied the Indian sea around the first century CE. I recommend reading "Boundless Sea" from Abulafia for more insight. Autocracies starve themselves to death.

[woweoe]

The Greeks Empire was all the way to the northern borders of India. Europe and Asia have been trading for millenia along the Silk Route through India and the Indian Ocean. In fact Europe was losing money to Asia until the formation of British India, and the political turmoil in later British India was what led the UK to turn their attention to exporting tea to Boston...

[namaria]

The Greek (Macedonian) conquests in Asia were just a chapter in this process. Sumerians traded with India back in 2000 bce. The importance of overland silk road seems to have been overplayed by a romantic approach to late antiquity and medieval history. The volumes and values traded over sea far overshadow what trickled down via land connections where things filtered through between large regional emporia more then being traded directly. Also thesaurisation of bullion metal is a big issue all over the place not just in the relationship between Europe and China. I'd argue that the issue becomes even more prominent when we see the role of opium trade and trafficking as a way to offset the silver deficit Europe had with China in the 19th century.

[woweoe]

I am not quite sure what that China comment is in reply to, but India was a major (if not bigger) destination for bullion in the ancient world, and the West had a deficit with India for most of history including the early years of the British Empire. India was probably the biggest trading partner for Europe in the ancient world, larger than China.

https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/all-the-worlds-go...

[namaria]

>In fact Europe was losing money to Asia

Thank you for the article, very interesting read! China absorbed a lot of precious metals from Europe and elsewhere (silver more then gold as was the case with India historically). The British Empire used military force first in India and later in China, motivated in part by the precious metal deficit. And as consequent as the Raj was in the process, I mentioned China to add depth and nuance to the narrative and to illustrate that the precious metal outflow was by no means stopped by the British administration of India.