China Gateway

China Gateway ? A myth-shattering journey to the Cape of Asia and the Straits of SingaporeThe Cape of Asia and the Singapore Straits were formerly called the China Gateway because it forms a crucial bottleneck in the shortest route between the world?s two most populous nations, India and China. Peter Borschberg?s book presents and evaluates high-resolution digital images of rare manuscript maps arduously collected over many years from libraries and archives all over the world and demonstrates that ?Sin-Gapura? does not mean ?Lion City? but ?China Gateway?. It clears up misunderstandings about the uniqueness of this name, its usages, the existence of a competing transpeninsular waterway, and the dubious scheme by which Singapore Island, formerly called Long Island, became a British trading station through the personal ambition and financial sacrifice of one of the most brazen administrators in Asian Colonial history.