Book excerpt: Focusing on the hybrid maritime world of Hong Kong, Pearl River Delta and West River in the last two decades of the late Qing period, this work tells a vivid trading and competition story of previously unknown private Chinese traders and junk masters. This challenges the prevailing view of the domination of China’s maritime trade by modern foreign steamships. Making use of unpublished Kowloon Maritime Customs and British diplomatic records in the late 19th and early 20th century, Henry Sze Hang Choi convincingly shows how these private Chinese traders flexibly adopted to the foreign-dominated maritime customs agencies and treaty port system in defending their Chinese homeland stronghold against the invasion of foreign economic power.