In the Tang Dynasty, orders were issued to prohibit the trade in slaves (Schafer, 1963, p. 45). With the transatlantic slave trade, Europeans brought blacks to China. The Dutch had enslaved Africans in Taiwan, the Portuguese took them to Macao, and the British and French used them as servants in coastal China. In the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1912), China prohibited the entry of enslaved Africans and the capture or use of Chinese as slaves by colonialists (Ai Zhouchang, op. cit., pp. 49-55, 82). Ghanaian scholar Adams Bodomo has noted that although Africans and Chinese had met a long time before, yet they were 'on equal footing for the most part, and Africans and Chinese never owned each other on any large scale or in any systematic manner' (Bodomo, 2013, pp. 244-246).  
Blacks were merchants in China. Ibn Battuta met Moroccans doing business in China during his visit there in the fourteenth century (Ibn Battuta, 1999 [1929]). Sudanese businessmen also worked in China (Ahmed, 1999b, pp. 197206; 1999a, pp. 323-366; 2014). Blacks were actors, musicians, acrobats, wild animal trainers, porters and peasants at the time. European encounters with China brought enslaved Africans to the coast, and more Africans served as porters, guards, soldiers and domestic attendants in foreigners' residences on the coast in China. In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Chinese army captured African soldiers in the battle against Portuguese occupation of Macao. In the fight against the Dutch army invading Taiwan, African soldiers were among the Chinese army led by its commander Zheng Chenggong. ${ }^{4}$  
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[^0]:    4 "Zheng Chengong's Black Army", Military History, 4, 1987.