We have used electron probe microanalysis to examine Southeast Asian nephrite (jade) artifacts, many archeologically excavated, dating from 3000 B.C. through the first millennium A.D. The research has revealed the existence of one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world. Green nephrite from a source in eastern Taiwan was used to make two very specific forms of ear pendant that were distributed, between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., through the Philippines, East Malaysia, southern Vietnam, and peninsular Thailand, forming a 3,000-km-diameter halo around the southern and eastern coastlines of the South China Sea. Other Taiwan nephrite artifacts, especially beads and bracelets, were distributed earlier during Neolithic times throughout Taiwan and from Taiwan into the Philippines.
Among the issues of medical exchanges, medicaments are more often encountered than medical issues, based on ancient Chinese literatures, early in the Han-Jin Dynasties, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei had exchanges with China, also in Sui-Tang Dynasties. In the Song-Yuan Dynasties, ancient Singapore and the Philippines also incorporated in exchanges of medicament and goods. In the Ming-Qing dynasties, these 6 Asian countries had even more close contact with China, especially in trades and medical exchanges among the masses, carried out in a large scale thus, promoting the advent and development of TCM in Asiana Regions.