The history of Sino-foreign relations has received less attention in terms of the studies of the history of the Jiangnan area, south of the Yangtze River. From the perspective of Jiangnan regional history, there are two deficiencies regarding the studies on the history of Jiangnan foreign trade and foreign cultural exchange. One is that the research results of the history of Jiangnan foreign relations including overseas trade in Song-Yuan and Ming-Qing China, Jiangnan foreign cultural exchange such as book communication, as well as Western Learning flowing toward the East, etc. have been constrained to the field of the history of Sino-foreign relations, rather than being extended to the discussion of Jiangnan regional history itself. The other is that most scholars whose research interest is Jiangnan regional history have paid little attention to the progress of the studies of the history of Sino-foreign relations. Therefore, from the angle of the history of Sino-foreign relations, studies on Jiangnan regional history would be improved furthermore in the following two aspects. On the one hand, the impact of Jiangnan’s foreign trade activities to its socio-economic changes and cultural life should be given more attention and be explored more deeply. As revealed by the existing study, the opening-up of Jiangnan in the Song Dynasty had been related to adjustments of its regional social development that evolved from an enclosed agricultural society to an opened commercial community. In Ming-Qing China, private sea trade in Jiangnan had been prosperous, even when the government banned maritime trade. Meanwhile, Jiangnan was the main supplier of export goods for foreign trade in Guangzhou during the Ming-Qing maritime prohibition period, as well as had been the ocean-oriented hinterlands of foreign trade ports in Guangdong and Fujian for a long time. Foreign trade influenced the economy and culture of Jiangnan so much that the studies of the history of Jiangnan area should not neglect its foreign trade activities. On the other hand, the vision of global history should be introduced into discussing Jiangnan regional history, that it is to say the Jiannan regional history society should be analyzed against the background of East Asia or the World rather than just limited to traditional China. As we know, Jiangnan had been one of the most dynamic regions in China in terms of Sino-foreign relations. It was a very important area in Asian trade circle before the Age of Exploration and then became an indispensable region in the world trade networks after the Exploration. Thus, in order to examine the historical process of the Jiangnan society, the region should neither be treated exclusively, nor just be limited to China. Researchers should not only detect its local and regional features in the context of traditional China, but also observe its cross-cultural and trans-regional cosmopolitan characteristics with regard to its political, economic and cultural aspects beyond the national boundary. As such, researchers should further explore its historical role in East Asia and the world and how it was connected with other areas in East Asia and even the world and merged into East Asian and world historical courses through tributary system, commercial ports and immigrants. In doing this, the regional characteristic and development of the Jiangnan society could be manifested in East Asian and global contexts.