Srivijaya's preeminence depends in part on exercising a degree of control over the burgeoning commerce moving through the Strait of Malacca.

This it accomplishes by mobilizing the policing capabilities of small communities of seafaring orang laut (Malay for sea people), providing facilities and protection in exchange for reasonable tax rates on maritime traders, and maintaining favorable relations with inland peoples who are the source of food and many of the trade goods on which commerce of the day is built, but Srivijaya also promotes itself as a commanding cultural center in which ideas from all over Buddhist Asia circulate and are redistributed as far as away Vietnam, Tibet, and Japan.