UNIT 8
Chinese-American Relations: A History(Ⅰ)
The Nineteenth Century to World WarⅡ
The Nineteenth Century
In the 19th century,
the United States was
a relative newcomer to
the area of international affairs.
Relations with China really began,
not so subtly, in the 19th century
with its discriminatory immigration
policy against China. The Gold Rush
of 1849 in California, the building
of railroads, and the American industrial
revolution of the second half
of the 19th century, attracted
many Chinese immigrants with dreams
of the good life in America.
At that time, it was perceived
by most of the world, that
America was the land of opportunity,
success, and wealth.
As the Chinese population
in the United States grew in size,
pressures to limit the number
of these coming into the United States
became strong. Laws, such as
placing a police tax on
Chinese people in California in 1862
and The Chinese Exclusion Act passed
in 1882, officially testified
to blatant discrimination against
Chinese people. The latter felt
forced to congregate in areas
of big cities, such as San Francisco,
New York, and Boston. Chinatown
soon became part of American
urban vocabulary. It seemed that
the timid Chinese were susceptible
to being pushed around. It appeared
that Chinese and other Oriental immigrants
were not welcome with open arms,
but were welcome only when
hard labour was needed to do
the toughest jobs, especially
in railroad construction and
in the new industries that were
fast developing at the time.
It would be well into
the 20th century before such discriminatory
laws would be suspended.
The Early Twentieth Century
During the second half of
the 19th century, the United States
was preoccupied with a civil war
and a post civil war
industrial revolution. American
foreign policy with China did not
really take form until 1899
and 1900. By the turn
of the century, the United States
was ascending as a major player
in international affairs, especially
in the western hemisphere.
American foreign policy, at the time,
focused mostly on Latin America.
However, in 1899, the Americans
saw economic opportunities in
an already politically suppressed China.
For decades, European countries
had been reaping the economic benefits
by exploiting of the country's resources
and markets while claiming chunks
of territory as their own.
It had become a closed club
of the countries already established there.
The United States, fearing that
China was about to officially partitioned,
wanted access to those lucrative assets
as well. American Secretary of State,
John Hay, perhaps using some
Big Stick and gunboat tactics,
popular American strategies at the time,
was well positioned to get
the established foreign nations
in China to conform to an agreement
called the Open Door policy for China.
This benchmark intervention by
the United States, conferred on
all countries, equal and impartial trade
with all parts of China, while
preserving the territorial and administrative
integrity of the country.
The American approach did little
to respect China's customary opposition
to foreign intrusion. To China,
the United States was only
one more country to bully it,
to exploit its resources and
sovereignty and, further, to deny
it of its autonomy, integrity,
and dignity. This collective foreign presence,
boosted by American interests,
diffused any hope for China
to break the chains of humiliating
foreign occupation. The Chinese were
virtually captives or prisoners
in their own country.
The United States did not deviate
far from this economic
policy toward China, until
the communist take over in 1949.
