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UNIT 8 Chinese-American Relations: A History (I) The Nineteenth Century to World War II 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. One could only imagine how the Chinese must have felt at the turn of the century. Could any American imagine a scenario of the shoe being on the other foot (putting themselves in the place of the Chinese)? How would Americans have felt if Chinese gunboats patrolled the Mississippi River up to St. Louis, a major city in the heart of America? What if the Chinese could come and go anywhere in the United States, being completely immune to all American laws. Could Americans accept Chinatown in Boston of San Francisco being under Chinese law, and displaying signs with such captions as “No Americans or dogs allowed”? What if Manhattan Island and California were annexed by China? Would Americans tolerate their own officials being in collusion with, and being bribed by Chinese authorities, to let all of above to take place? One would think not. Is it any wonder that imperialism had become such an abominable term to the Chinese people? The Chinese have made some conscientious attempts to fight back, in efforts to defy foreign presence in China, but without much support during the slack reign of the Qing Emperor and the Dowager Empress. The Imperial family, for so long, had been extremely self-indulgent. It paid little attention to the realities of what was happening inside China. For so long, the nation’s policies revolved around the whims of the Imperial Family. With reliance on its own resources, a secret society, called the Order of Literary Patriotic Harmonious Fists, made one last desperate attempt at revenge, to rid the country of foreigners. In 1900, these Boxers as they were called, stubbornly engaged the foreign powers in conflict. The former tore up railway tracks, attacked Chinese Christians, besieged foreign delegations, and eventually slaughtered over three hundred foreigners. The Americans collaborated with the Japanese, consolidated forces and easily overwhelmed the Boxers. The latter crumbled under the pressure of foreign superiority and its own deficiencies in equipment and organization. The victors placed severe controls on the crippled Chinese Government and imposed heavy indemnities of billions of dollars. The fact that the foreigners were interested, only in protecting their own interests, was abundantly clear. Aside from discriminatory immigration policy against Chinese, the U. S. had no official direct political or diplomatic relations with China until the Second World War. The United States took on a much cherished isolationist approach to world affairs following the First World War, after having established itself as a major world power. The United States did not even become a representative of the League of Nations, essentially the creation of its own then President, Woodrow Wilson. This organization was set up in 1919 to curb international conflict, which could, potentially, throw the world into a war again. The absence of this powerful nation was one of the major weaknesses of this organization and, consequently, a possible factor that actually facilitated the resumption of world conflict in 1939. The Second World War During the Second World War, the United States and China were allies against the common enemy, Japan. A coalition of the United States, British Commonwealth countries, and other allies dispatched supplies and other support to China by way of the Burma Road and by air over the hump (mountains), to close in on Japan from the rear. When war broke out in 1939, China was experiencing a civil war, the Nationalists versus the Communists. This civil war was put on hold while both the Nationalists and Communists joined forces to converge on Japan, which had, intermittently, hovered over China as a menace, or as an imperialist thorn in its side, for a good century before the war. The war brought the United States out of its splendid official isolation. Once the war was over, turbulent times continued to stalk China. The civil war picked up where it left off. The Americans lent its moral support to the Nationalists in their struggle against the Communists, whereby the United States began to formulate its Cold War policy of “Containment”