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 centur 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 som 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 deviat 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 themselve 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 Chines 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 selfindulgent. 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 eve 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” (Containing the spread of Communism)
UNIT9 Chinese-American Relations: A History(Ⅱ The Cold War to the Presen
The Cold War After the war, a new war of international tension, intrigue and political posturing, called the Cold War, forced the U.S. to scrap any thoughts of the false comfort of official isolation. It joined the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT). It was determined to play a major, if not dominant role, in post war international affairs. The world was the stage for intense rivalry between the Communists, on one side, and democratic Capitalists on the other. It fostered close scrutiny of each other, as well as a brisk interchange of often fabricated and distorted propaganda between the polarized sides. It injected the fear that if one side blinked, a nuclear war would be triggered. The world, seemingly, was always on the verge of warfare. This environment placed the United States and China on opposite sides once the Communists took power in China in 1949. This constant friction jeopardized chances for meaningful political interaction and intercourse. This atmosphere of distrust and fear left little incentive for the different sides to talk seriously. By the end of the Second World War, or during the last year or two of the war, the world stage was being set for the Cold War. President Truman's attitude toward China hardened. American policy was explicit that only one China, Nationalist China led by Chiang Kaishek, on the island of Taiwan, was the official China. The Americans made it abundantly clear, that Mao Tsetung's Communist Regime, on mainland China, would not occupy China's permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. The outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula brought about an abrupt change of focus in American foreign policy. The new American strategy was to militarily isolate or alienate China in Asia. To accomplish this, the United States established bases in East Asia and mutual defense treaties in East Asia. Treaties were negotiated with Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. American President Eisenhower later expanded these to include South Korea, Pakistan, and Thailand. To cap off this antiChina strategy, the US strengthened ties with Taiwan or Nationalist China, with which the former had official diplomatic ties In the 1950s, American power and credibility deteriorated somewhat in the Cold War. Its own people, who began to oppose McCarthyism and the blunt anti-communist policies of John Foster Dulles, the American Secretary of State in the Eisenhower Administration, helped to undermined national prestige. In 1953, Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, died. These events helped to bring about a shift in direction in American foreign policy. The United States began to look more to Asian events as major threats to America's national security. The Iron Curtain was firmly established in Europe, and NATO forces provided secure protection on the western side of the curtain. For the time being, things looked fairly stable in Europe. In the East, because of the end of the Korean War and the exodus of the French from Indo-China, things were not as stable. The American political elite contended that the foremost problem was the vacuum left by the French withdrawal from Indo-China. To officials in the United States, this void must not be filled by another communist regime. The realization of objectives of the domino theory (the essence of which was, that if not checked, countries in an given area will all gradually fall to communist rule) could not be allowed to perpetuate. The Chinese Revolution had established a communist regime in the most populous country in the world, and the tensions between North and South Korea were not going to go away overnight. Success of the domino theory looked more likely in Asia than in Europe. The United States felt that it needed to concentrate its energies and resources in Asia. American policies, during the 1960s and early 1970s, essentially were to prevent communist takeovers in Asia, in particular, particularly in South Vietnam and Taiwan. American polic was to contain communism where it already existed, while simultaneously coexisting peacefully with its cold war communist rivals. Military expenditures increased as defense budgets went sky high with democratic and communist bureaucracies building huge arsenals or inventories of high velocity, even supersonic destructive nuclear weapons, in a very fragile polarized world. Even China tested a thermal nuclear weapon in the early 60s Thawing of the Cold War —the 1970's to 2001 American Cold War policy ensued until the early 1970's, when some major changes in thinking were inaugurated. Communist China's entry to the United Nations was a setback for the United States. The Vietnam War was not going well. In the early 70s, American President Nixon, the archconservative and anti-communist president, up to that point, was preparing to visit China and the Soviet Union. Why would an American president visit these enemies? The Americans came to the realization that the development of good relations with its counterparts in the communist world was necessary. A forthcoming, more pragmatic approach to foreign policy with China was to be a departure from the adverse ideological approach. The United States had lost solid backing from traditional supporters, as illustrated by Communist China's entry into the United Nations The question as to whether Nationalist China or the People's Republic of China should hold China's permanent Security Council seat, was a topic of much discussion and debate for years. For many countries, the idea of ignoring one third of the world's population at the UN was difficult to rationalize. This debate ensued until 1971, when the Peoples Republic of China finally displaced Nationalist China at the United Nations, including the permanent seat, originally held by Nationalist China in the Security Council. A baffled United States could no longer persuade nor intimidate the majority of the countries in the UN General Assembly to keep Communist China out of the UN. The United States had little choice but to eventually extend official recognition to the Peoples Republic of China. The war-weary American people were no longer supporting the war in Vietnam and no longer eagerly supporting traditional foreign policy. A major scandal(Watergate), that would rock the Nixon Administration to the resultant resignation of the president, was about to be disclosed. Practical solutions were needed for practical problems. Peaceful coexistence meant finding some common ground on which to activate international trust and cooperation. Nixon's consecutive predecessors, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson would have rolled over in their graves if they could have seen these changes. These changes would have appeared alien, contradictory or even contrived, to them and their contemporaries. Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton saw the need to keep communication channels open with China. Americans finally realized that they could no longer keep down a sleeping giant. No longer a Paper Tiger, China was a reality, and was entitled to an important place in world decisionmaking venues In the 1980's following the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao Tsetung, China's outlook on the world changed dramatically. Deng Xiaopeng's reforms were to bring China closer to being a major world partner in international trade and the development of world markets. This was capped with its admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001 China has been most willing to comply with all of the regulations of the WTO. Americans have only half-heartedly opposed China's entry, by unfairly using “human rights” as a distraction to perhaps disguise other international pressures. However, the United States, for a couple of decades, already had major, politically discreet, vested economic interests in China that it could not afford to deny or jeopardize. In 1998, China signed a Permanent Normal Trading Relations agreement with the United States, the prelude to the former's entry into the WTO. President Clinton, who visited China in 1998, had essentially paid lip service to Congressional pressure to push the human rights issues with China. Except for the occasional irritating crisis in recent years, such as the spy plane incident off the island of Hainan in April 2001, Sino-American relations have been cordial but cautious. The consensus seems to be that China's destiny as a major international force in the 21th century, seems reasonably assured UNIT10 A Solitary Quest
