America's Response to China

A History of Sino-American Relations

Warren I. Cohen

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780231549615
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

America's Response to China has long been the standard resource for a succinct, historically grounded assessment of an increasingly complicated relationship. Written by one of America's leading diplomatic historians, this book analyzes the concerns and conceptions that have shaped U.S.–China policy and examines their far-reaching outcomes. Warren I. Cohen begins with the mercantile interests of the newly independent American colonies and discusses subsequent events up to 2018. For this sixth edition, Cohen adds an analysis of the policies of Barack Obama and extends his discussion of the Chinese–American relationship in the age of potential Chinese ascendance and the shrinking global influence of the United States, including the complications of the presidency of Donald Trump. Trenchant and insightful, America's Response to China is critically important for understanding U.S.–China relations in the twenty-first century.

1 The Development of the Treaty System

In the tribute system, Chinese disdain for “foreign devils” was readily apparent. Unquestionably, the Chinese in their xenophobia, in their contemptuous treatment of strangers who came to their land, were reprehensible. In this category of evils, there is perhaps only one worse: it occurs when the stranger comes and drives the native up against the wall. Ultimately, this was the tendency of the new order that the West imposed on the Chinese in the years that followed the Opium War. The Americans did not initiate this system, though they offered no alternatives and were quick to demand the privileged status that became possible within the “treaty ports.” The special contribution of the Americans came toward the close of the nineteenth century when the lumpenproletariat in the United States singled out the Chinese for special favor.

But in the beginning, the British sought to be treated as equals and to place relations between China and Great Britain on a rational, ordered basis—such as was understood in the Western world. In the Treaty of Nanking, the victor’s exactions were onerous, but none too severe. Chinese policy had forced the case to be tried on the battlefield and China, having lost the case, paid the costs. Having won, the British indulged themselves in a few desiderata, extending trade to five other ports, as well as regularizing procedures at Canton. The necessity of using force, buttressed by imperial experience in India, led the British to demand the cession of Hong Kong—a base for military as well as entrepreneurial activities in East Asia. For the future, British power would be present to remind the mandarins that Great Britain lacked neither the will nor the ability to insist on equal treatment.

In 1843, the British and Chinese negotiated a supplementary treaty that altered the Canton system and assured the British of most-favored-nation treatment in the future. Whereas duties had heretofore been imposed on Western exports in an arbitrary and capricious fashion, the Chinese tariff was now embodied in a treaty, to be modified only by the mutual consent of the contracting parties. Also with an eye to justice for foreigners, the concept of extraterritoriality was introduced, allowing Westerners accused of crimes to be tried by their own consular officials, according to the legal concepts of the Judaeo-Christian, Graeco-Roman heritage. None of this troubled the Chinese—other than the obvious indignity of having to deal with presumptuous barbarians on a level of equality. China was primarily a cultural rather than a national entity. As such, Chinese officials concerned themselves more with very real problems of ceremony and ritual, leaving abstract conceptions of sovereignty to the West. The fact that consular jurisdiction infringed on Chinese sovereignty and was not a practice incorporated in relations among equals in the West did not bother the mandarins in mid-century. On the contrary, extraterritoriality served them well; it fitted with the traditional attempt to segregate alien elements. That England, with all its rhetoric about the need for equality, was demanding of China a privilege it would never grant to China—or to any other power—would not have pained the Chinese, who never intended to send diplomatic missions abroad and cared little for the fate of migrant Chinese who had forsaken the land of their ancestors.

Similarly, the treaty tariff, harmless enough on the surface, had striking deficiencies of which the Chinese were unaware. First, unlike other commercial agreements in which a nation bound its tariffs, in this treaty, the other party offered no comparable concessions. But, of course, the Chinese assumed that the West needed China’s tea and rhubarb and could not conceive of needing any privileges that the English might grant. Having come late to the study of the West, they were blind to the industrialization that served as fount to the power they had been forced to respect—and were ignorant of the protective tariffs that had cradled fragile industries.

Additionally, there was the problem of the most-favored-nation clause that the English and all other treaty seekers demanded. On all other counts the English might have been guilty of exceeding their demands for equal treatment, but this clause was not uncommon in treaties of commerce between equals. Without such provision, commercial treaties might soon become worthless. But in this instance, the catch was found again in the fact that England was offering no concessions to China. The flow of concessions initially—and so long as China remained weak—was one way. Each nation entered into treaty relations with China, received concessions peculiar to its needs, and through the most-favored-nation clause also received whatever concessions any other nation might exact from the Chinese. Because China was weaker relative to each of the nations with whom she dealt, the flow of concessions could not be reversed. Similarly, the fact that each of the powers had the most-favored-nation clause gave each a vested interest in the success of the demands that every other might make. For the United States in particular, the most-favored-nation clause became a means of fulfilling American desires while allowing the British to bear most of the responsibility and onus for having created the treaty system.

As early as May 1839, American merchants in Canton had opted to play by petitioning Congress for a commissioner to negotiate a commercial treaty—and for warships to keep the natives friendly. After receiving advice from others familiar with conditions in China, Congress took no action, but Commodore Lawrence Kearny and the East India Squadron were ordered to the vicinity of Canton. Finding the American merchants in no danger, Kearny refrained from interfering in the Anglo-Chinese war. He fully appreciated, however, the benefits the British would derive from the peace treaty and subsequent commercial arrangements. Dutifully, he pressed the local Chinese officials to extend comparable privileges to his countrymen—and was assured that they would not be “left with a dry stick” (that is, they would not be left empty-handed).

All during the war, Chinese officials, trying to find some way in which the United States could be used to their advantage, sought a policy that would separate Americans from the “obstinate English barbarians.” One thoughtful expert noted how well behaved the Americans were in contrast to Englishmen and suggested abolishing duties on American goods and giving the trade of the English to the Americans. “Then,” he postulated, “the American barbarians are sure to be grateful for this Heavenly Favor and will energetically oppose the English barbarians.”1 The proposal was never carried out, though the idea of using the United States to fight China’s battles never disappeared entirely. Kearny’s request, however, suited this general approach to the management of barbarian affairs. I-li-pu and Ch’i-ying, the principal Manchu military and diplomatic figures on the scene, both recommended most-favored-nation treatment for the Americans. Otherwise there would be constant complaints and complications, possible embarrassments to the throne. Then, too, there was always the possibility that the English would welcome the Americans and others from the West into the new trade. Not only would it then be difficult for China to prevent such practices, but the nations sharing the privileges would be grateful to England and resentful of China. Surely it would be better for the privilege to appear to come gratuitously from the emperor. To the emperor this approach made perfect sense: men from afar had traditionally been viewed with equal compassion. If these Western countries were so serious about trade, then obviously “the art of controlling and curbing them” required absolute fairness. And so, in November 1843, the Tao-guang emperor, Hsüan-tsung, declared: “Now that the English barbarians have been allowed to trade, whatever other countries there are, the United States and others, should naturally be permitted to trade without discrimination, in order to show Our tranquilizing purpose.”2 Here, of course, was the origin of the Open Door, or equal opportunity for all traders: a Chinese policy designed to elicit gratitude from the United States “and others,” in the hope of banking good will that might later be turned to China’s advantage.

And so the Americans, without firing a shot and without issuing a threat, were able to expand their commercial operations along the coast of China. The American flag followed the British to the treaty ports, and, as junior partners, the Americans followed the British for the rest of the century. There was, however, one problem in 1843: the English had their privileges solemnized in treaties and the Americans took theirs by grace of the emperor. If the merchants were willing to settle, there were those in Washington who were not. Having fought at least once for independence from Great Britain, the bumptious American republic had to have a treaty of its own.

Conflicting advice from merchants concerned with the China trade left the administration of President John Tyler without a clear mandate; and, as is usual, with pressures countervailing on a peripheral issue, inaction continued. Dr. Peter Parker, a medical missionary to China, related by marriage to Secretary of State Daniel Webster, had been in Washington urging a diplomatic mission. Shortly thereafter, Webster found himself under pressure from fellow Whigs to resign from the cabinet of President Tyler. Allegedly desirous of removing himself to the Court of St. James, he decided to create a grandiose mission to China with which he may have hoped to tempt his old friend, Edward Everett, to leave England, providing the necessary vacancy. When Everett failed to rise to the bait, the well-financed mission was entrusted to Caleb Cushing, a former Whig Congressman whose political career had ended prematurely. Thus the able Cushing became Commissioner to China and set off to negotiate with the Chinese—who had so recently received a lesson on Western power and on the seriousness with which the West regarded its concept of relations between states.

Ch’i-ying, the imperial commissioner to whom the emperor had entrusted diplomatic negotiations, learned of Cushing’s impending arrival from the American consul at Canton and suggested that Cushing would be wasting his time: if the United States wanted the trade privileges won by England, China was perfectly willing to bestow these on Americans. There was no need for an American envoy to make the long trip across the Pacific. Then Ch’i-ying reflected upon the American mission and the British request for most-favored-nation treatment in the supplementary treaty and deduced that the British expected the Americans to demand the right to go to Peking. In his correspondence with the emperor, it was clear that neither of them was particularly concerned over Cushing’s mission, but they were determined not to allow him to go to Peking. The emperor felt that since the American barbarians had never paid tribute, a request to go to Peking could not even be received. As for a treaty between China and the United States, this was a less significant matter, but again the Chinese preferred that treaty relations be avoided in order to preclude complications such as American demands that went beyond those of the British.

When Cushing arrived at Macao, Ch’i-ying was not in residence. The American commissioner promptly allowed it to be known that soon after his ship was provisioned, he intended to proceed north to the mouth of the Pei-ho. In fact, Cushing’s instructions directed him to use the threat of going on to Peking as a means of pressuring the Chinese into granting to the Americans the same opportunities for trade as the English had obtained in the Treaty of Nanking. This much the Chinese had already granted to the Americans, making Cushing’s threats and indeed his mission superfluous. But despite the misgivings of the American merchants in Canton, Cushing persisted, and after four months of sparring, Ch’i-ying returned to Macao.

Once Ch’i-ying arrived for the negotiations, Cushing could have had his treaty immediately. The Chinese had concluded that the matter was one of prestige among the Western countries and had decided to give “face” to the Americans. They had decided that Cushing’s purpose was “after all, a desire to outshine the English barbarians and, like them, to set up a treaty in order to show preferential treatment by the Heavenly Court.”3 Despite the defeat China had suffered at England’s hands, it was possible for a Chinese official to inform the emperor that England, France, and the United States “look particularly to the character of their treatment by the Heavenly Court as a measure of national status.”4 But Cushing continued to bluff about his trip north, delaying the conclusion of the agreement for about a month. As soon as he agreed to deliver his credentials and sign at Macao, Ch’i-ying gave him his treaty.

Peter Parker’s role in the negotiation was especially important. Not only did he and two other American missionaries serve as Cushing’s interpreters, but he enjoyed and exploited a valuable personal relationship with Ch’i-ying. He had treated Ch’i-ying’s parents in his clinic, winning the gratitude of the Chinese commissioner. He had befriended two of Ch’i-ying’s aides. At critical moments in the talks, he was able to bridge the cultural and political gaps and facilitate a successful outcome—although he had been wrong to urge Cushing to persist in the threat to travel to Peking. Parker’s performance foreshadowed the enormous importance of American missionaries as transmitters and interpreters of Chinese culture to Americans and American culture to Chinese. For better or worse, they were a major influence, probably the major influence, on American attitudes and policy toward China for more than a hundred years.

The Treaty of Wang-hsia, named after the suburban village in which it was signed (now part of the city of Macao), was basically a summary, with significant refinements, of the two treaties that the Chinese had signed with the British. Again, to the Chinese of the mid-nineteenth century, these concessions were not of particular importance. Lacking a sense of nation, they also lacked cause for concern over theoretical abridgments of national rights.

Cushing’s treaty, like those signed by the English, did not lessen the Chinese conviction of their own superiority—nor their determination to avoid treating the Westerners as equals. Ch’i-ying’s comments on the West in general and the United States in particular are not merely amusing; they also indicate how he and the emperor conceived of China’s relations. To Cushing he gushed enthusiastically over the beauty of Tyler’s letter to the emperor, but his actual estimate of the level of American culture and understanding can be found in his advice to the emperor on how to reply to Tyler. He warned that of all countries, the United States was the most remote and the least civilized, “an isolated place outside the pale, solitary and ignorant.” Obviously such a people would not be trained in the appropriate forms of laws and edicts. Moreover, if the emperor allowed his meaning to “be rather deep,” the Americans “would probably not even be able to comprehend.” In writing to Tyler, the emperor should, therefore, use a “simple and direct” style and make his meaning “clear and obvious.”5

These were the days of the clipper ships and if the Americans appeared to the Chinese as a little short on culture, they were without peers in their ability to build those fleet and beautiful sailing craft. The British and their subjects continued to dominate trade, but the Americans offered increasing competition, particularly in the carrying trade. In China, during the early 1850s, with only about 25 of the approximately 200 Western business firms, Americans carried about one third of China’s trade with the West. And of the burgeoning trade of Shanghai, rapidly becoming the major treaty port, American ships carried fully half. With the European powers increasingly occupied with the issues that led to the Crimean War, expectations for the market in China gained substance.

Having acquired a treaty of its own, the government of the United States did little to implement it. After July 1844, Americans had access to five Chinese ports and in accordance with the treaty’s provisions for extraterritoriality, the American consuls in these ports had sole jurisdiction over Americans accused of crimes in China. But neither of the administrations that followed Tyler’s troubled to set up a consular service in China. Not until the entire American consular service was reorganized in the mid-1850s did the American government appoint paid consular officials, responsible to the Department of State. In the interim, American merchants in the treaty ports carried on business as usual, providing consuls out of their own ranks, occasionally from the very firms involved in the opium trade. British consular officials, backed by the power of their government, were willing and able to restrain some of the baser instincts of their countrymen, giving some semblance of justice to the practice of consular jurisdiction. The American consul, if not involved in illegal activities himself, was rarely disposed to call American miscreants to account. In the absence of jails maintained by his government, he would have been virtually powerless if he had desired to dispense justice. As a result, the behavior of American sailors, particularly in Shanghai, became notorious and set a standard for sailors of all nations in all of the treaty ports. Years later, the first American minister wrote that he considered the “exaction” of extraterritoriality, “so long as the United States refuse or neglect to provide the punishment, an opprobrium of the worst kind … as bad as the coolie or opium trade.”6 The American flag became a cover for “every vagabond Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman.” Indeed, the female of the species required little other cover—and consular reports suggested that every blue-eyed whore in the Orient claimed to be an American.

The indifference of the government to events in China is further evidenced by the fact that the American commissioners received no specific instructions from Washington in the decade following the signing of the treaty. The commissioners themselves were a most forgettable lot, with one exception making no impression on the Chinese, who found them all “inscrutable.” The one exception, Dr. Peter Parker, held several interim appointments before being named commissioner in 1856. By that time, Chinese officials had, with cause, taken an intense dislike to him, classing him with the more arrogant and intractable British officials of their experience. His years in China had convinced the former medical missionary that the British had developed the proper technique for dealing with the Chinese: firmness was essential and force had to be used where necessary. Parker also developed a plan for an American role in China larger than that contemplated by the majority of his colleagues in Washington. He suggested that the United States establish a foothold in the area, equivalent to the British possession of Hong Kong, and he urged that Formosa be occupied for that purpose. He also suggested that the United States build coaling stations in the area and expand naval operations off the China coast. Parker saw no future in the United States playing the role of petty...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the Sixth Edition
• Acknowledgments to the Sixth Edition
• Romanization Table
• Prologue: The Barbarians and the Tribute System
• 1. The Development of the Treaty System
• 2. The United States as a Power in East Asia
• 3. In the Light of the Rising Sun
• 4. The Response to Chinese Nationalism
• 5. China as an Abstraction—The Conflict with Japan
• 6. Communism in China
• 7. The Great Aberration
• 8. Rapprochement—At Last
• 9. In the Shadow of Tiananmen
• 10. America in the Age of Chinese Power
• Concluding Thoughts
• Notes
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index