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 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 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”
(Containing the spread of Communism).
