A History of US-China Relations
Originally, America was set to stay out of Chinese affairs, anticipating neutrality in the conflicts between basically all nations populating the globe. This is because of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823, James Monroe, soliciting assistance from his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, crafted a foreign policy initiative known as the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, the Monroe Doctrine declared that the world was composed of two geopolitical districts, or "hemispheres" as Monroe labeled these districts. The first was the Western Hemisphere, containing North and South America. The second was the Eastern Hemisphere, containing all other continents. Monroe then promised American neutrality toward all of the Eastern Hemisphere. In exchange, Monroe demanded that the Eastern Hemisphere extend the same respect to the Western Hemisphere. Any attempt by an Eastern Hemisphere power to alter the internal affairs of Western Hemisphere nations like the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay would be met with a declaration of war from Washington DC.
Monroe produced the Monroe Doctrine to preserve the independence of newly-sovereign Latin American nations, but nonetheless, it set a precedent for US neutrality regarding crises and conflicts between countries like France, Britain, Belgium, Russia, Japan, and, indeed, China. Still, America didn't refuse to acknowledge China's existence. Under John Tyler, US-Chinese relations opened up with a trade agreement between Beijing and Washington DC. Throughout the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, America and China maintained their peaceful relationship, providing one another with mutual respect. In fact, when Ulysses S. Grant left the White House, he spent the first portion of his post-presidency traveling the globe, visiting countries like Germany, Japan, and, of course, China. However, this period of cordiality between China and the United States also saw the seeds for future conflict be sown.
After the Mexican-American War and the resulting acquisition of California by the United States, it was revealed that California was rich with precious gold. Owing to the totalitarian, conservative nature of China's then-ruling Qing Dynasty, the Chinese economy was largely decrepit and lifeless. Chinese citizens were desperate for some sort of financial relief and were ecstatic when they found out about the discovery of gold reserves in California. At the end of the 1840s and across the whole 1850s and 1860s, Chinese started moving to California in enormous numbers. The vast majority of these immigrants secured jobs as miners, staying in America only until they could find gold. Once they accomplished this, they would hastily sell the gold and use the profit to return to China, where they would finally begin living a better life. Many of them selected a different path, working at businesses other than mines or opening up their own shops entirely. Much of the modern Californian cultural and economic landscape can be traced back to the contributions of Chinese immigrants. But this didn't stop xenophobic prejudice.
Like many other minorities, Chinese immigrants became the scapegoats for all kinds of economic and social issues. Soon, Chinese became one of the most despised groups in the United States. In 1875, Grant hurt Chinese-American relations by signing the Page Act, banning Chinese women from moving to the United States. In 1882, Congress went even further, drafting the Chinese Exclusion Act. Under the terms of this bill, all Chinese would be barred from entering the US for the next 20 years. The sole exception was Chinese diplomats, but even then, they still were required to have a passport written in English and signed by the US consul in Beijing. While it didn't deport Chinese immigrants already present in America, it did prohibit them from securing US citizenship if they didn't already have citizenship. They also needed a "certificate of re-entry" if they ever wanted to return to America after leaving for any period of time. Chester A. Arthur vetoed the bill, citing the ways Chinese immigrants had helped California develop. However, Arthur knew the bill was so popular that his veto would be overridden. So, he brokered a compromise with Congress: If the current bill was scrapped and replaced with a 10-year ban, Arthur would reluctantly sign it. Congress agreed to these terms, with Benjamin Harrison extending the bill's life to 1902 and Theodore Roosevelt making it permanent.
Restricting immigration from China wasn't the only way America spat on its ties to Beijing. Throughout the 19th century, European powers started exploiting China for its resources. Britain even declared war on China once for restricting the sale of addictive opium to Chinese citizens! Under William McKinley, Secretary of State John Hay devised a plot known as the "Open-Door Policy", which enabled further abuses. Hay wrote letters to the leaders of European countries like Russia, France, and Spain, falsely claiming that their fellow-European governors had agreed to free commerce by foreign nations within China's borders. This pressured Milan, Madrid, Copenhagen, and other such powers to agree to the same policy, thus creating a precedent where any country could enter China and pillage its land for all it was worth. Amidst the resulting civil unrest in China, a group called the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists was founded. Nicknamed "the Boxers" by Westerners for their belief that certain martial arts made them invincible, the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists was established to expel foreigners and Christians from China, thus curtailing Western influence. On June 20, 1900, the Boxers launched the Boxing Rebellion by attacking an area of Beijing containing several foreign embassies.
The next day, on June 21, 1900, the Qing Dynasty announced its support for the Boxers by declaring war on the US, Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Italy, and Japan, a group that was quickly dubbed "the Eight-Nation Alliance". Just two months later, in August 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance defeated China and the Boxers at the Battle of Beijing. On September 7, 1901, the Boxing Rebellion formally ended with the signing of the Boxing Protocols. As per the Boxing Protocols, China had to dismantle any systems of defense outside Beijing and was required to pay an enormous sum of about $370,000,000 to the Eight-Nation Alliance. Foreign ambassadors in China were also allowed, under the Boxing Protocols, to call in their home nation's military as a means of self-defense. The Boxing Protocol even banned the importation of weapons into China until 1903! With these events - the Opium Wars, Page Act, Chinese Exclusion Act, Open Door Policy, and Boxing Rebellion - it is of little wonder why historians in China have called the 1800s the "Century of Humiliation".
Improved American-Chinese relations were on the horizon, however. In the summer of 1911, the Qing Dynasty nationalized a duo of railroads in central China, outraging Chinese citizens who held shares in these projects. When these stockholders launched an insurrection, troops were called out to quell the riots. On October 9, 1911, one of the soldiers accidentally detonated an explosion while playing with a bomb. The Chinese military realized that the resulting investigation would highlight how anti-Qing they had become, so they decided to preemptively rebel on October 10, 1911, sparking the Xinhai Revolution. Puyi, the last Chinese monarch, resigned in response on February 12, 1912, with the Republic of China succeeding the Qing Dynasty. The Republic of China was based on the same principles of the American Revolution, likely aiding in diplomatic improvements. World War 1 and World War 2 also saw better relations.
America and China fought on the same side in WW1, supporting the Entente against the Central Powers. America declared war on the Central Powers to avenge secret German plans to help Mexico reconquer land it lost to the US during the annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War, while China declared war on the Central Powers to enjoy the geopolitical benefits of being on what was by this point (1917), clearly the winning side. China's prediction was right, with Germany and its allies surrendering in the autumn of 1918. Another member of the Entente was Japan, which joined the war solely to take colonies in Oceania away from Germany. Japan was still dealing with the mass psychological impact of Millard Fillmore forcibly ending its isolationist policies back in the 1850s, was paranoid, and determined to make sure it could defend itself from future incursions. So, the Empire of Japan was established to expand Tokyo's influence and territorial holdings. China soon became the prime victim of Japanese imperialism.
On September 18, 1931, an explosion took place near a railroad in China owned by a Japanese company. This was used as an excuse by Japan to invade Manchuria, the northeastern quadrant of China, touching off a geopolitical crisis known as the Mukden Incident. Herbert Hoover was president during this time and tried to convince Japan to withdraw, but unfortunately failed. 5 months later, on February 27, 1932, Japan annexed the remainder of Manchuria and carved it out as a puppet state called Manchukuo. Puyi was even withdrawn from retirement and placed in control of Manchukuo! A few years after the Mukden Incident, in the spring of 1937, Japanese soldiers started training near the Marco Polo Bridge in China. One of these soldiers was Shimura Kikujiro, who disappeared during a bathroom trip on the night of July 6, 1937. The next day, on July 7, 1937, Japanese troops confronted a small Chinese town called Wanping, asking to search it for Kikujiro. Wanping not only refused to grant such permission but then shot at the troops in what was labeled "the Marco Polo Bridge Incident". Citing the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japan invaded the rest of China.
Japan sided with Germany and Italy in World War 2, causing Franklin D. Roosevelt to place massive sanctions on it. The most controversial of these embargoes was FDR's ban on shipping oil to Japan, enacted on August 1, 1941. This made it extremely difficult for Japan to annex colonies in Oceania, so Tokyo attempted to pre-emptively stifle Anglo-American bases in countries like Australia, Fiji, Tuvalu, and Kiribati. The first of these bases was Pearl Harbor, ambushed by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, thus requiring America to declare war on the Axis. Now a member of the Allies, Roosevelt and the United States began providing immense economic and defensive aid to China in its fight against Japan, further improving American-Chinese relations. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered, followed by Japan on September 2, 1945. With Japan's surrender, World War 2 drew to a close.
However, as the relationship between the United States and China enjoyed its zenith, it almost immediately began to decline. In the wake of the Xinhai Rebellion, progressive liberalism enabled the rise of new political movements, such as the right-wing nationalist Kuomintang in 1919 and the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. On April 12, 1927, 5,000 members of the CCP were murdered by the KMT in the Shanghai Massacre, causing the two groups to fight one another in the Chinese Civil War. Mao Zedong, who helped establish the CCP, was expelled to rural China after a failed attack on the KMT known as the Autumn Harvest Uprising. While living in this rural area, Mao started rallying Chinese farmers around the communist cause. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the subsequent Japanese invasion of China, the CCP and KMT temporarily set aside their differences to form a united front against Japan. But with the Axis now insolvent, Japan no longer posed a real threat and Mao could resume his crusade against the KMT and its leader: Chiang Kai-Shek. By the end of 1948, Mao defeated the KMT, establishing the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.
After previously trying to send mediators to mitigate the Chinese Civil War, Harry S. Truman responded to Mao's takeover by refusing to recognize the People's Republic of China and by banning trade with Beijing. In December 1949, the remaining KMT outpost at Chengdu was destroyed by Mao's forces, requiring Chiang and his party to flee the country. The KMT obtained refuge in Taiwan, which was still a Japanese colony at the time. Once Taiwan was liberated from Japanese rule, the Republic of China continued to operate, governing the Taiwanese island and claiming control over the mainland, just as Mao claimed control over Taiwan. Western leaders recognized Taiwan rather than China and pressured other nations into doing the same. The United States, leading the charge in the Cold War, was especially adamant about this. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, this started to change.
Owing to their ideological similarities, China and the Soviet Union were staunch allies. Joseph Stalin died in 1953, eventually being replaced by Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev, while still an authoritarian, disliked Stalin's use of censorship and personality cults. On February 25, 1956, Khrushchev gave a secret speech to the Soviet legislature denouncing Stalin, which was then leaked by the US in June 1956. Since Mao admired Stalin, Khrushchev's criticisms, coupled with his opposition to China developing nuclear arms and invading Tibet and Khrushchev's willingness to work with the West, caused China and the Soviet Union to sever their diplomatic ties in 1962. This event, known as the Sino-Soviet Split, resulted in Mao growing less hawkish in his attitude toward the US. He needed additional reinforcement in his fight against Moscow, after all. Richard Nixon, who was elected president in 1968, also felt that it was immoral to let China sit in its own misery and self-pity forever. So, these two men began looking for better relations between their respective homelands.
In April 1971, an American ping-pong player named Glenn Cowan was on a trip to Japan. While there, he briefly stopped by in China, where he played a cordial, unofficial game with Chinese ping-pong player Zhuang Zedong. After the game, the pair presented each other with gifts: Cowan was given a photo of a Chinese mountain range, while Zhaung was provided with a T-shirt sporting a peace sign and the slogan "Let it be". After hearing about this incident, Nixon lifted the ban on trade with China on June 15, 1971. Soon after, on February 21, 1972, Nixon conducted a historic meeting with Mao Zedong, spending the remainder of the week traveling around China. Because of these two monumental developments, Chinese-American relations dramatically improved. On September 9, 1976, Mao died, being succeeded by Hua Guofeng and then Deng Xiaoping. On December 18, 1978, Deng launched a campaign known as Reform and Opening Up. Through this campaign, Deng converted China into a capitalist economy, allowing for the de-collectivization of farms, trade with the West, and private businesses. This strengthened US-China relations even more, with Jimmy Carter swapping American recognition from Taiwan to the mainland on January 1, 1979.
Perhaps the stage for the current tensions was set on April 15, 1989, when a progressive Chinese politician named Hu Yaobang died. Because Hu had been a lifelong advocate for democracy, even when he received opposition from Mao, Hua, and Deng, Chinese students exposed to liberal ideas during their studies in the West began protesting at Tiananmen Square on April 22, 1989, the same day Hu's funeral was held. Throughout May 1989, Deng placed Beijing under martial law to prevent the protests from spreading to the rest of China. This failed, so on June 4, 1989, Deng brutally killed the protestors. In retaliation, George HW Bush placed sanctions on China. Deng resigned because of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, leaving office in November 1989. His successor was Jiang Zemin, who ruled until September 19, 2004. Replacing Jiang was Hu Jintao. Jiang and Hu both restored the progressive policies enacted under Reform and Opening Up, facilitating a diplomatic recovery. Bill Clinton even signed a free trade deal with China.
Hu Jintao was replaced by Xi Jinping in March 2013. Xi has proven to be much more authoritarian than his predecessors, creating a lot of diplomatic strain. In 2010, China surpassed Japan as the second-largest economy on Earth, causing the US to fear for the fate of its geopolitical supremacy. The threats to US hegemony have also fueled tensions between the United States and China. Throughout the 2010s, several disturbing reports have emerged from Xi's China: The increased oppression of Uyghur Muslims, the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and Chinese designs on Taiwan have all worsened US-China relations. However, because of Nixon and Clinton's trade policies, the US has become so reliant on China that it can't stand up to these things or even just refuse to participate in them by backing off from Chinese assistance. In the autumn of 2019, a new coronavirus disease emerged in Wuhan, China, spreading to the rest of the world throughout early 2020. This caused the worst pandemic in recent history, further damaging the already-decaying relationship between Beijing and Washington DC.
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