The history of the United States in its entirety covers so brief a span of time that the historian, seeking for a sure foundation of fact upon which to build his structure of speculations as to the future, finds but few instances of national continuity of purpose extending over as long a period as one century. It is indeed paradoxical that he must turn to America’s foreign policies to find that continuity, and must go outside the country for any policy which has been unvarying through all the years.
The two national policies to which the United States has consistently clung during the past century have been that of the open door in China, and the Monroe Doctrine in the Americas to the south of us, and, of these two, the open-door policy formulated as early as 1794 is the older. If one wishes to study the workings of a foreign policy constantly adhered to for over a century (and which must therefore possess inherent merit) one would do well to turn to the story of the China trade with all its diplomatic and naval ramifications. Especially is such a study of value to American naval officers who are at any time quite likely to be detailed in Far Eastern waters. The scope of this paper is of necessity too limited to allow a deep analytical treatment of the subject of America’s economic advance in the Pacific but may, perhaps, serve as a guide for further reading and give a general knowledge of the splendid achievements of our sailors, statesmen, and diplomats in the Orient for one hundred years and more of participation in the affairs of nations seven thousand miles from our shores. A comprehensive study of the underlying principles which have crystallized into the open-door policy will enable the naval officer to gain the power to advise with greater wisdom in the councils of his country and may serve as a valuable guide to him when, in Far Eastern waters, he is faced with the necessity for prompt, correct, and decisive action.
We know that in the past decade Americans have come to produce more than the home market can consume; that foreign trade is now a necessity rather than an adventure for sudden riches. In fact we must sell our surplus abroad if our high standards of living are to be maintained. One-fourth of the inhabitants of the globe live in Far Eastern lands. There lies our future market. Sunk in poverty and confusion, these people, once they are made even partly conscious of the material benefits offered by Western civilization and given the blessings of a stable government, will become the greatest of customers for our surplus production.
In a study of the economic advances of America in the Pacific we find that its history divides itself naturally into five eras:
1784-1844. The old China trade
1844-1868. The transition period; national participation in commerce
1868-1900. Marking time; absorption with internal development
1900-1920. The awakening to new interest in the Orient
1920-1931. The progressive era
We have been in trade contact with China for over 146 years; with Japan for only about half that time.
“The Old China Trade” 1784-1844. Hardly had independence been achieved, even before the adoption of the Constitution and the birth of the American state in its present form, when the sailor traders of New England spread their sails for the China trade. They left a country confined between the Alleghenies and the Atlantic, torn with petty jealousies between the states, bankrupt from some seven years of war, and deprived of one hundred thousand of its most substantial citizens by the emigration of the loyalist Tories.
The farmer boy of New England turned naturally to the sea; his barren acres furnished too spare a livelihood for his grasping and adventurous spirit. He found England and France armed with jealous laws to bar him from the continent and from the West Indies; Barbary corsairs were ready to attack him in the Mediterranean; only in the Far East did the waning powers of the English and Dutch East Indies companies, engaged in strife with their own nationals, give him opportunity for lucrative trading. The chances for profits in the China trade had a warm advocate in John Ledyard who had been Captain Cook’s corporal of marines on his famous voyage around the world. Ledyard interested several merchants of New York and Boston; the frigate Trumbull was actually engaged for a voyage to Canton, but at the last minute the scheme fell through. Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, had by now become interested and in 1783 purchased the ship Empress of China. On Washington’s Birthday, 1784, she sailed for Canton. In her, as super-cargo, went Major Samuel Shaw, formerly an officer of General Knox’s staff and a friend of Washington. To no one man, perhaps, is so much credit due as to this young Bostonian, later to become our first consul to the Chinese.
The Empress of China returned to New York in May, 1785, after a profitable voyage; the cost of the voyage, ship included, having been $120,000, the profits therefrom $40,000. The particularly favorable connections of Major Shaw gave him the ear of the government and his influence was immediately felt. Congress promptly passed laws for preferential duties on imports in American bottoms, in fact the duty on tea was such as to reserve this trade entirely for American ships.
Shaw’s news traveled up and down the coast and soon ventures were sent out from our leading seaports; Baltimore by the O’Donnells; Salem by the Perkinses and Bulfinch, the architect; Philadelphia had its pioneer traders in Stephen Gerard and Archer; New York, the Rhinelanders, Morris, Rufus King, and the Whitneys.
The Revolution had seen the almost total extinction of the shipbuilding industry of the country and, although prior to 1775 the colonies were building one-third of Britain’s ships, there were few left in 1785. This scarcity of ships did not deter these adventurous merchants and their hardy sailors, who put to sea in just about anything that would stay afloat. There was the 70-ton Experiment with a crew of seven men and two boys starting bravely out for Canton via the Cape of Good Hope. She found so good a market that she returned to America only to make Canton the following year; the 60-ton Hope, the 90-ton Lady Washington, the 62-ton Pilgrim that four years later turned up in Canton, via our northwest coast, with thirteen thousand sealskins; the Betsy, a 93-ton two-masted schooner, which made Canton, via Cape Horn, then returned to New York twenty-three months later by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The Betsy must have been an unusually fortunate “venture” for her total expenses for vessel, outfit, and insurance were only $7,800, and the profits from the voyage were said to have been in excess of $120,000.
There were two routes to China, the one by the Cape of Good Hope and the other around Cape Horn, thence north to the Columbia River and Oregon Territory, and across.
James Fenimore Cooper, a fellow naval officer of ours, has written a delightful story, Miles Wallingford, descriptive of this latter route and its adventures. There is not space to recount even one of the fascinating stories of adventure which marked the first steps of our advance into the Pacific. These early adventures led to Grey’s discovery of the Columbia River. The Yankee sailors there joined hands with the “Long Rifles” of Lewis and Clark from Virginia, met the fur traders of John Jacob Astor, and exchanged messages with the mountain men from Kentucky via Colorado.
To complete the circle of trade, the trilogy, two of which were the merchant in his counting house and the master on his quarter-deck, a third was necessary, the trade agent at Canton. We were not long in establishing offices, or “factories” as they were called, and Major Shaw was appointed consul in 1790 by his friend President Washington. Shaw’s services were invaluable for we owe much to his wise policies which have endured to this day. These policies are noteworthy for four features: recognition that the success of our ventures depended largely upon the good will of the Chinese; the understanding that it was excellent policy for our nation to be a real friend to China and to avoid entangling engagements with other nations; a quiet insistence that Americans be given equal opportunity for trading; an honest and altruistic desire to help the Chinese as evidenced from the first by our backing of missionary effort. (The British discouraged any such attempt on the part of their nationals.)
These policies have come generally to be recognized as “good business” by all of the modern trading nations, but such was far from the practice when they were enunciated by Major Shaw. The importance of the early China trade is to be gauged not so much by the net return for each year as by the fact that it offered a means for the accumulation of a large amount of capital of which the rapidly growing states were in urgent need. Its salient characteristics were: the daring spirit of merchants and sailors; the prompt recognition and assistance offered by the government; the uniformly high class of merchants and agents; the wisdom of the early policies as adopted by all parties.
Merchant, consul, sailor quickly comprehended the correctness of Shaw’s original policies (he died in 1795). They could not well do otherwise. The genesis of our open-door policy was born of the necessity to placate the Chinese, for we had no navy, our flag was new on every sea and wholly unknown to the Asiatic. Later when a display of force was necessary we were fortunate in having a navy at hand.
Another characteristic of this early trade was that it was, with the exception of the furs, almost entirely an import trade on our part. We had little that the Chinese desired, except silver and a certain amount of ginseng root, while we carried to America tea, silk, and spices. A trade diagram of this early period would show violent fluctuations. Some of these were due to the War of 1812 and to Captain Pellew’s actions against our trade; but the prosperity of this commerce, depending directly upon financial conditions within the United States, simply reflected the numerous ups and downs which marked the financial situation of these early years when Hamilton and Jefferson, and later Andrew Jackson, fought out our financial policies.
After the War of 1812 the trade showed a marked inclination to become concentrated in a few hands; by 1825 seven-eighths was in the houses of Perkins of Boston, Jones and Ackford of Philadelphia, and Archer and Thomas H. Smith of New York. By 1829 over one-half of our Far Eastern commerce was carried on by Perkins and Company of Boston. As the trade became stabilized and standardized under these great merchant firms and the little trader withdrew, the national government began stepping in and taking an active and determinative hand in its direction. This was made necessary by the constant injustices visited by Chinese officials on our long-suffering merchants.
For many years preceding the actual breaking out of the Opium War (China-England 1839-41), there had been annoyances and friction between Chinese officials and all foreigners. The dissolution of the British East Indies Company in 1834, due in part to the extraordinary success of independent American merchants, was ominous for the continuance of peaceful relations between England and China. Affronts offered to British merchants became national insults rather than difficulties of a trading company. The tension was further increased by a series of diplomatic blunders by the British.
The Americans were fortunate in having Commodore Lawrence Kearny in command of the small squadron in Far Eastern waters. Commodore Kearny, flying his broad pennant in the U.S.S. Constellation, took prompt and vigorous steps to see that all trading rights granted the British under the treaty of Nanking were, for the present, extended to American merchants. This work paved the way for an able diplomatic successor, Caleb Cushing, who was dispatched at the head of a mission to the Chinese in 1844 by Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State. Cushing, a shrewd and able Newburyport lawyer, was assisted by Fletcher Webster (son of the Secretary of State); Dr. E. W. Kane, afterwards known for his arctic explorations, and by three missionaries, the Revs. E. 0. Bridgeman, Peter Parker, and T. Wells Williams, all able men and well acquainted with Chinese affairs and customs. This mission was brought to China in the U.S.S. Brandywine, one of the finest frigates we have ever built. After rather violent negotiations the Treaty of Wanghia was signed, which confirmed the privileges of trade secured to Americans by Commodore Kearny.
We now see the government stepping in for the first time with direct action in aid of its merchants abroad. There was really little choice for the Americans, for governmental backing and protection had to be given its merchants or the trade would have met disaster in competition with that of other nations having the active support of their governments. For the free and easy intercourse between the American merchants and the co-hongs was to be substituted the formal and diplomatic relation of nation and nation. The entrance of the government into the China trade ends the first era. In its romantic aspects it was perhaps the most colorful of any of the five eras, but not nearly so useful in its lessons as the period which was to follow.
The twenty-four years from the signing of the treaty of Wanghia in 1844 until the advent of Anson Burlingame in Peking were filled with confusion and tumultuous activity. There were wars on every hand, in the United States, in Europe, in China. A new Eastern nation was to open her doors to Western trade—a nation showing her greatness by seizing upon the elements in occidental civilization which made for national power. Characteristic of this era was the shortening of distance. Steam made communication quicker and cheaper; it was as though the globe had suddenly contracted to a quarter of its former size.
Twice within the two years subsequent to the treaty of Wanghia, the United States and Great Britain appeared to be moving toward war; once over the northern boundary of the United States and again over the control of the Isthmus of Panama. Lord George Paulet hoisted the Union Jack over the Sandwich Islands and only the prompt disavowal of his act by the British averted conflict with the Americans. Event succeeded event with startling rapidity.
1843. Lord George Paulet seizes the Sandwich Islands
1844. Treaty of Wanghia
1845. Annexation of Texas; Fremont to California
1846. “Fifty-four forty or fight;” the settlement of the Oregon question
1846. War with Mexico
1848. Discovery of gold in California
1848. Acquisition of California
1849. First American treaty with Sandwich Islands
1850. Contract between Panama Railroad and Colombian government; Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
1851. The Gadsden Purchase
1854. First treaty between United States and Japan; attempted annexation of Hawaiian Islands
The acquisition of California and the discovery of gold enormously stimulated navigation and commerce in the Pacific. Not only did the number of ships from the east coast for California increase many fold but the traffic across the Pacific felt the impulse of the new activities.
With the advent of steam and the known presence of coal in the self-isolated islands of Japan there began a demand for at least a coaling station in that country. We shall see later how that want was met. But the day of sail was not yet over. It was the fate of the sailing ship to reach the very highest point in its development just before its extinction as a serious factor in ocean-borne transportation. American shipbuilders, with their abundance of virgin timber at hand, had been gradually developing their art for almost a century. The skill of the designer was matched by that of the sailors; Joshua Humphreys, who designed the Constitution, the constructors of the Experiment and the Enterprise, and later the incomparable Donald McKay, invariably found captains for their ships whose seamanship and daring were worthy of the splendid craft given them to take to sea, and, as American shipbuilders dominated the world with their progress, American sailors set new standards of seamanship. The Baltimore clippers, the Liverpool packets, and then the “full clippers” of the Flying-Cloud, type, set records which have never been equaled to this day.
For the first time in the history of our trade with China our ships could sail outbound from Atlantic ports with full holds for the west coast, discharge at San Francisco and cross to Canton, load there with tea for Liverpool, and then return with European cargo for the United States.
In China, Shanghai now appears as a port of importance. Its position at the mouth of the great Yangtze, nearer than Canton to San Francisco by 550 miles, and in close proximity to the great silk-growing and tea-producing areas of central China, made it the American’s favorite port. Shanghai breathed a freer air in which life was in every way less hampered and less uncomfortable than that of the Canton Shameen. For the Americans Shanghai was especially desirable, being less overshadowed by the British and their settlement at Hongkong.
The great increase in commerce was matched by an equal advance in missionary effort. By 1851 there had arrived in China 150 Protestant missionaries of whom eighty-five were from the United States. These pioneers were uniformly most aggressive in their philanthropic and evangelistic efforts; their impatience often exceeding that of the trader. To these two interests, the one altruistic, the other selfish, was to be added a third—political interest.
The problems of Asia, as viewed in the capitals of the Western nations, ceased to be entirely commercial and became political with the annexation of Hongkong by the British. Was this to be the last outpost of the British-Indian Empire advancing by rapid stages from Penang and Singapore? Or was England to be allowed to extend all up and down the China coast? These were the questions which were asked in the countinghouses of Boston and New York and echoed in the halls of Congress. Already our Canton trade had felt the influence of the British in their new possession. One must remember that at this time there was no Indo-China, no Russian power in Chinese affairs, no modern Japan, and that the United States had no recognized territory on the Pacific (1844).
Caleb Cushing negotiated his Wanghia Treaty with a shrewd and farseeing eye, constantly keeping in mind the British political establishment at Hongkong and its effects on the commercial fortunes of the Americans. Commodore Perry, whose work we shall see later, did not even bother to make a commercial treaty with the Japanese but staked out a bold political program which, despite its failure, had its influence on subsequent policy.
We can see the decided political trend of our efforts in the Far East in our struggle for the non-Anglicizing of the port of Shanghai, our action in the critical days of the Taiping rebellion, our so-called “Coöperative Policy” with Japan, and in our relations with Great Britain, France, and Russia in the Tientsin treaty of 1858.
The distinction between European and American policies from this time on was not that our policies were purely commercial, but that they, while also political, followed diplomatic rather than military channels. American policy was preeminently the policy of Americans. They were at that time, and still are striving to secure for American interests a diplomatic equivalent for Hongkong and what Hongkong stands for; viz., territorial occupation of China by European or other powers.
Our pioneer merchants and diplomats in the Far East saw with far-reaching vision that some day our transpacific commerce would be very great. It made them alert to see that no other power should take any steps which would hamstring our commercial strides in the future. They followed up and confirmed what has now come to be called “The open-door policy in China.” But they did still more, they raised the question as to how this expected great commerce was to be protected. Their influence sent Americans into the Pacific to look for more harbors, to Japan to open ports, and to Formosa as well as to Japan for coal mines to supply fuel for the increasing numbers of our steamships. If it was our policy to object to the acquisition of Chinese territory by European powers we were forced to look elsewhere for commercial bases. That was our real reason for the opening of Japan; the violent reaction to the English occupation of Hawaii; the resumed interest in the Panama isthmus; and the motive that caused the American flag to be flown over Formosa’s only port for twelve months. We should keep in mind that our only competitors were Europeans and that Japan gave promise of being a miniature China. Our course seemed quite clear; Nippon would be one of our stepping stones across the Pacific to serve as an entry port for the great commerce that would arise with China. That this commerce was halted and its advent delayed for over half a century could hardly have been foreseen by these early diplomats and merchants. The tremendous internal expansion of the United States and the absorption of national interest in the development of mid-continent regions were not yet manifest. The struggle of the sixties with all its fatal effects on foreign trade was not to be forecast even by Seward or Caleb Cushing, Humphrey Marshall, or the able Dr. Peter Parker, the leading spirits in the Eastern market for American interests.
In 1853 there appeared on the scene the second of those naval officers whose actions were to make history in Far Eastern waters, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. He sailed with his squadron from the United States via the Cape of Good Hope, sent a ship to visit the Bonin Islands which he claimed for this country, then dropped anchor in Tokyo Bay.
A new type of man, the military strategist, had appeared. His viewpoint differed from that of the statesman and the merchant. He knew the value of harbors and bases in time of war. He did not intend that his country should be left without refuge for her ships in case of development of hostilities with England. The Perry expedition, viewed as a whole, marks something new in policy when compared with policies of Samuel Shaw and Caleb Cushing. “I assume,” he wrote, “the responsibility of urging the expediency of establishing a foothold in this quarter of the globe as a measure of positive necessity to the sustainment of our maritime interests in the East.” He designated three points where he wished to see a beginning made; the Bonin Islands, Great Lu-chu, and Formosa. The treaty with Japan was to be part of this program.
He took formal possession of the Bonins, which he named the Coffin Islands after one of the captains of his squadron, and stationed one or more of his vessels for a year at Nafa in the Lu-chu Islands, but his bold policy was contrary to the wishes of President Franklin Pierce’s administration and he was forbidden by Secretary of the Navy Dobbin to follow up these initial steps. For this reason Perry’s treaty with Japan did not compare in importance with Caleb Cushing’s treaty of Wanghia. While the latter was of definite and immediate benefit to American trade, the former merely opened two Japanese ports, Hako-dote and Chimoda, to the Americans, and these were under strict regulation. The treaty did not grant access to the supplies of Japanese coal. It was indeed what its language claimed, solely a treaty of friendship and it was far more friendly to the Japanese than was the Cushing treaty to China. The value of the work of Perry must not be unappreciated. His treaty was considered at the time as of great importance and if his policy had been supported from home it would have given his country great advantage in the Orient.
There is not space here to make more than passing mention of Dr. Peter Parker, the missionary oculist and our commissioner for two years, who authorized the hoisting of the American flag over Formosa, nor of his Peruvian-American associate, Robinet, nor the forceful Commodore Armstrong who bombarded the Canton forts. Their efforts were frowned upon by Washington which clung closely to our original policies.
The intrusion of the political in the commercial relations with China could not be wholly halted and the necessity arose for cooperation with European governments which had become extremely active in China. Thus we find William B. Reed, our first Minister Plenipotentiary, off the mouth of the Pai-ho in company with the Russian, French, and British envoys. Each of these was endeavoring to get something more in the way of commercial privileges out of China and America could not afford to be left out. Their advent had been preceded by the British bombardment and capture of Canton, with the removal of the obdurate Viceroy Yew to Calcutta, where he subsequently died. Though Reed and his Americans did not participate in the use of force at the bombardment of the Pai-ho barrier forts, they reaped the benefit of this strong action and were admitted to Tientsin with the other foreigners, Reed ascending the river in a steamer which flew both the flags of Russia and of the United States. Within two weeks the treaty of Tientsin was signed opening more ports to foreigners, granting the right of direct audience with the Chinese Emperor, and giving residence to the envoys in Peking. The action of the Chinese in granting equal rights with the other nations to the United States was the same as marked the treaty of Wanghia and, in fact, came to be a recognized policy of the Chinese for many years.
The United States had to enter international politics in China or risk forfeiting its place in the trade. Its entrance was fortunate, being granted freely by the Chinese rather than forced upon them. The treaty of Tientsin laid the base for friendship between China and America, a feeling which grew rapidly in the next decade. This welcoming of the Americans as friends of the Chinese was undoubtedly due in a large part to the wisdom of our original policies consistently maintained for over half a century and was enhanced by the reaction of the Chinese to the harsh methods of England and the precarious position of the Chinese imperial government after the assaults of the Taiping rebels.
Our friendly relationship with the Chinese was to be confirmed and enhanced by the arrival, in 1861, of Anson Burlingame as minister. He was a remarkable character in many ways. He had served three terms in Congress where he was on the committee on foreign affairs and had been a student of the Far East. His urbanity and culture, his quick understanding of the Chinese viewpoint, his ready grasp of the problems before him endeared him to the Manchus in power in Peking. He was able during the first years of his service as minister to lay a sure foundation for the implicit faith and confidence the Chinese afterwards exhibited toward him and the country he represented.
In 1867 he resigned as United States Minister “in the interest of my country and of civilization,” as he put it, to accept a position of special envoy of the Chinese Emperor to all of the western nations then having treaties with China. The next year he visited the United States with two associates and a picturesque retinue and negotiated a treaty known as the Burlingame treaty which was signed in Washington on July 28, 1868. This treaty had six major features:
- It reapproved the appointment of Chinese consular agents to the United States.
- It secured freedom from religious persecution in both countries.
- The United States was granted the right to maintain schools in China.
- The theory of the integrity of China was re-affirmed.
- The policy of equal opportunities for all nations throughout China was reiterated.
- The belief of the United States that China should have full sovereignty over all its own territory was firmly announced.
As an expression of sentiment in the United States and as a solemn declaration of official policy toward China it was more authoritative than any preceding treaty.
While these events were taking place in China and in America we had been singularly fortunate in having as our representative in Japan a man whose career still serves as the model for a diplomatic representative in the East, Townsend Harris. A friend of Seward’s (then a senator from New York and active in foreign affairs), he had lived and traded in the Orient for several years. He carried to Japan a knowledge of Eastern affairs. This, together with his patience through many misunderstandings, his tact, friendliness, and enthusiasm for his work enabled him to establish America as a firm friend of the Japanese. His name is honored in that country after three-quarters of a century have passed.
The treaty he negotiated with Japan providing for further concessions to Americans undoubtedly precipitated the conflict between the Shogun and the Mikado which ended in the victory of the latter. Such, however, was the patriotism of the Japanese and their devotion to country rather than to selfish or party interests that the victorious young emperor and his party (1868) continued the enlightened policy of their predecessors in power.
The story of the rise to power of the Japanese nation does not fall within the province of this paper. This nation can teach the world a great deal in the self-sacrificing spirit of its people. They have accomplished one of the most notable feats of government known to mankind in the great peace which within and without lasted from 1638 to 1864. Through the early years of her development Japan found a steady friend in America.
The American diplomatic history of the Orient for the next thirty years was marked by the continuance of our friendly policies toward China and Japan, the widening of our missionary efforts, and by an equal decrease of our commercial activities. Our country was largely absorbed in the development of its great mid-continental areas. Many diplomatic incidents however arose in which the Navy had its full share. We attempted mediation between France and China, repeated our offers when a collision over Korea came between Japan and China, receded from our claim to the Bonin Islands in favor of Japan, and recognized Japan’s rights to the Lu-chus. America was pretty much settled in her policies so far as the Far East was concerned. She would coöperate with a nation or nations in China so long as this cooperation was carried out in the interest of China and of the open-door policy, and provided no military action was demanded.
The Spanish-American War found both Great Britain and Japan isolated in the Far East. The former viewed the aggressive advance of Russia toward China with grave misgivings; the latter was still sore over the action of France, Germany, and Russia in denying her the fruits of her victories over China. The activities of all the powers were such as to point to the eventual dismemberment of China and the closing of her doors in the face of a now increasing American trade.
Not only in the Orient but in Europe the United States was beginning to take a renewed interest in foreign trade. In 1897, the year of McKinley’s inauguration, American steel products began to be sold in great quantities abroad. It was believed and asserted by McKinley, Mark Hanna, and John Hay that the American people were now ready to resume the task for which the policy of Daniel Webster and Caleb Cushing had striven.
Ten days after the destruction of the Maine, Commodore Dewey was instructed to hold himself in readiness to engage the Spanish fleet at Manila. The swift and crushing victory of the American squadron left this great port at their mercy. The United States had been presented with a magnificent base, both naval and commercial. The annexation of Hawaii soon followed. In two gigantic strides America had crossed the Pacific. The object which Perry had planned for in 1854 had been accomplished by his brother naval officer forty-four years later. Great Britain went to great lengths to prevent European interference with our free action in the Philippines. Japan, though she had protested our annexation of Hawaii, was friendly to our conquest of Manila.
The Hay-Pauncefote treaty negotiations for the cession of British claims for the construction of an Isthmian Canal proceeded to a successful conclusion. The act of John Hay in China had, therefore, two important factors making for success; the backing of England and Japan and the presence of our large armed forces in the Philippines. Hay’s propositions, three in number, were submitted to England, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Japan in September, 1899, and by December all had agreed thereto. As these are our formal enunciation of the open-door policy they are given here:
- That it (the particular nation) will in no wise interfere with any “treaty port” or vested interest within any so-called “sphere of influence” or leased territory it may have in China.
- That the China tariff of the time being shall apply to all merchandise landed or shipped to all such ports as are within such said “spheres of influence” (unless they be “free ports”) no matter to what nationality it may belong and that duties so leviable shall be collected by the Chinese government.
- That it will levy no higher harbor duties on vessels of another nationality frequenting any port in such “sphere” than shall be levied on vessels of their own nationality, and no higher railroad charges over lines built, controlled, or operated within its “sphere” on merchandise belonging to citizens or subjects of other nationalities transported through such “spheres,” than shall be levied on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationals, transported over equal distances.
Though the United States did not obtain, by these agreements, as much as is popularly supposed (they did not secure a completely open door), they did avert immediate partition of China.
The American participation in the Boxer trouble and in the relief of Peking was creditable in fact and in result. Our action in the remission of China’s indemnity for the purposes of education has served as a model for other nations. Our participation in Far Eastern affairs since 1900 only marks the continuity of Major Shaw’s policies of 1794. They are of so recent occurrence that a table will suffice to mark their trend.
1904. The Russo-Japanese War. Hay again steps in and receives affirmation that the integrity of China will be respected.
1905. The Portsmouth treaty between Japan and Russia goes no further in the partition of China.
1910. Philander Knox receives a not unexpected check in his efforts to get China to turn over Manchurian railways to an Anglo-American syndicate. An Anglo-French-American-German concession to build a railroad in the Yangtze valley is however granted.
1911. The Chinese Revolution; Knox proposes to the nations a policy of non-intervention.
1913. President Wilson refuses to approve of American participation in a six-power loan to China of $120,000,000.
1915. Japan makes her famous twenty-one demands on China. On May 13, 1915, the United States informs Japan that she will refuse to recognize any agreement between Japan and China which would impair the treaty rights of United States citizens in China or which would invalidate the open-door policy.
1917. The United States, by the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, recognized that “territorial propinquity creates special relations between countries” and consequently that “the United States recognizes that Japan has special interests in China, particularly in the part to which her possessions are contiguous.”
1921. The Washington Conference—“The contracting powers agree not to support any agreements by the respective nationals with each other designed to create spheres of influence as to provide for the enjoyment of mutually exclusive opportunities in designated parts of China territory.”
The open-door policy has, at last, the formal agreement of nine nations for its enforcement.
Such, to date, is a brief history of America’s economic advance into the Pacific in terms of policies, overt acts, and treaties. These policies have the merit of continuity, of basic fairness to all, and of enmity toward none.
A well-known historian has said:
The most important geographical fact in the past history of the United States has been their location opposite Europe; the most important geographical fact in lending character to their future history will probably be their location on the Pacific opposite Asia.
Our diplomacy has laid a sure foundation of good will for this expanding future; the naval officer in the future, as in the days of Kearny, Perry, Shufeldt, Dewey, and Evans, will have no small part in its development.
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Policy is effective only as it is backed by force.—Dealey.