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mainly on the free silver issue, were the paramount questions of the campaign. The Democrats based their campaign to elect Bryan on their opposition to imperialism.

The campaign was bitterly fought, but in the end the Republicans won. The victorious Republicans immediately proclaimed that the annexationist policies of the McKinley administration had been handsomely vindicated by the country's verdict-7,219,530 votes for McKinley; 6,358,071 for Bryan. Bailey, who has made a special study of this campaign, concludes that the Republican success was not a mandate for imperialistic policies. "Prosperity rather than McKinley won," he says.25 However, in the years just after the 1900 election the United States continued with what many consider to be an imperialistic policy. This policy did not involve the actual annexation of any appreciable territory, unless the Panama Canal Zone be regarded as such, but it did place the United States in virtual political, economic, and military control of a number of spots nearer home than Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines.

Thus, at the close of the 19th century the United States by annexation or cession had added Alaska (1867), Midway Island Expansion to (1867), the Philippines (1898), non-contiguous Guam (1898), Puerto Rico (1898), territory Hawaii (1898), Palmyra Island (1898), American Samoa (1899), Wake Island (1899), and several minor atolls in the Pacific. Only the larger of these acquisitions may properly be termed the fruits of imperialism. The troubles inherited by the United States with these territorial acquisitions are part of the later story examined in subsequent sections.

6. The United States in the Far East to 1914

America's role in the Far East assumed such proportions during and after World War II that it seems desirable at this point to discuss the beginnings of American interest in that quarter of the globe. America was emerging as a world power with its involvement in colonialism, international trade, and naval armaments. And its

25 Bailey, op. cit., p. 526.

future enemy of World War II, Japan, was beginning to show signs of attaining world power status in the Orient. China, too, although long a factor in Far Eastern politics, became an object of greater outside attention at about this time. In this section the development of American foreign policy in respect to the Far East will be dealt with only to the outbreak of World War I, leaving the later events for subsequent treatment.26

From the first years of independence the United States had trading interests in the Far East. Many New England shipping fortunes were founded on the profits of the Old China trade Early American of the period up to the Civil War. treaty rights Furs, spices, fish, and various semiin China luxury items of Oriental manufacture led American traders to most of the open ports of Asia in these years. But diplomatic relations with the countries of the Far East were negligible. The Opium War of 18391842, between Great Britain and China, which resulted in a British victory, opened five Chinese ports to unrestricted foreign residence and trade, as well as giving Britain outright possession of Hongkong. On May 8, 1843 President Tyler appointed Caleb Cushing as first American Commissioner to China. The Cushing Mission, combining diplomatic and commercial objectives, achieved remarkable results, including the favorable Treaty of Wanghia.

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TREATY OF PEACE, AMITY, AND COMMERCE WITH CHINA, WANGHIA, JULY 3, 1844: ... Citizens of the United States . . . shall, in no case, be subject to other or higher duties than are or shall be required of the people of any other nation whatever. The citizens of the United States are permitted to frequent the five ports of Kwangchow, Amoy, Fuchow, Ningpo and Shanghai, and to reside with their families and trade there, and to proceed at pleasure with their vessels and merchandize to and from any foreign port and either of the said five ports to any other of them. But said vessels shall not unlawfully enter the other ports of China. . . . For the superintendence and regulation of the concerns of citizens of the United States doing business at the said five ports, the government of the United States may appoint Consuls. citizens of

the United States, who may commit any crime in China, shall be subject to be tried and punished only by the Consul . . according to the laws of the United States.

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26 See pp. 66-68, 92-93, 113-119 and 175-236 below.

This treaty, with its privileges of trading and extraterritoriality (the superseding of local authority by officers of a foreign power), was regarded as a model for its time, and endured until 1858. American trade with China flourished, and American missionaries, protected by the Wanghia treaty, went in large numbers to spread Christianity in the Celestial Empire. After the French and British wrested concessions from China by military action in 1856-1858, the Americans who had declined an invitation to participate in the demonstrations, concluded the Treaty of Tientsin on June 18, 1858 which gave the United States the same general privileges as those accorded France and Britain.

At about the same time American interest in Japan was awakened by the expedition of Com

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TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN, YEDO (TOKYO), MARCH 31, 1854: ... The port of Simoda . . . and the port of Hakodade... are granted by the Japanese as ports for the reception of American ships. . . . Whenever ships of the United States are thrown or wrecked on the coast of Japan, the Japanese vessels will assist them, and carry their crews to Simoda, or Hakodade, and hand them over to their countrymen appointed to receive them. . . . It is agreed that if at any future day the government of Japan shall grant to any other nation or nations privileges and advantages which are not herein granted to the United States... that these same privileges and advantages shall be granted likewise to the United States and to the citizens thereof. . . .

Although the concessions made by the Japanese were not so extensive as the Americans were gaining in China, they did represent a revolutionary advance in Japanese policy. Hitherto, the Japanese had kept their island closed tight against any influences from the outside. Now Perry had made the first breach in this formidable wall. Townsend Harris was sent to Shimoda to act as consul general in 1855. Three years later he concluded with the Japanese an important commercial treaty based on conventions signed in 1857.

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TREATY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN, YEDO, JULY 29, 1858: . . . In addition to the ports of Shimoda and Hakodade, the following ports and towns shall be opened . . Kanagawa... Nagasaki... Nee-e-gata. Hiogo. ... Six months after the opening of Kanagawa the port of Shimoda shall be closed. . . . In all the foregoing ports and towns American citizens may permanently reside; they shall have the right to lease ground, and purchase the buildings thereon, and may erect dwellings and warehouses. . . . Americans shall be allowed to reside in . . . Yedo . . . and . . . Osaca, for the purpose of trade only. . . . Americans committing offenses against Japanese shall be tried in American consular courts. . . .

First treaty with Korea

Both in Japan and China the American diplomatic and commercial representatives succeeded in creating a favorable attitude toward the United States. By its actions, the United States, with few exceptions in special incidents, gave proof of its desire to maintain freedom of trade opportunities for all nations without resort to coercion. The same attitude was exhibited toward Korea after 1882 when an American naval officer, Commodore Shufelt, concluded the first treaty made with a western nation by the then independent and isolated kingdom of Korea. On several occasions the United States cooperated with other foreign powers in joint demonstrations in the Far East, and in 1866 Secretary Seward joined with representatives of several other nations in a common tariff convention with Japan. But mainly the United States resorted to bilateral arrangements. Notable among these latter examples was the Burlingame treaty with China, concluded in 1868 through the efforts of Anson Burlingame, American minister to Peking from 1861 to 1868. This treaty proclaimed that the United States had no intention of intervening in China, that it promised to respect the territorial integrity of China, and that it granted the right of unrestricted Chinese immigration into the United States. At that time Chinese coolies were welcome as cheap labor in the American west where they provided workers for railroad, mining, and other development projects. This provision of the treaty was especially applauded by Californians.

Free immigration for Chinese

The free immigration provision of the Burlingame treaty was modified by a treaty concluded in

1880. The change was brought about by serious disorders in California all through

Limitations on the 1870's aimed at driving the Chinese Chinese out of business and labor immigration competition with the whites. The anti-Chinese riots, instigated principally by the agitator Denis Kearney, in San Francisco, culminated in boycotts against Chinese labor in 1877 and a Congressional limitation on the importation of Chinese in 1879. President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed this legislation as a violation of the Burlingame treaty. The 1880 treaty gave the United States the right to regulate, limit, or suspend the coming or residence of Chinese laborers, but not to prohibit such immigration. In 1882 Congress passed a law suspending Chinese immigration for ten years. This act, says Bailey, "constituted a radical departure from America's policy of maintaining a haven for the oppressed and underprivileged of every race and clime. American missionaries found it embarrassingly difficult to explain why a Chinaman could go to the white man's heaven but not to the white man's country." However, the 1882 law was renewed in 1892 with strengthened amendments.

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Japan gets full status as a nation

A treaty with Japan, concluded in 1894, elevated that nation to the status of a recognizedly equal power. Special consular jurisdiction and extraterritoriality in Japan were abandoned by the United States. Japan was allowed to set her own tariff rates. American and Japanese citizens were permitted to buy land and buildings in the other country. And equality of treatment as to residence, travel, and property rights was guaranteed to the nationals of each country within the other. Only in the case of regulations as to trade and immigration which had been or might be enacted by either government was the treaty not to take precedence.

After China had been badly defeated by Japan in the war of 1894-1895, the various powers interested in China began to press for greater

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plums in the process. The British, with about 80 percent of the Chinese trade, were the most likely to lose by these actions if the other powers established spheres of influence or actual colonies in China. For many years the keystone of British policy in China had been the freedom of all nations to trade on equal terms. This was known as the "open door policy," a phrase which George Kennan remarks was old in 1898.28 More important even than trade would be the railroad, mining, and other concessions which would go with spheres of influence.

United States avoids joint action on China

In March 1898 Great Britain sent a secret note to the United States asking whether Britain could count on the cooperation of the United States in opposing annexation by outside powers of parts of China or the leasing of potentially valuable areas on a preferential basis. The American State Department, preoccupied with Spanish-American relations over Cuba, paid little attention to the communication, When John Hay, American ambassador in London, learned of Washington's lack of interest, he asked the Secretary of State to reconsider the question. Hay was told that the time was still not opportune. In fact, Bailey writes that Secretary Sherman on both occasions said that such joint action with Britain would be inconsistent(25) with the traditional policy of the United States.29

Genesis of the Open Door Policy

John Hay shortly afterward became Secretary of State. He had as a private adviser on Far Eastern affairs one W. W. Rockhill, then American minister to Greece and formerly a diplomat in China. Rockhill had a friend, A. E. Hippisley, a Britisher who was employed in China and was an outspoken advocate of the open door. Hippisley convinced Rockhill that the United States should approach the powers interested in China and get from them assurances that they would not interfere with treaty ports in the spheres of influence and that the Chinese treaty tariffs should apply without discrimination to all merchandise entering their respective spheres of influence. The fact that Hippisley, who was second in command of the Chinese Customs Service, was

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anxious to preserve the prerogatives of that service is of significance. At first, Secretary Hay believed that, much as he supported the Hippisley-Rockhill position, the American Senate and people would not countenance such a move. What altered Hay's opinion is not known, but on August 24, 1899 he authorized Rockhill to proceed with Hippisley's suggestion. Rockhill drafted a proposal which was approved by President McKinley. The State Department then prepared a series of notes which were signed by Hay and sent to the United States representatives to Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and later to the American diplomats in France, Italy, and Japan. These were the so-called Open Door proposals.

SECRETARY HAY'S NOTE ON THE OPEN DOOR IN CHINA, WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 6, 1899: . . . the United States would be pleased to see... [the respective] Government give formal assurances, and lend its cooperation in securing like assurances from the other interested powers, that each . . First. Will in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest within any so-called "sphere of interest" or leased territory it may have in China. Second: That the Chinese treaty tariff . shall apply to all merchandise landed or shipped to all such ports . . . (unless they be "free ports"), no matter to what nationality it may belong.. Third. That it will levy no higher harbor dues on vessels of another nationality. . . than shall be levied on vessels of its own nationality, and no higher railroad charges . . . than shall be levied on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationals. . . . This three-point formula was taken almost verbatim from Hippisley's memorandum. Kennan believes that it was "a carefully prepared summary of the desires of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service at that particular moment. . . . By getting our government to sponsor it, Hippisley had obviously found a convenient roundabout way of putting pressure on the British government to behave in a manner less threatening to the interests of the Custom Service in China."30

...

Hay's notes put the powers in the embarrassing position of having to reply favorably or leave the implication that they were in support of selfinterest at China's expense. Still the replies included indirections, ambiguities, and qualifications mainly to the effect that the acquiescence of the particular government would depend upon acceptance by the other governments. Secretary

30 Kennan, op. cit., p. 31.

Hay, on March 20, 1900, announced that he had received "final and definitive" acceptances from all the powers. While technically true, this was somewhat misleading since the replies except from Italy, a country with no immediate interests in China, were either evasive, conditional or negative. Russia politely declined in diplomatically noncommital terms to cooperate, and Japan directly challenged Hay's presumption of authority to ask such assurances from the powers.

Open Door

as an opportunity for equal favors

Hay's concept of the Open Door did not insist on the territorial integrity of China. It applied only to the relatively small leaseholds and spheres of influence. Vested interests in these areas were to be left undisturbed. The Open Door did not become binding on the powers. It was mainly a hope by the United States that rapacity in China would be lessened and that each of the interested nations would have as equal a chance at commercial favors in the future as could agreeably be expected.

An almost immediate test of the Open Door policy occurred in the spring of 1900. In that year a force of fanatical anti-foreign The Boxer Chinese rose in an attempt to expel Rebellion, 1900 the Europeans from China. The Boxers, as these Chinese were called, beseiged the legation quarter of Peking. An international rescue expedition was organized and sent to relieve the legations. The United States made a contribution of 2,500 men to this joint force. Secretary Hay, in fear that some of the powers would take this opportunity to weaken the Open Door policy, sent a circular note to the interested nations.

SECRETARY HAY'S NOTE TO THE POWERS, WASHINGTON, JULY 3, 1900: . . it is deemed appropriate to define the attitude of the United States. . . . We adhere to the policy initiated by us in 1857 of peace with the Chinese nation, a furtherance of lawful commerce, and of protection of lives and property of our citizens by all means guaranteed under extraterritorial treaty rights and by the law of nations. . . . The purpose of the President is . . . to act concurrently with the other powers. policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial

the

Enlarging the Open Door concept

and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire. . . . This note is regarded as an important corollary to the original Open Door proposal. It did not require an answer, but merely set forth American policy. And it enlarged America's concept of Chinese integrity to include all China, not just the leaseholds and spheres of influence. However, the result of the Boxer Rebellion was to increase, rather than decrease, the controls exerted by foreign governments in China. After the Europeans imprisoned in the legation compounds of Peking were freed by the international expedition on August 14, 1900, the cooperating nations assessed the Chinese government more than $300,000,000 in indemnity. The Russians used the episode to strengthen their controls in Manchuria. And the indemnities forced the Chinese government to go into debt to several of the foreign powers. The United States remitted over a course of 24 years about $18,000,000 of the $25,000,000 it was assigned in indemnities. It is possible that Secretary Hay's circular note had a restraining influence upon the foreign nations involved in China. But its more effective result was to put the policy of the United States on record for all to see. On February 1, 1902, Secretary Hay addressed another circular note to the in an attempt to forestall Russian powers advances in Manchuria. This note enlarged the Open Door concept to include industrial as well as commercial development, but it did not materially affect the Russian efforts to secure exclusive privileges in Manchuria.

Behind the scenes, however, John Hay was one of the first to admit the limitations of the Open Door policy. Late in 1900 he secretly instructed the American minister in Peking to try to get a naval coaling station at Samsah Bay in Fukien province. The Japanese were able to prevent such a cession by the Chinese "and gently, if somewhat ironically, reminded Hay of his recently announced guardianship of Chinese territorial integrity."31

In addition, the Japanese inquired whether the United States would join them to use force to

31 Bailey, op. cit., p. 530.

AngloJapanese alliance of 1902

hearted ones.

prevent further Russian encroachment in Manchuria. Hay declined to give any such assurance. Japan soon afterwards signed an alliance with Great Britain, since, as Kennan observes, "They were interested then, as always, in real military allies, not half."'82 Inasmuch as the United States was unwilling to support with positive measures its announced policy, the Open Door remained one of those idealistic pronouncements to which statesmen could rally without too much understanding of its implications. Moreover, within a few years, the United States set up regimes in the Philippines and Puerto Rico which denied in our own possessions the Open Door principles which the Americans had asked other nations to adopt in the Orient.

From the time of its victory over China in 1895 Japan had to be regarded as the leading power of the Far East, and one of the coming powers of the world. The adoption and imitation of Western ways raised Japan in a few years to a status of equality with nations much older in the practices of diplomacy and international politics. Japan's alliance with Great Britain, signed January 30, 1902, was an adroit move which insured Japan freedom of action in the Far East while relieving Britain of onerous responsibilities in that area. With Britain's aid, Japan could withstand the threats of Russia. And Britain could rest easy in the knowledge that Japan would protect British interests in the Orient.

Bolstered by this alliance with Great Britain, Japan directed her attention against Russian expansion into Manchuria and Korea. Conflicts

RussoJapanese War, 1904-1905

between the Russians and Japanese increased and the two nations went to war on February 8, 1904. American sympathy was with Japan. President Theodore Roosevelt said later that he notified Germany and France that in event of a combination against Japan he would intervene in behalf of Japan. No record exists of such a notification. However, Secretary Hay did urge the belligerents to respect the neutrality and administrative entity of China and asked the neutral nations to cooperate. Neither a2 Kennan, op. cit., p. 35.

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