American Policy Toward China, Middle Nineteenth Century To Early Twentieth Century

The middle nineteenth century to the early twentieth century was a period when the USA opened the formal relation with China. Over these five decades' relation with China, the American government laid down the basic principles of her policy toward China. Even today, these principals have been directing the US toward China.The paper offers a tentative discussion of the US policy toward China during this period. It argues that American policy toward Qing China was characterized on the one hand by a sympathy with China and an assertion that US attitude toward China differed from that of European powers, on the other hand by Americans no hesitation to gain commercial interests through obtaining a most-favored-nation status from China.Towards the end of the nineteenth century American gave up the "jackal diplomacy" , and made the open door notes to the other nations which demonstrated the independent position of the American in China arena.The paper also studies the views of those Americans inside China such as diplomats, merchants and missionaries, who were dissatisfied with the backwardness of Chinese society and the decadence of Qing government. These Americans urged the Chinese government to wage a reform in order to avoid from being portioned by intruding western powers. The US government' s response to their policy proposition is being discussed as well.From the late nineteenth century the exclusion of Chinese immigrantsin the American homeland became another focus in the Sino-American relation. The paper contended that American government' s exclusion laws violated the mutual open door principals.It concluded that during this period, US policies toward China had been ambivalent, and wavering between idealism and realism.