China tuned out: American radio in East Asia, 1919--1941

This dissertation explores the activities of the American radio industry and its government supporters in East Asia from 1919 to 1941. During this period, American radio interests dramatically increased their activities in East Asia, especially China. To these radiotelegraphic and broadcasting interests, interwar China appeared a potentially lucrative market. Throughout this period, the American government stood ready to give American radio interests vigorous promotion and support. However, not one of these endeavors became the viable enterprise that had been envisioned at its outset. Every effort to expand the American radio presence in China examined in this study sparked intense diplomatic conflict and controversy.;American radio interests encountered three main obstacles in interwar China. First, Chinese political instability, growing nationalism, and rising anti-foreignism throughout the 1920s and 1930s compelled some Chinese officials to block American radio initiatives. Second, Japanese expansion in China further muddled the situation American radio interests faced. In one respect, Japanese expansion intensified the political instability, nationalism, and anti-foreignism American radio already confronted in China. The Japanese also opposed the expansion of American radio on the basis that its presence undermined Japanese radio interests in China. Finally, the staunch and effective opposition from Chinese and Japanese quarters that American radio encountered in East Asia underscored a fundamental shortcoming in American strategies. American radio interests and supportive policymakers betrayed a mystifying ignorance to the Japanese and Chinese concerns on which American radio intruded. A central purpose of this dissertation is to explain why, time and time again, the supposedly intelligent men in the radio industry and the American government could be so unaware of the antagonistic and counterproductive actions they repeatedly took on behalf of expanding American radio into China. In the process, this study demonstrates how American radio activities in interwar era China intersected with the same problems and issues that led to the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and the Japanese-American War in 1941.