| While analyses of the Sino-American relationship have increased in popularity as the connections between the two states continue to intertwine, not much research has been done on the foundations of these associations in the nineteenth century. My study provides insight into the first series of prolonged diplomatic and cultural interactions between the United States and China during the inter-Opium War period. Combining the practices of diplomatic and cultural historians, I utilize the narratives and reports of travelers, merchants, diplomats, missionaries, and print journalists to show how a broad range of Americans relied on the same interconnected rhetorical tropes of "mystery", "opportunity", "failure", "threat", and "success" to justify the expansion of American influence in China. My work illuminates how Americans used these themes in contemporary debates regarding questions of political access, economic growth, religious influence, contemporary masculinity, and territorial expansion. China could represent whatever the observer wanted, and Americans from 1843 to 1856 used that indeterminacy to the greatest extent imaginable. Americans created an entire discourse of description that could simultaneously and effectively suit the needs of individuals, organizations, and the nation as a whole by cobbling together hopes, dreams, fears, and suspicions under the guise of engagement. Americans believed that increased access after the First Opium War would serve as a panacea for the problems that had previously hindered the Sino-American relationship. But instead of presenting a solution, greater engagement with China only served to open a Pandora"s box, wherein the Chinese represented everything and anything that Americans could desire or fear, and it has not only motivated, but controlled the relationship ever since. The Sino-American relationship of the mid-nineteenth century represented the first major foray of the United States into diplomatic activity in Asia. Americans not only utilized these new experiences to guide them in China, but it also represented the first tentative step of the United States in its journey from minor player to imperial actor in the region by the turn of the century. |
