American "Dollar Diplomacy" Towards China In The Wilson Administration

The"Dollar Diplomacy"is one of the American diplomatic traditions. In the early 20th century,"Dollar Diplomacy"was used as a tool to help United States expand its influence in China. In the Taft Administration,"Dollar Diplomacy"was adopted widely. The main actions includes: the United Stated forced itself into the Hukuang Railways Loan, took part in the Four-Power Consortium, put forward the Knox Plan, and participated in the Currency-reform and Manchurian-industrial Loan. These actions were nearly all failed. Before long, Japan and Russian took part in the consortium, so the consortium became Six-Power. In the Six-Power consortium, American Group was ostracized, and the"Dollar Diplomacy"was bogged down. When Woodrow Wilson became American President, he launched on the revolution of"Dollar Diplomacy", forced the American group to withdraw from the sextuple consortium, abandoned the Taft's policy: cooperation with the other powers, and encouraged American businessmen to invest independently in China beyond the consortium. But because these business lacked of the governmental support, the independent investment was unsuccessful. The fact forced President Wilson gave up the method of"go it alone", agreed with the old method of cooperation and the consortium, and set up a new consortium. The New Consortium accomplished nothing in economic aspect. It didn't attain any loan for the United States. But in the political aspect, America negotiated with the Japanese in the name of New Consortium, and compelled Japan to retreat form the Eastern Inner Mongolia. That's an achievement. Review the"Dollar Diplomacy"in the Wilson Administration, the independent investment about three years is a characteristic of it. When the independent investment failed, Wilson quickly changed his policy, re-entried the consortium, which also proves agility is another characteristic of Wilson's"Dollar Diplomacy".