Early Commercial Relations Between The Oldest And The Youngest Empires

As the only superpower in today's world, the United States of America is executing her influence on the globe with her powerful strengths of economy and military. Today is the continuance of the past. The study of the early Sino-American relations will help us to know better today's bilateral relations, between which there is an inherent continuity. However, this historical period has left us with a vague idea of the history. Although later Chinese and foreign scholars had studied the period from many different aspects, some cliched ideas were set up and accepted uncritically due to the passage of time and difficult acquisition of materials concerning the history.Just as Said put it in his Orientalism, "Modern thought and experience have taught us to be sensitive of what is involved in representation, in studying the Other, in racial thinking, in unthinking and uncritical acceptance of authority and authoritative ideas...." Based on analyzing and summarizing previous scholars' academic fruits, this article tries to expound the development and characteristics of the early Sino-American commercial relations as fully as possible by closely reading, sorting and analyzing the historic materials concerning the period, especially those first-hand documents.Although the United States had some contact with China during the Colonial period, the actual exchange between the two countries began after American ship Empress of China visited China in 1784. During the early period of the Sino-American relations, there were mainly two kinds of activities for American people in China, one was commercial, the other missionary. As the Qing government prohibited foreign missionaries from preaching in China and the Chinese native culture resisted the doctrine of Christianity, the missionary activities in China had not made obvious progress from the beginning. Contrarily the early Sino-American commerce advanced by leaps and bounds owing to the long established market in China and American merchants' positive efforts to expand trade in China. This is also the reason why the article focuses on studying the early Sino-American commercial relations.Generally speaking, the early Sino-American commerce kept an upward developing trend. As most American merchants in China behaved with all due submission, China and the United States didn't have too many conflicts except the Terranova incident throughout the early period. However, beneath the surface of peaceful exchange there hidden a latent trend towards the unequal exchange in the future, which was finally incarnated in Wangxia Treaty. This seemingly peaceful commercial exchange actually harmed China's sovereignty and interest, which also laid the foundation for the later American foreign policies towards China.This article firstly gives a comprehensive introduction of the Sino-American commerce and the significant events that took place in the period. Secondly it discusses characteristics of the early Sino-American commerce, from the aspects of Chinese and American merchants and their governments' foreign trade policies at the time. Thirdly it studies the developing trend of the early Sino-American commerce by exploring the characteristics of the mutual exchange in the three phases of the period. Finally it studies the relationship between the early Sino-American commerce and American foreign policies by exploring early American merchants' activities on the Pacific and their influence on American government's foreign policies, especially those towards China in different historical periods.