Charles Evans Hughes And The United States’ China Policy During The Washington Conference

Hughes was the Secretary of the United States from March 5,1921 to March 4, 1925, his outstanding achievements in the field of Foreign Policy was hosted the Washington Conference(November 12,1921-February 6,1922). This international conference was the performance of the United States which requires to gain more voice in international affairs with its post-war economic power has risen sharply; was what the United States need to comply with the international disarnament, solve the conflict between the United States and Japan in the Far East and Pacific areas, especially in China; even was the Secretary of State Hughes who exerted his exceptional diplomatic skills to lay the foundation for the United States to seek economic hegemony over the world in the face of the complex international situation. Hughes who chaired the Washington Conference aimed to keep Japan from gaining any further advantage in Chinese market, break the Japanese’s monopoly situation in China, coordinate their invasion in China, expand economic benefits for Americans in China and realize its economic supremacy in China by promoting the concept of equal commerical opportunity throughout the nation with a stable domestic environment.The Washington Conference was divided into two themes:Disarmament and the Pacific and Far East questions. This article is mainly to explore Hughes’foreign policy toward China during the Washington Conference, so that we can reveal what kind of role and influence did Hughes play during the formulation and implementation of the United States’China policy. Therefore, this dissertation will focus on the discussion of Pacific and Far East questions relating to China including shantung controversy, tariff autonomy, the Chinese eastern railway control and extraterritoriality based on the relevant Western academics and published parties in recent years and the Foreign relation documents. This paper consists of two parts:The first part describes Hughes’s international outlook and his diplomatic thoughts toward China. This part firstly analyzed the complex international situation when Hughes came into office from the perspective of himself. The stiffest problem for Secretary Hughes was the Far Eastern trouble. In his mind, Japan is the biggest threat to the United States’ interest in the Far East region, the main friction between them is shantung controversy, joint in Siberia and the Eastern railway in the manchurian area. In addition to this, the existence of the Anglo-Japanese alliance caused Hughes’s concern. Since the effect of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been to shield Japanese imperialism in the Far East and posed a serious threat to the American’s interests in China, the arms race between them became worse with the intensified contradiction. Therefore, Hughes was determined to host an international conference to deal with the fraction between America and Japan in the Far East. In order to achieve this goal, Hughes designed the themes of the conference carefully and made an elaborate arrangement for the conference, including the principle of the agenda, the discussion program and the representatives of the United States. Since Hughes set the Far East especially China problem as the main part of the conference discussion, so it involved Hughes’s diplomacy toward China. The last paragraph of this section made a detailed analysis about Hughes’s Open Door ideas and its essence, and made a brief analysis on the influencing factors.The second part mainly recites several key problems, including shantung controversy, tariff autonomy, the Chinese eastern railway control question and extraterritoriality in China, Which were managed by Hughes in the Washington conference. This part firstly made a brief introduction of these specific issues’ background. Then, focus on describing Hughes’s attitudes and positions on these problems, such as:Supporting China resumes sovereignty of Shantung province; expressing conditional support for China to raise tariffs, but against China to take back the tariff autonomy; Claiming to international management of the Chinese Eastern railway; holding the theory of extraterritoriality to maintain. In connection with the specific attitudes about these issues of Hughes, this paper respectively describes the specific resolutions made by Hughes in the Washington Conference. Finally, Hughes achieved his predetermined diplomatic goals and signed the Nine Power Agreement by hughes himself and the joint efforts of the designated representatives of the United States through the joint consultation, discussion, struggle and compromise between the participating countries. The Open Door policy and the principle of equal trade opportunity advocated by Hughes become the core of the treaty. In this treaty, Hughes succeeded in raising the Open Door policy to the height of the international law principle, which provided conditions for the United States to exclude out the influences from Japan and Britian in China, step up economic expansion in China and establish the economic hegemony over the world, which is one of the most important achievements of the United States in Washington conference. Even though the treaty is claimed to respect China’s territorial and administrative integrity, but the essence is to maintain the balance of powers and the status quo in China, China has returned to the imperialism of common prey situation.