Regadíos

The first official contacts between the US and China occurred during the Presidency of John Tyler. Taking advantage of British military successes during the first Opium War, Tyler dispatched a diplomatic mission to China to secure equal access rights to Chinese ports. The First Opium War should be understood as the early conditions of possibility for contemporary US imaginations of China where economic access was a priority. If, as the following chapter will argue, the early 20th _{century saw strong US interest in the “myth of the China market”,} these myths began to take shape in the very initial encounters between the US and China. The notion though, that this market across the Pacific would not become apparent until the end of the century.

In a special message to Congress on December 30 1842 John Tyler described the British military successes in China where “events of considerable importance have recently transpired in China. The military operations carried on against that Empire by the English Government have been terminated by a treaty, according to the terms of which four important ports hitherto shut against foreign commerce are to be open to British merchants, Amoy, FooChooFoo, Ningpo, and Chinghai”.377 Tyler here understands the significance of the

375 _{Martin van Buren: "Fourth Annual Message," December 5, 1840. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29482.

376 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

377 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

British imperial war to be the access to four ports, significant as until then foreign trade had been limited to Canton. Tyler continues expressing concern about the potential for the US to gain equal access, “it can not but be interesting to the mercantile interest of the United States, whose intercourse with China at the single port of Canton has already become so

considerable, to ascertain whether these other ports now open to British commerce are to remain shut, nevertheless, against the commerce of the United States”.378 His conclusion is that “the treaty between the Chinese Government and the British commissioner provides neither for the admission nor the exclusion of the ships of other nations. It would seem, therefore, that it remains with every other nation having commercial intercourse with China to seek to make proper arrangements for itself with the Government of that Empire in this

respect”.379 In this light, Tyler’s immediate concerns for China were constituted through the logic capital whereby the US desires similar economic access to the British.

Notable here, is the absence of US concerns for the integrity of the Chinese empire, or any reference to US values and their corresponding logic of identity. Tyler does though comment on how these “events appear likely to break down and soften this spirit of non-intercourse and to bring China ere long into the relations which usually subsist between civilized states”.380 China here is positioned as outside the civilized world order which the US inhabits. Tyler articulates the general otherness of China when he observes how “the peculiarities of the Chinese Government and the Chinese character are well known”. He goes on to consider the “peculiarities” of how “an Empire supposed to contain 300,000,000 subjects, fertile in various rich products of the earth, not without the knowledge of letters and of many arts, and with large and expensive accommodations for internal intercourse and traffic, has for ages sought to exclude the visits of strangers and foreigners from its dominions, and has assumed for itself a superiority over all other nations”.381 In this early formulation of China representing another example of the difference authors like Campbell and Connolly describe as necessary to the reproduction of meaningful stable identities reflects a partial influence of the exclusionary aspects of the logic of identity.

378 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

379 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

380 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

381 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

Tyler speculates on how recent US “experience proves that the productions of western nations find a market to some extent among the Chinese; that that market, so far as respects the productions of the United States, although it has considerably varied in successive seasons, has on the whole more than doubled within the last ten years”.382 For Tyler, “it can hardly be doubted that the opening of several new and important ports connected with parts of the Empire heretofore seldom visited by Europeans or Americans would exercise a favourable influence upon the demand for such productions”. The China market then appears as a potentially desirable opportunity for US production. Tyler uses these conclusions to request Congressional appropriation for a permanent commission in China. He makes the case that “the commercial interests of the United States connected with China require at the present moment a degree of attention and vigilance…for the compensation of a commissioner to reside in China to exercise a watchful care over the concerns of American citizens and for the protection of their persons and property.”383 This mission was undertaken by Caleb Cushing who would return two years later with the Treaty of Wangxia that conferred on the US the same commercial rights the British had taken by force.384 This marks the beginning of official US concern with China and which primarily characterised by the logic of capital where it was extended commercial relations that the US was interested in. A more minor concern reflected the entwinement of the logics of geopolitics and identity with the US’s desire to assist in the ‘civilising’ of China.

Next year, in his third annual message to Congress in 1843 Tyler articulated an expansionist

message in the context of US territorial expansion across the continent where “under the influence of our free system of government new republics are destined to spring up at no distant day on the shores of the Pacific similar in policy and in feeling to those existing on this side of the Rocky Mountains, and giving a wider and more extensive spread to the principles of civil and religious liberty”.385 _{This is significant as in later decades the US would come to} see this expansion as not necessarily stopping on these Pacific shores, but logically extending across the ocean into Asia. For Tyler this was the promise of the civilized world and US “ national greatness”. He describes triumphantly how “the tide of population continues

382 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

383 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," December 30, 1842. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67360.

384 _{For information on this mission see: William Donahue, ‘The Caleb Cushing Mission’, Modern Asian Studies} 16 (1982): 193-216.

385 _{John Tyler: "Third Annual Message," December 5, 1843. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

unbrokenly to flow into the new States and Territories, where a refuge is found not only for our native born fellow citizens, but for emigrants from all parts of the civilized world, who come among us to partake of the blessings of our free institutions and to aid by their labour to swell the current of our wealth and power”.386 This is indicative of the emerging logic of geopolitics and identity as entwined where the US would logically expand spatially as a natural process of civilization. Although here this is limited to the North American continent, this represents the beginnings of what would become a more international approach.

In January 1845 Tyler described the success of Cushing’s mission where “the

accomplishment so far of the great objects for which it was appointed, and in placing our relations with China on a new footing eminently favourable to the commerce and other interests of the United States”.387 Tyler also implied that US concern with establishing amicable relations with China was speculative towards the potential they held. He argued to Congress that “in view of the magnitude and importance of our national concerns, actual and prospective, in China, I submit to the consideration of Congress the expediency of providing for the preservation and cultivation of the subsisting relations of amity between the United States and the Chinese Government, either by means of a permanent minister or

commissioner with diplomatic functions.”388 _{China then, was not just important in the present,} but existed as a speculative prospect to US commercial interests.

While James Polk is known more for his annexation of Texas and war with Mexico, he contributed significantly to US presidential discourses of China. In his third annual message to Congress on December 7th 1847 he envisioned how “the Bay of San Francisco and other harbors along the Californian coast would afford shelter for our Navy, for our numerous whale ships, and other merchant vessels employed in the Pacific Ocean, and would in a short period become the marts of an extensive and profitable commerce with China and other countries of the East”.389 Polk articulated a more explicit concern with the potential of the China trade for US interests. With regards to his comments on the Californian coast, Polk saw

386 _{John Tyler: "Third Annual Message," December 5, 1843. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29647.

387 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," January 22, 1845. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67439.

388 _{John Tyler: "Special Message," January 22, 1845. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67439.

389 _{James K. Polk: "Third Annual Message," December 7, 1847. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29488.

domestic prosperity as intimately linked to international commerce. The logic of capital in this light encompassed the domestic imperatives behind international expansion.

Extolling Congress over the details of the laws of extraterritoriality of US citizens in China, Polk commented on the need for laws and tribunals to manage these legal aspects. Noting how, “under our treaty with that power American citizens are withdrawn from the jurisdiction, whether civil or criminal, of the Chinese Government and placed under that of our public functionaries in that country”, Polk captured one of the specific manifestations of

exceptionalism in the US imagination.390

Polk described how “crimes may be committed with impunity and debts may be contracted without any means to enforce their payment. Inconveniences have already resulted from the omission of Congress to legislate upon the subject, and still greater are apprehended”. Here Polk reveals the international tensions by the apparent absence of the law for US citizens in China. Polk was concerned with how tensions “might disturb, if not destroy, our friendly relations with that Empire, and cause an interruption of our valuable commerce”.391 China’s significance then was rendered through the logic of capital.

In a special message on July 6th _{1848 to Congress Polk drew attention to the potential for a} US empire based on its continental expansion and how this held promise for increasing commercial relations across the Pacific. He remarked how:

“New Mexico and Upper California have been ceded by Mexico to the United States, and now constitute a part of our country. Embracing nearly ten degrees of latitude, lying adjacent to the Oregon Territory, and extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Rio Grande, a mean distance of nearly 1,000 miles, it would be difficult to estimate the value of these possessions to the United States. They constitute of themselves a country large enough for a great empire, and their

acquisition is second only in importance to that of Louisiana in 1803... The possession of the ports of San Diego and Monterey and the Bay of San Francisco will enable the United States to

command the already valuable and rapidly increasing commerce of the Pacific”.392

Continental expansion for Polk was creating the conditions for the US to “command…the rapidly increasing commerce of the Pacific”. Apparent here is the extension of securing US trade across the Pacific to commanding and ordering Pacific commerce. Polk saw the

acquisition of new Western territories as bringing the US “into immediate proximity with the west coast of America, from Cape Horn to the Russian possessions north of Oregon, with the

390 _{James K. Polk: "Third Annual Message," December 7, 1847. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29488.

391 _{James K. Polk: "Third Annual Message," December 7, 1847. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29488.

392 _{James K. Polk: "Special Message," July 6, 1848. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

islands of the Pacific Ocean, and by a direct voyage in steamers we will be in less than thirty days of Canton and other ports of China”.393 _{This was significant for Polk as he declared that} “in this vast region, whose rich resources are soon to be developed by American energy and enterprise, great must be the augmentation of our commerce, and with it new and profitable demands for mechanic labour in all its branches and new and valuable markets for our manufactures and agricultural products”.394 The continental expansion of the US then was seen as closely related to the success and expansion of trade across the Pacific. Present here was the close relationship between the logics of capitals and geopolitics in the US

conceptualisation of its geopolitical and economic need for physical expansion.

In his fourth annual message in 1848 Polk continued to define the virtues of San Francisco in terms of the potential to increase commercial activity with China. He declared that by

“embracing the only safe and commodious harbours on that coast for many hundred miles…it is scarcely possible to estimate its wealth until it shall be brought under the government of our laws and its resources fully developed”.395 The West coast of the US held promise not only in its domestic sources of wealth but, Polk demanded that “from its position it must command the rich commerce of China, of Asia, of the islands of the Pacific, of western Mexico, of Central America, the South American States, and of the Russian possessions bordering on that ocean”. This would in Polk’s projections, lead to “a great emporium…on the Californian coast which may be destined to rival in importance New Orleans itself. The depot of the vast commerce which must exist on the Pacific will probably be at some point on the Bay of San Francisco, and will occupy the same relation to the whole western coast of that ocean as New Orleans does to the valley of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico”.396 This great emporium that Polk envisioned would be made possible by increased commercial ties across the Pacific. In a sense, the successful expansion of the continental US created the conditions for improved Commercial relations with Asia, while those commercial relations would also create the conditions for a more successful and wealthy West coast of the US.

393 _{James K. Polk: "Special Message," July 6, 1848. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68017.

394 _{James K. Polk: "Special Message," July 6, 1848. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68017.

395 _{James K. Polk: "Fourth Annual Message," December 5, 1848. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29489.

396 _{James K. Polk: "Fourth Annual Message," December 5, 1848. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29489.

In one of his few mentions of China in public during his fourth annual message to Congress in 1864, Abraham Lincoln drew attention to the how China was increasingly accepting

“conventional laws” of international relations. Lincoln described the need for increased US consular presences amidst the on-going Taiping “rebellion which has so long been flagrant in China has at last been suppressed, with the cooperating good offices of this Government and of the other Western commercial States. The judicial consular establishment…will need legislative revision to adapt it to the extension of our commerce and to the more intimate intercourse which has been instituted with the Government and people of that vast Empire”.397 Lincoln referred to the positive prospect of how “China seems to be accepting with hearty good will the conventional laws which regulate commercial and social intercourse among the Western nations”.398 These conventional laws were by all means Western norms and customs for international relations. This constitutes an early interpretation of China accepting the requirements for participating in a Western based international system.

By no means a source of regular study in US-China relations, Ulysses S. Grant made a number of important discursive elaborations in US imaginations of China and itself. In his first annual message December 6th 1869 he reflected on the potential of the US where “the vast resources of the nation, both developed and undeveloped, ought to make our credit the best on earth”.399 _{Making the case for the anti-colonial nature of US interests he declared that} “the United States have no disposition to interfere with the existing relations of Spain to her colonial possessions on this continent. They believe that in due time Spain and other

European powers will find their interest in terminating those relations and establishing their present dependencies as independent powers members of the family of nations. These dependencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one European power to another”.400 More forcefully, he described how “when the present relation of colonies ceases, they are to become independent powers, exercising the right of choice and of self control in