Otros usos

Anxiety over Chinese immigration came to political culmination in the 1880s. Chester Arthur in his first annual message to Congress in December 1881 described the “demoralizing and destructive traffic” of Chinese immigration.416 _{Arthur commended the Chinese government} for accepting potential changes in “prompt and friendly spirit” to existing treaty statutes regarding immigration.417 _{He also described US relations with Japan in a very positive} manner. Describing the on-going conversion of Japan he described how “the intimacy between our own country and Japan, the most advanced of the Eastern nations, continues to be cordial. I am advised that the Emperor contemplates the establishment of full constitutional government, and that he has already summoned a parliamentary congress for the purpose of effecting the change”.418 For Arthur this was “a remarkable step toward complete assimilation

414 _{Ulysses S. Grant: "Seventh Annual Message," December 7, 1875. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29516.

415 _{Ulysses S. Grant: "Seventh Annual Message," December 7, 1875. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29516.

416 _{Chester A. Arthur: "First Annual Message," December 6, 1881. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29522.

417 _{Chester A. Arthur: "First Annual Message," December 6, 1881. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29522.

418 _{Chester A. Arthur: "First Annual Message," December 6, 1881. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29522.

with the Western system [which] can not fail to bring Japan into closer and more beneficial relationship with ourselves as the chief Pacific power”.419 _{Although he was describing} conditions in Japan, This reflected Arthur’s general hopes for political conditions in Asia more broadly. In effect here, was US desire to see the assimilation of Asian states into the Western system via the conversation of those states by Western ‘standards of civilization’, a process articulated in detail by Gerrit Gong.420

In his 1882 message to Congress describing his veto over a bill to ban all Chinese immigration Arthur captured the tension between domestic political concerns and

international commercial interests. He state how “a nation is justified in repudiating its treaty obligations only when they are in conflict with great paramount interests… The present treaty

relations between that power and the United States spring from an antagonism which arose between our paramount domestic interests and our previous relations”.421 This international- domestic tension was to in effect become ever-present in US policies towards China and will be highlighted again in chapter 9 with Barack Obama’s trade initiatives in the Asia-Pacific. Arthur described how “the treaty commonly known as the Burlingame treaty conferred upon Chinese subjects the right of voluntary emigration to the United States for the purposes of curiosity or trade or as permanent residents, and was in all respects reciprocal as to citizens of the United States in China”. It was designed to give “the voluntary emigrant coming to the United States the right to travel there or to reside there, with all the privileges, immunities, or exemptions enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favoured nation”.422

He was now aware though that the increasing domestic tensions over this encounter was beginning to undermine domestic political stability in the West coast states. Arthur accepted the need for modifying the 1880 Treaty affirming immigration rights when he conceded that “I think it may fairly be accepted as an expression of the opinion of Congress that the coming of such labourers to the United States or their residence here affects our interests and

endangers good order throughout the country. On this point I should feel it my duty to accept the views of Congress”.423 He did though maintain his position that the provision of the act

419 _{Chester A. Arthur: "First Annual Message," December 6, 1881. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29522.

420 _{Gerrit Gong, The Standard of 'Civilization' in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).} 421 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

422 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

423 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

suspending immigration for 20 years was “a breach of our national faith, and being unable to bring myself in harmony with the views of Congress on this vital point the honour of the country constrains me to return the act with this objection to its passage”.424 _{Thus, for Arthur,} the logic of identity exerted some influence on his decision-making.

Arthur described how the acquisition of California created the conditions for more promising commercial relations with China. He explained how “our intercourse with China is of recent date. Our first treaty with that power is not yet forty years old. It is only since we acquired California and established a great seat of commerce on the Pacific that we may be said to have broken down the barriers which fenced in that ancient Monarchy”.425 Arthur noted how

Chinese immigration had been beneficial for the US, as Chinese labour had contributed to US prosperity. Describing the 1868 Treaty as a natural progression of the US encounter with China he declared, “no one can say that the country has not profited by their work. They were largely instrumental in constructing the railways which connect the Atlantic with the

Pacific”.426 The contribution of Chinese bodies then has been critical to the development of the Western US, “the States of the Pacific Slope are full of evidences of their industry. Enterprises profitable alike to the capitalist and to the labourer of Caucasian origin would have lain dormant but for them”.427 _{China had contributed to the material construction of the} US and, as implied by Arthur, US capital would have been worse off without this

engagement. What is essentially encountered here, is the tension between the logic of capital which necessitated an influx of cheap labour for the production and reproduction of US capitalism on its Western states and the logic of identity as practiced by everyday Americans in those states.

Arthur continued, by arguing that “experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence. The opening of China to the commerce of the whole world has benefited no section of it more than the States of our own Pacific Slope”.428 Specifically, “the State of California, and its great maritime port especially, have reaped enormous

424 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

425 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

426 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

427 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

428 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

advantages from this source. … San Francisco has before it an incalculable future if our friendly and amicable relations with Asia remain undisturbed”.429 _{Arthur’s protestations at the} action of the US Congress emphasised the logic of capital as he feared that the “policy which we now propose to adopt must have a direct tendency to repel Oriental nations from us and to drive their trade and commerce into more friendly lands”.430 Foreshadowing contemporary debates about protectionism in the face of Asian competition Arthur suggested that “it may be that the great and paramount interest of protecting our labour from Asiatic competition may justify us in a permanent adoption of this policy” while warning that it would be “wiser in the first place to make a shorter experiment, with a view hereafter of maintaining permanently only such features as time and experience may commend”.431 For Arthur it was evident that commercial relations with China, and Chinese workers were necessary to the social

reproduction of US life on its West coast. In this line of reasoning the logic of capital provided the material basis with which the logic of identity would concurrently justify and perpetuate from.

In another prelude to contemporary debates about the role of US capital Arthur warned, in 1883, that “the transference to China of American capital for the employment there of Chinese labour would in effect inaugurate a competition for the control of markets now supplied by our home industries”.432 _{Although it was becoming apparent in Arthur’s words} that US capital needed an outlet but also a source of cheaper labour to reproduce itself, this would undermine the need for US capital to secure domestic US industries.

In a special message to Congress on December 10th _{1884 Arthur celebrated the emerging} empire on the western US coast. He stated how “within a generation the western coast has developed into an empire, with a large and rapidly growing population, with vast, but partially developed, resources”.433 He was calling for a canal to be dug through the American isthmus so that US “vessels and productions will enter upon the world's competitive field with a

429 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

430 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

431 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Veto Message," April 4, 1882. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The}

American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68779.

432 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Third Annual Message," December 4, 1883. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29524.

433 _{Chester A. Arthur: "Special Message," December 10, 1884. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.} Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=69004.

decided advantage, of which they will avail themselves”.434 A major interest in doing so is that a shorter route to the Pacific would “give to the manufacturers on the Atlantic seaboard economical access to the cities of China, thus breaking down the barrier which separates the principal manufacturing centres of the United States from the markets of the vast population of Asia, and placing the Eastern States of the Union for all purposes of trade midway between Europe and Asia”.435 The speculative potential of the China market within the logic of capital, was an increasingly important factor in US presidential discourse.