The post title might cause you to wonder if there is a veiled reference to the 1998 movie, “There’s Something About Mary.” Nothing veiled about it. The basic plot of the movie is the infatuation of a host of suitors for a woman named Mary: Ted, Patrick, Dom, Norm (aka Tucker) and Brett. I would explain the plot but it is way too complicated – funny, but complicated. The basic plot of this post is that “China” is wooed and pursued by a host of suitors: Japan, Britain, France, Holland, Germany, Russia, and the United States. The plot is complicated but not by any means a comedy. But it is an element in the origins of the Asia-Pacific War.
Why was everyone interested in China? She is the mysterious woman whose charms and beauty were the speculation of Western Europe since the writings of Marco Polo. China and the Indies were the goal of the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions westward into the uncharted ocean regions where “beyond here, there be dragons.” The Americas got in the way, so they went the other way around Africa and in time reached India, Malaya, the Philippines, China and Japan. For the historical record let me add a completely unnecessary note: in 1291, 250 years before those expeditions, Pope Nicholas IV sent the Franciscan John of Montecorvino on mission to the Great Khan in response to a diplomatic inquiry from Great Khan Khubilai carried by the Nestorian monk Rabban Sauma. Traveling on the “silk road” through India Montecorvino reached Beijing (the new capital of the Mongol empire) in 1294; by then a new emperor had ascended—Termur or Emperor Chengzong. The first Portuguese traders arrived 200 years later.
Where was I? …Why was everyone interested in China? The great lure of China has not only been for its exotic exports but the possibilities of exports to China with their population in the millions. In the mid-19th century Britain had a massive trade deficit with China, as they imported huge amounts of tea, silk, and porcelain but China wanted little in return. An import/product was needed that would balance the trade relationship. Unfortunately the British East India company began the importation of opium from India. It became the commodity that reversed the cash flow, paying for Chinese goods but causing widespread addiction in China.
The Opium Wars
The Chinese Qing government, China’s last imperial dynasty, a centralized bureaucratic state ruled by the Manchu people, seeing the social and economic devastation, banned opium in 1839. They confiscated and destroyed over 20,000 chests of British opium in Guangzhou (Canton), the merchants demanded compensation, viewing it as an attack on property. Their demand was backed by the British government who further demanded “free trade” and an end to China’s restrictive Canton system which limited each foreign nation’s traders to one port and imposed strict rules for transactions. The conflict was fundamentally about sovereignty – China asserting its right to control its own internal affairs versus Britain’s assertion of international trade rights and extraterritoriality for its citizens.
The First Opium War between Great Britain and China was fought from 1839 to 1842. After defeating the Chinese in a series of naval conflicts, the British were in a position to make a large number of demands from the weaker Qing Government of China and obtained them in the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanjing. Not to be outdone, U.S. negotiators sought to conclude a similar treaty with the Chinese, to guarantee the United States many of the favorable terms awarded the British. The Chinese readily agreed in an effort to keep all foreigners on the same footing.
The 1844 Treaty of Wangxia replicated many of the key terms of the Treaty of Nanjing. Most importantly, it established five treaty ports as open for Chinese-Western trade (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai). These treaty ports became key crossroads for Western and Chinese culture, as they were the first locations where foreigners and foreign trading operations could own land in China.
In the 1850s, the United States and the European powers grew increasingly dissatisfied with both the terms of their treaties with China, and the Qing Government’s failure to adhere to them. The British forced the issue by attacking the Chinese port cities of Guangzhou and Tianjin in the Second Opium War (1857–1858). Under the most-favored-nation clause, all of the foreign powers operating in China were permitted to seek the same concessions of China that Great Britain achieved by force. As a result, France, Russia, and the United States all signed treaties with China at Tianjin in quick succession in 1858.
The agreements reached between the Western powers and China following the Opium Wars came to be known as the “unequal treaties” because in practice they gave foreigners privileged status and extracted concessions from the Chinese. Ironically, the Qing Government had fully supported the clauses on extraterritoriality and most-favored nation status in the first treaties in order to keep the foreigners in line. This treaty system also marked a new direction for Chinese contact with the outside world. For years, the Chinese had conducted their foreign policy through the tribute system, in which foreign powers wishing to trade with China were required first to bring a tribute to the emperor, acknowledging the superiority of Chinese culture and the ultimate authority of the Chinese ruler. Unlike China’s neighbors, the European powers ultimately refused to make these acknowledgements in order to trade, and they demanded instead that China adhere to Western diplomatic practices, such as the creation of treaties. Although the unequal treaties and the use of the most-favored-nation clause were effective in creating and maintaining open trade with China, both were also important factors in building animosity and resentment toward Western imperialism.
The Open Door Policy
Secretary of State John Hay first articulated the concept of the “Open Door” in China in a series of notes in 1899–1900. These Open Door Notes aimed to secure international agreement to the U.S. policy of promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China, and respect for China’s administrative and territorial integrity. British and American policies toward China had long operated under similar principles, but once Hay put them into writing, the “Open Door” became the official U.S. policy towards the Far East in the first half of the 20th century.
The great powers that had an interest in China, included Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan. These nations maintained significant physical and commercial presences in China, and were protective of their various spheres of influence and trading privileges there, and elsewhere in Asia.
Secretary Hay proposed a free, open market and equal trading opportunity for merchants of all nationalities operating in China, based in part on the most favored nation clauses already established in the Treaties of Wangxia and Tianjin. Hay argued that establishing equal access to commerce would benefit American traders and the U.S. economy, and hoped that the Open Door would also prevent disputes between the powers operating in China. For the United States, which held relatively little political clout and no territory in China, the principle of non-discrimination in commercial activity was particularly important. Hay called for each of the powers active in China to do away with economic advantages for their own citizens within their spheres of influence, and also suggested that the Chinese tariffs apply universally and be collected by the Chinese themselves. Although the other powers may not have agreed fully with these ideas, none openly opposed them.
In a relatively short “ballet” of negotiations, Hay was able to get all the interested nations to agree in principle. Together, the Open Door Notes served the important purpose of outlining U.S. policy toward China and expressing U.S. hopes for cooperation with the other foreign powers with a stake in the region. They were of lasting importance in U.S.-East Asian relations, and contributed to the idea of a Sino-American “special relationship.”
The articulation of the Open Door policy represented the growing American interest and involvement in East Asia at the turn of the century. Ironically, Hay articulated the Open Door policy at a time when the U.S. Government was doing everything in its power to close the door on Chinese immigration to the United States. This effectively stifled opportunities for Chinese merchants and workers in the United States.
Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives. Source Credit: “The Opening to China Part I: the First Opium War, the United States, and the Treaty of Wangxia, 1839–1844” and “Secretary of State John Hay and the Open Door in China, 1899–1900” | Office of the Historian, Department of State.
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