Imperialism in China and Japan1850-1900

Chinese Immigration• Chinese immigration began with CA Gold Rush 1848-1855• The demand for cheap labor intensified with the building of

the transcontinental railroad—many Chinese immigrants hired to build.

• Most Chinese immigrants were healthy male adults.• After the law was passed verbal and physical assaults on the

Chinese intensified.• The Chinese Exclusion Act prevented these aliens from

becoming US citizens.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)• The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed

by President Chester A. Arthur. • It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the

United States.• This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese

labor immigration. For the first time, federal law prohibited entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered a community.

The only one barred out:“We must draw the line somewhere you know.”

The China Trade• U.S. trade with China

made up only a small part of total American foreign trade in the 19th century, but the idea of China as a great potential market captured the American imagination in the late 18th century and the idea remains potent today.

• Packing finished tea into wooden chests, often lined. Here, the tight packing is ensured by the dark-clad worker at center who is stamping tea into a chest.

Open Door Policy• 1899 & 1900: The

U.S. foreign policy allowing multiple imperial powers access to China, with none of them in control of that country.

The Boxer Rebellion• Boxer Rebellion was a

Chinese rebellion against foreign influence in areas such as trade, politics, religion, and technology that occurred in China during the final years of the Qing Dynasty from November 1899 to September 7, 1901.

Rebellion crushed• British, Austrian,

German, French, Italian, American, Japanese and Russian landing forces to crush the rebellion.

• Non-Chinese casualties would be light. Many Chinese rebels were killed and dismembered.

Christian Missionaries• Gospel printed by

missionaries.

• Missionaries traveling by cart in Northern China.

• By 1865 when the China Inland Mission began, there were already thirty different Protestant groups at work in China. Most missionaries came from England, the U. S., Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland.

Christianity in China

• The Boxer Uprising was in part a reaction against Christianity in China.

• During the Boxer Rebellion, Chinese Christians were abused by western Christians.

• The number of Protestant missionaries in China surpassed 8,000 by 1925.

Dollar Diplomacy: Manchuria• The Taft administration

came to see investment in railway development and loans to the Chinese government as the means to increase influence in China.

• The policy was a failure and stirred controversy among several international powers.

"The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets.” Taft, 1912

Russo-Japanese War 1904-5• The first great war of

the 20th century.• It grew out of rival

imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan over Manchuria and Korea. • Japan’s victory would

transform the balance of power in East Asia, resulting its emergence as a world power.

Nobel Peace Prize & TR• The Treaty of Portsmouth resolved

the Russo-Japanese War and earned Theodore Roosevelt recognition by the Nobel Prize Committee.

• This made him the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any of the categories.

• The prize consisted of a gold medal, a diploma in a fancy case, and a cash award of $34,734.79, which he donated to various charities (incl. YMCA & Red Cross).

• He won the prize in 1906 but didn’t pick it up until 1910.

Commodore Matthew C. Perry• In July 1853, President

Fillmore sent Commodore Perry and a fleet of ships to open trade with Japan.

• For 2 centuries Japan was closed to most foreign trade.

• On March 31, 1854, Perry negotiated a treaty which opened trade between the US and Japan.

• Japan realized it could not defend its self against an outside power with naval strength.

Gifts• Tea• Pistols• Wine• China• Telegraph wire• Seeds• Potatoes• Clocks• Whisky• Perfume

The Great White Fleet• The Fleet departed

from Virginia in 1907 and returned to the U.S. in 1909.

Gentlemen’s Agreement 1907• In 1907, the Gentlemen’s

agreement between the United States and Japan was enacted.

• In this agreement, Japan would no longer issue passports to Japanese emigrants and the U. S. would allow immigration for only the wives, children and parents of current Japanese whom already reside in the United States.

Segregated Education in San Francisco c. 1906

“Yellow Peril”• The immediate cause of the

Agreement was anti-Japanese nativism in California.

• In 1906, the San Francisco, California Board of Education had passed a regulation whereby children of Japanese descent would be required to attend racially segregated separate schools. At the time, Japanese immigrants made up approximately 1% of the population of California.

Root-Takahira Agreement 1908• Signed in 1908, the agreement

consisted of an official recognition of the territorial status quo as of November 1908, affirmation of the independence and territorial integrity of China (i.e. the "Open Door Policy), maintenance of free trade and equal commercial opportunities, Japanese recognition of the American annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines and American recognition of Japan's position in northeast China. Implicit in the agreement was American acknowledgment of Japan's right to annex Korea and dominance over southern Manchuria, and Japan's acceptance of immigration limits to the U.S.