One could only imagine

how the Chinese must have felt

at the turn of the century.

Could any American imagine a scenario

of the shoe being on

the other foot (putting themselves

in the place of the Chinese)?

How would Americans have felt

if Chinese gunboats patrolled

the Mississippi River up to St. Louis,

a major city in the heart

of America? What if the Chinese

could come and go anywhere

in the United States, being

completely immune to all American laws.

Could Americans accept Chinatown

in Boston of San Francisco

being under Chinese law, and

displaying signs with such captions

as  “No Americans or dogs allowed”?

What if Manhattan Island and California

were annexed by China? Would Americans

tolerate their own officials

being in collusion with, and being

bribed by Chinese authorities,

to let all of above to

take place? One would think not.

Is it any wonder that

imperialism had become such

an abominable term to the Chinese people?

The Chinese have made some

conscientious attempts to fight back,

in efforts to defy foreign presence

in China, but without much support

during the slack reign of

the Qing Emperor and the Dowager Empress.

The Imperial family, for so long,

had been extremely selfindulgent.

It paid little attention

to the realities of what

was happening inside China.

For so long, the nation's policies

revolved around the whims of

the Imperial Family.

With reliance on its own resources,

a secret society, called the Order

of Literary Patriotic Harmonious Fists,

made one last desperate attempt

at revenge, to rid the country

of foreigners. In 1900, these Boxers

as they were called, stubbornly engaged

the foreign powers in conflict.

The former tore up railway tracks,

attacked Chinese Christians, besieged

foreign delegations, and eventually

slaughtered over three hundred foreigners.

The Americans collaborated with the Japanese,

consolidated forces and easily overwhelmed

the Boxers. The latter crumbled

under the pressure of foreign superiority

and its own deficiencies in equipment

and organization. The victors placed

severe controls on the crippled

Chinese Government and imposed heavy indemnities

of billions of dollars. The fact

that the foreigners were interested,

only in protecting their

own interests, was abundantly clear.

Aside from discriminatory immigration policy

against Chinese, the U.S. had no

official direct political or diplomatic relations

with China until the Second World War.

The United States took on

a much cherished isolationist approach

to world affairs following

the First World War, after having

established itself as a major world power.

The United States did not even

become a representative of

the League of Nations, essentially

the creation of its own then

President, Woodrow Wilson. This organization

was set up in 1919 to curb

international conflict, which could,

potentially, throw the world

into a war again. The absence of

this powerful nation was one of

the major weaknesses of this

organization and, consequently, a possible

factor that actually facilitated

the resumption of world conflict in 1939.

The Second World War

During the Second World War,

the United States and China were

allies against the common enemy,

Japan. A coalition of the United States,

British Commonwealth countries,

and other allies dispatched supplies

and other support to China

by way of the Burma Road and

by air over the hump (mountains),

to close in on Japan from the rear.

When war broke out in 1939,

China was experiencing a civil war,

the Nationalists versus the Communists.

This civil war was put on

hold while both the Nationalists

and Communists joined forces

to converge on Japan, which had,

intermittently, hovered over China

as a menace, or as an imperialist

thorn in its side, for a good

century before the war. The war

brought the United States out

of its splendid official isolation.

Once the war was over,

turbulent times continued to stalk China.

The civil war picked up

where it left off. The Americans

lent its moral support to

the Nationalists in their struggle

against the Communists, whereby

the United States began to formulate

its Cold War policy of “Containment”

(Containing the spread of Communism).