Ch 19 - The Western Foothold in Asia

Breaching the Bamboo Curtain

Eager to avoid new conflicts with foreigners and protect itself against exclusive exploitation by any one power, China eased the way for the United States and France to conclude agreements similar to the Treaty of Nanjing. The American Treaty of Wangxia and the French Treaty of Whampoa opened the door to equal commercial opportunity for all foreign powers in China.

Great Britain's demands for diplomatic equality and commercial opportunity in China made it the unappointed proxy for every Western nation knocking on China's door. It was evident to American and French merchants and traders watching developments during the First Opium War that, in the end, the Chinese would likely be forced to accept British demands. They also realized, perhaps even feared, that if England won the war, the British would likely open a number of new ports to commerce, perhaps under exclusive protection. Alarmed at the prospect of a British monopoly in the China market, American traders petitioned the government of the United States to protect their vested interests against any such possible exclusion.

President John Tyler responded to news about the recent Treaty of Nanjing by sending a special emissary to China to secure similar treaty rights for the United States. On May 8, 1843, he appointed Congressman Caleb Cushing as America's first Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary & Commissioner to China. Secretary of State Daniel Webster instructed Cushing, a Whig from the Massachusetts 3rd District and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, "to secure the entry of American ships and cargoes into these ports ... [Canton, Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Shanghai] ... on terms as favorable as those which are enjoyed by English merchants." Secretary Webster issued no instructions to protect the opium traffic or to secure territory as the British had done in Hong Kong.

Commissioner Caleb Cushing set sail from the East Coast of the United States in August 1843 with a flotilla of three Navy warships to lead the first American diplomatic mission to China. The impressive display of American naval power hid the fact that the United States had no strong military presence in Asia and could not compete with British policy on that side of the world through a show of force. It had to rely instead on diplomacy to shape its treaty rights in China. The Chinese actually "eased the way" for Commissioner Cushing's diplomatic mission by insisting in the Treaty of Nanjing that nationals from other European powers should be allowed access to China's new treaty ports, "...for the purposes of trade, to which the English were not to make any objections." As it turned out, this became the very principle the United States later expanded and developed into its Open Door Policy toward Asia.

The American ships arrived in Macao on February 27, 1844, and fired a cannon salute, a naval protocol the Chinese still found unsettling. The Imperial Court instructed Imperial Commissioner Qiying, Governor-General of Canton, to "soothe and stop" the Americans in Macao, where they were to wait for further clearance to proceed to Beijing. The American embassy rented a house in the Portuguese enclave, where they established a temporary headquarters and settled in to await the clearance to depart for the capital.

Commissioner Cushing brought a new flagpole from the United States to be installed at the American Consulate in Canton, a gift that quickly demonstrated just how easy it could be to offend Chinese sensibilities. Soon after the flagpole went up in the consulate compound, the local citizenry took notice of its arrow-tipped weather vane, which always pointed into the wind. That innocent little accessory, "which shot to all quarters, thereby causing serious impediment to the felicity and good fortune of the land," so angered the Chinese that a near riot erupted. Governor-General Qiying had to order 200 Chinese troops into the U.S. consulate to quell the disturbance. Order returned to the compound as soon as the offending weather vane was taken down.

On June 18, four months after arriving in Macao, Imperial Commissioner Qiying arrived at the American quarters in Macao carried in a sedan chair and flanked by a troop of Manchu soldiers. After announcing his credentials and his readiness to begin friendly negotiations, Qiying persuaded Commissioner Cushing that it would be far more comfortable and harmonious to conduct their talks right in Macao instead of making the tiresome journey to Beijing. Arrangements were made for the talks to take place on neutral territory, a site where formal diplomatic protocols could be set aside. Commissioner Qiying selected the imposing Daoist Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, located on Avenida do Coronel Mesquita in the obscure village of Wangxia, just beyond the city wall, well within Macao's borders, but not on Chinese soil. Caleb Cushing reacted to this auspicious location with bemused irony, realizing he would be negotiating the first U.S.-China treaty without ever setting foot in China.

Meeting in the temple's tranquil courtyard amidst scented orchids and attractive potted plants, Cushing and Qiying began their substantive talks on June 19. The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and the 1843 Treaty of the Bogue hung over the negotiations, as Cushing tried to match the terms already won by Great Britain and Qiying tried not to give away anything deemed vital to China's interests. Despite the initial American perception of Chinese diplomatic behavior as convoluted, reluctant and noncommittal, the treaty talks lasted only two weeks.

China had already acquiesced in granting three "rights" in the Treaty of Nanjing that later proved to be particularly damaging - the fixed tariff, extraterritoriality and most-favored-nation status. They conceded these rights partly for reasons of expediency and partly from a lack of understanding of international law and the western concept of national sovereignty. China readily agreed to the British suggestion that created a fixed added-value trade tariff of 5 percent for the simple reason the offer was higher than the existing imperial tariff on trade goods. Unfortunately, it seems the Chinese had little idea at the time this agreement would preclude any chance of their ever setting a higher protective tariff in the future.

The Qing dynasty eagerly sought to avoid any new conflict with foreigners after their defeat at the hands of the British during the First Opium War. Thus, when the United States and France began making overtures to conclude agreements similar to the Treaty of Nanjing, Beijing's grand councilors came to believe that denying them the same rights already granted to England would likely drive the Americans and the French to seek trade protection under the British flag. There was a real fear that if that happened, France and the United States would feel a sense of gratitude toward the British for their treaty privileges and not China. The Chinese found it difficult to distinguish among the Caucasian foreigners and suffered from the expedient notion that "all westerners looked alike." They decided that since all westerners had the same strange customs and spoke different and unintelligible languages, it would be better to let them govern themselves. The Chinese granted extraterritoriality not only to show their magnanimity, but as a way to ease China's problem of governing the growing population of foreigners within its borders.

Since Great Britain had already claimed it had no desire "to obtain for British subjects any exclusive privileges of trade which should not be equally extended to the subjects of any other Power," China saw no reason to deny the United States and France a share in the fruits harvested by British labor. The Manchu Emperor tended to treat foreigners with equal benevolence and added America and France to the now growing list of nations granted most-favored-nation status;  a literal promise to each power that it would receive whatever privileges might later be given any other. The treaty clause granting most-favored-nation status became the device by which every nation secured for itself any privilege in China it deemed necessary. It allowed a country to avoid the moral responsibility for the method used by some other nation to obtain a concession from the Chinese. It made little difference whether a particular privilege had been extorted from China by force or acquired by fraud. Any unscrupulous trick used against China by one nation would benefit all most-favored-nations equally. Nevertheless, China used this principle of equality against the West to protect itself against exclusive exploitation, if not outright appropriation, of territory and enabled the Chinese to play rival powers against each other to some degree.

Despite its size, the profit potential of the China market was actually rather small and it mattered little to the Chinese whether Britain took it all or shared it with other foreign countries. The Chinese felt the competitive struggle for a share of the profits might lead to conflict among the foreigners, a prospect that clearly fit China's traditional policy of playing foreigners against one another. By maintaining the good will of the United States and France, the Chinese believed they could protect themselves against possible collusion among the three powers, perhaps even gain their assistance against further foreign encroachments. In addition, by granting American and French treaty demands, the two western powers would be better positioned to cut into British profits without injury to China.

The hard-driving Caleb Cushing continued to push American interests during his negotiations with Imperial Commissioner Qiying, talks occassionally accompanied by the not so subtle threat to use British force. By early July, the two men reached an agreement on the final terms of a treaty that actually improved upon the earlier British agreement in the explicitness of its articles. On July 3, 1844, the two plenipotentiaries and their staffs met for the signing ceremony in a windowless 30-foot by 10-foot room within the compound at the Temple of the Goddess of Compassion in Wangxia. Eight copies of the Treaty of Wangxia, four in English and four in Chinese, were laid out on a stone table sitting on a raised platform at the far end of the room. Former Massachusetts Congressman Caleb Cushing signed each copy, thereby successfully concluding the first treaty between China and the United States of America. After Imperial Commissioner Qiying affixed his signature to each copy, two Manchu officials stamped each document with the Qing Imperial Seal of Emperor Xuanxzong.

The Treaty of Wangxia was a foreign policy success for President John Tyler. It provided full trading privileges for American citizens and vessels in each of the five treaty ports - Canton, Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen and Fuzhou;  set scheduled tariff and tonnage charges;  granted the right to maintain churches and hospitals in each of the five ports;  guaranteed America most-favored-nation status;   and granted "extraterritoriality," the privilege of trying an American citizen accused of a crime on Chinese soil in a consular court under U.S. law, instead of a Chinese court. The United States also agreed not to extend its protection to either drug smugglers or to the opium traffic. The opium smugglers preferred this to the article in the British Treaty of Nanjing that held the British Government responsible for policing its own subjects to prevent the violation of customs laws and treaty regulations. The agreement led to a boom in bilateral trade.

Later that year, on October 24, French Ambassador Theodore de Lagrené signed the Treaty of Whampoa for France. In addition to securing the same provisions obtained by the United States, the Treaty of Whampoa granted France the right to establish hospitals, schools and cemeteries in the treaty ports. In December 1844, the French prompted the Chinese to issue an imperial edict that granted France permission to build Roman Catholic churches in each of the treaty ports and to propagate Catholicism without restrictions. It also gave Chinese the right to accept Catholicism.

The treaties of Wangxia and Whampoa extended China's original initiative to protect itself against exclusive exploitation by any one power and opened the door to equal commercial opportunity for all foreign powers in the Chinese Empire. America and France thus obtained without a struggle all the hard won privileges Britain had fought to acquire. Furthermore, every new right granted to the United States and France also applied to Great Britain by virtue of its own most-favored-nation status under the Treaty of Nanjing. Not even the wisest of mandarins in Emperor Xuanxzong's Imperial Court understood the significance of these events.

After centuries of fending off foreign intrusions and maintaining only tributary relations with its neighbors, in the brief span of two years the Chinese found themselves bound with western powers in a series of international treaties. Collectively, the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, the 1843 Treaty of the Bogue, the 1844 Treaty of Wangxia, and the 1844 Treaty of Whampoa became the core of a unique "treaty system" that virtually reduced China to the status of a semi-colonial nation. This unique set of agreements established terms and conditions that later undermined the Qing government, set off a series of nationwide rebellions and ultimately led to the downfall of the dynasty itself. The treaties were unique in that each was "imposed" on China following the First Opium War as opposed to being negotiated between nations as sovereign equals. Because of this fact, they have often been referred to as "unequal treaties." Each, in its own way, marked the beginning of the end of China's isolation from the rest of the world.

In the mid-1840s, an aggressive and highly competitive new order began to take root in Hong Kong and each of China's five treaty ports. British, French and American settlements, protected mainly by British gunboats, formed a single Western community inhabited by a young and highly mobile population of merchants and missionaries. Nearly two hundred firms, mostly British and American, lived or died by competing with one another in all aspects of trade, including the opium business. Profits soared.

A large number "receiving stations" developed outside the coastal treaty enclaves to support the flourishing opium trade, which prospered through peaceable and unadvertised cooperation between foreign importers and Chinese distributors. This mutual connivance in the furtherance of opium smuggling survived the immediate postwar years principally because the Treaty of Nanjing gave Hong Kong to the British and because Governor Henry Pottinger had assured the Chinese he would ban opium exports from Hong Kong to China. He issued a proclamation to that effect, but it was never enforced, and rather than risk a resumption of hostilities the Chinese simply stopped searching British ships. Opium smugglers took advantage of the situation by registering their ships as British, thereby allowing them to sail up the Canton estuary unmolested flying the Union Jack as their flag of convenience.

Only one company among the nearly twenty American trading companies operating in Macao and Canton refused to participate in the opium trade:  the Philadelphia Quakers of D.W.C. Olyphant Company. Russell and Company, the largest of the American firms, whose Turkish opium once competed with British Indian opium at Canton, now acted as a shipping agent for India opium in direct competition with Jardine, Matheson & Company and Whiteman, Dent, and Brightman. Warren Delano II, Russell and Company's senior partner in China, wrote a letter to his brothers in 1838, stating;  "I do not pretend to justify the prosecution of the opium trade in a moral and philanthropic point of view, but as a merchant I insist that it has been a fair, honorable, and legitimate trade."

The increased trade volume following the war led to a dramatic rise in the volume of opium delivered to China. By 1845, Jardine Matheson operated 19 of the 80 Hong Kong clippers used to run opium up the Yangtze River and spread the drug into the heartland of China. Within three years, nearly 40,000 opium chests, valued at £6,000,000 per year, were stored in Hong Kong, the distribution center for three-quarters of India's opium production. Many American, Chinese, English, Scottish, and Indian fortunes were made from the opium trade to China.

The Oregon Treaty of 1846, the Mexican conquest of 1846-1848, and the California Gold Rush of 1849 were but a prelude to the rapid settlement of America's newly won Pacific Coast. The onrush of expansive forces that ushered in the tumultuous decade of the 1850s also brought America much closer to the Orient, particularly the important new trade center at Shanghai. The introduction of the clipper ship and the application of steam navigation to the transpacific trade multiplied American contacts with East Asia. The Chinese considered American merchants as non-belligerents and allowed them continued access to Canton during the First Opium War. The British maintained their position in the China market by selling a number of their merchant ships to American trading firms and chartering U.S. merchantmen to act as trade agents on their behalf. The Royal Navy supported the operation by granting American merchantmen free passage through its Pearl River blockade. The carriage of British cargoes from Canton and Macao under a flag of convenience spurred such a rapid growth in American seaborne commerce that by 1851, the United States operated the world's largest merchant fleet.

In contrast to the European policy of intimidation and partition, the United States attempted to maintain China's integrity through the Treaty of Wangxia by exerting a policy of conciliation and moral support. A curious kind of sentimental sympathy for the plight of the Chinese people began to emerge in the United States at about this time, an emotion that sprang from the proselytizing endeavors of American Protestant missionaries in China. By 1851 there were 150 Protestant missionaries living and working in China;  15 Europeans, 47 British and 88 Americans. At the same time, Chinese laborers began emigrating to South America, to the gold mines of California and to the plantations of Cuba and British Guiana. Through their travels, alien influences and ideas filtered back into China. The combined effect of these new developments further emphasized the importance of East Asia in the future evolution of American commerce and foreign policy.