Chapter 6 02. Missionaries and cowboys: the "special relationship" between the United States and China

When Churchill met Roosevelt in 1941, he was amazed by American sentimentality about China. Forty-five years later, that sentimentality still pervades the White House, though it has diminished to concern only with Taiwan's fate.This is a question for historians to explain.We have to put America's China policy in the social context that Americans care little about the outside world today.The U.S.-Soviet confrontation, like the dramatic battle with the KGB reflected in Hollywood movies, has caused Americans to develop unrealistic thinking patterns.Mr. Reagan gave his audience a vague sense of the missionary and cowboy spirit of America's trans-European and Pacific Rim expansion--advocating the development of democracy, however, and swiftly supporting the allies to whom we owe our obligations by force.

The United States often imposes these culturally relevant evangelisms on neighboring countries with violent means, but it did not initially do so to China, which is in a special environment.Victorian England did this unseemly thing in China to secure the privileges of unequal treaties, which gave Americans the opportunity to trade and convert the Chinese political beliefs without the use of force.I think this is exactly the permanent sentiment of Americans towards China.They have a Christian impulsive feeling for China, but at the same time they have no political commitment.The British navy provided the gunboats, and the Americans could preach.Today, Mr. Reagan's concerns about Taiwan and Mrs. Thatcher's attitude towards Hong Kong are the same as those of the British in the Palmerston era.Looking back at the Palmerston era, the British took advantage of the unequal treaties signed with the Qing Dynasty to enable foreign trade with China to flourish under foreign laws, while extraterritoriality protected the human rights of foreigners in China.Don't laugh at our ancestors, human rights are still a hot topic.

The causes of American wars in Korea, the Taiwan Strait, and Vietnam can be traced to what Michael Hunter called "open door proponents," referring to those "interest groups with a public mission—American businessmen , missionaries, and diplomats who infiltrated China and propagated their views in the United States to defend and reform China." After 1784, the Americans profited from the opium, tea and silk trade in Guangdong, and opened up the mythical Chinese market that had not been realized for a long time. After 1830, the forerunner of Protestant missionaries, finding no converts, developed its dual function as spiritual creator.On the one hand, they passed on Christianity, democracy, and material progress to the Chinese, and on the other hand, they described to their families that Chinese civilization gradually lost its splendor in the sinking of decay, sin, and idolatry. In the 1890s, they demanded the opportunity of an open door, seeking Chinese buyers and converts, and the interests of trade and evangelism merged.

This "special relationship" is notable because it is deeply unfair. In the mid-nineteenth century, Cantonese surplus labor discovered California, and soon the Chinese there greatly outnumbered the Americans.The comparison is very interesting: many Chinese coolies in the United States and American missionaries in China were immigrants and brought their respective cultures.Often times, this produced a host of xenophobic populace in their respective homelands, "a clear reflection of apprehensions about supposedly depraved missionaries and immigrants who blatantly opposed abstinence and lured the imprudent with drugs and narcotics." of women and children ... China's teaching exams and America's Chinatowns are both considered hotbeds of subversive activity."

In the 1880s and 1890s, American missionaries were sometimes wounded by Chinese mobs, and Chinese laborers hired to build railroads in the western United States were wounded by the brutality of American workers.Many Chinese and almost no Americans died in these corresponding but unrelated violent riots.Since China is very short of strong ships and guns, the Chinese are only regarded as ordinary foreigners. As the American missionary and minister secretary Wells Williams pointed out as early as 1868: "If the pain suffered by the Americans in China exceeds 1/10 of the pain suffered by the Chinese in the United States since 1855, surely There will be war.” The Sino-US treaty stipulates the rights of bilateral trade and residence, but the American labor movement, which is still fighting for the right to survive, does not allow Chinese workers to have such rights.In the American West, anti-Chinese movement was on the rise, and the open door from Canton to California was suddenly closed; meanwhile, the movement to get rid of missionaries in China led to the infamous Boxer Rebellion in 1900.After that, there were more and more missionaries, and China's open door has become a cliché for Americans.

China has long sought US goodwill, mediation, neutrality, or a full alliance with the US against other powers; the Americans have always kept China's hopes high for the US.The Chinese feel that the United States does not have the corruption, depravity of imperialism, and that the intentions of the Americans are honest and fair (they don't need injustice).U.S. envoys and consular officials told the Chinese that they did not trust other powers, and that Americans were keen on peace, friendship, and ready to help China.The American posture is almost completely non-utilitarian, but this kind of high-pitched friendliness has not brought China any benefits, it has only led the Chinese astray.Whenever action is called for, Americans tend to be passive.

Take Li Hongzhang as an example. He tried to use diplomatic cooperation with the United States to prevent unfortunate events in North Korea.U.S. naval officers, diplomats, advisers, and even former U.S. President Grant are always quick to respond in words every time, but never take effective actions.Secretary of State John Hay made an important decision inspired by the British concept of an open door, but he never consulted the Chinese about it. At the beginning of the 20th century, Zhang Zhidong and other politicians sought help from the anti-imperialist United States many times in order to save the Northeast (Manchuria) from the joint administration of Russia and Japan, but they did not succeed at all.At the same time, USCIS routinely made things difficult and insulted Chinese students, scholars and even government officials trying to enter San Francisco.Hunt uncovered a horrific report of the American racial arrogance that sparked the first patriotic movement against American interests in China in 1905.

The Protestant leaders of America confused their idealized models of expression with their valuations of reality, and it was from this that James Reed began his study of so-called missionary thought.What they call the expansion of "Christian civilization" is actually the expansion of white Christianity in northern Europe and North America.When referring to "Christian China", hope is always entangled with reality.Thus, in 1914, evangelist Sherwood Eddy, fresh from a conference on the revival of religions in China, declared: "We have no doubt that we will win Asia for Jesus Christ." In short, Protestant missionaries live on imagination. In 1912, the British "China Hand" Brand regarded Americans' enthusiasm for the revolution of the Republic of China as a reflection of "Americans' natural sympathy for losers and optimism" of missionary institutions. "For them, optimism Doctrine is a professional need".

This imaginary and outright unrealistic view has influenced US policy, because only the US missionary community has first-hand information, and the US policy toward China has a vital interest in them.Reid estimated that if more than 300 missionaries in China returned to the United States for vacation at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, they would have at least 30,000 public appearances a year, which would be enough to ensure that about 5 million Protestants would become their supporters. By.But at the time, U.S. commercial organizations found that U.S. trade with China accounted for only 2 percent of U.S. foreign trade.Before the Civil War, the Americans gained huge benefits from the trade with ancient China. By the 1890s, the Americans were ready to open up the Chinese market. Generally speaking, American decision makers were concerned about European affairs.Diplomacy has not yet become a specialized profession in the United States, and American translation must come from the church system.

Therefore, the U.S. policy toward China formed by the missionary ideology is biased, "From 1905 to 1915, the movement to build Christian civilization became a kind of crusade... Thousands of young and bright Protestant student volunteers went from San Francisco sailed to Asia to build Christian civilization...by 1915 there were nearly 10,000 foreign missionaries...for every 1,500 Protestants there was one foreign missionary". Due to the lack of greater economic and strategic interests, US policymakers only play a benevolent and highly principled role in China.This gave them extensive access to the Chinese, who were often coaxed by foreign friendliness.Reverend Paul S. Ryan almost single-handedly pushed the United States to declare against Japan's "Twenty-One" action in 1905. He did not disclose this to the State Department, but spent every night with a young diplomat, Wellington. Ancient Secret Negotiations.Koo tried hard to describe the Japanese threat, but gave few details.Ku turned to the benevolent political tenderness of Professor Ryan Chee, and was eventually supported by another political scientist, Professor Woodrow Wilson.Wilson was later elected President of the United States.

Hunter's views on "open door supporters" and Reed's elaboration of missionary thinking both regard American policy as paternalistic and arrogantly aggressive. The two authors believe that the subsequent Korean War and Vietnam War are is caused by this.The American attitude towards China is unrealistic and misleading.Reid writes that this is because "Americans have good intentions but are dangerous," while Hunt argues that "it is the product of a flawed and inherently ethnocentric assumption."Hunter also observed: "China's vast territory and large population, hovering between innovation and decline, provide endless opportunities for American expansionism." It can be further argued that China not only provides an opportunity, but also needs Concrete help, this included the useful work of missionaries and later that of John D. Rockefeller.On the Chinese side, this special relationship can be found in the intricate rebellion that led to the Chinese Revolution.This special relationship and the ideal of winning China for Jesus recurs in American attitudes toward China, which has a growing potential for modern transformation. Compared with other cultures in history, Chinese culture, which is oppressed by modern changes, is the most unique, distinctive and ancient, and also the most self-sufficient, balanced and huge.The cyclical revolutions that have occurred intermittently in China over the past 150 years are therefore the deepest and largest social changes that history requires.Americans who embraced change were vaguely aware of the greatness and tortuousness of this change, and their responses were varied and well described by historians.Because the Chinese are in a lot of trouble, they have a special demand on the Americans.Indeed, this situation has not changed now. Ironically, Hunter's reporting on the unfair treatment of the Chinese in the United States will increase the guilt of the old missionaries, and only good deeds can atone for their sins.History needs to be constantly revised, but it will eventually fade away.Taiwan and Hong Kong, Reagan and Thatcher, even missionaries and cowboys will slowly disappear, but it is not over yet. This article appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, June 24, 1983, and is a review of Michael Hunter's The Making of a Special Relationship: America and China Before 1914 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1933 1911-1915) and James Reed, Missionary Thought and American East Asia Policy, 1911-1915 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Council for East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1983).