The insular cases, the Platt Amendment, and the Roosevelt Corollary established the framework for American policy both in Latin America and in East Asia. Coincidental with the Cuban rebellion of the 1890s, a far greater upheaval had convulsed the ancient empire of China. In 1894-1895 Japan easily defeated China in a war over Korea. Alarmed by Japan’s aggressiveness, the European powers hastened to carve out for themselves new spheres of influence along China’s coast. After the annexation of the Philippines, McKinley’s secretary of state, John Hay, urged on by business leaders fearful of losing out in the scramble to exploit the Chinese market, tried to prevent the further absorption of China by the great powers.
For the United States to join in the dismemberment of China was politically impossible because of anti-imperialist feeling, so Hay sought to protect American interests by clever diplomacy. In a series of “Open Door” notes (1899) he asked the powers to agree to respect the trading rights of all countries and to impose no discriminatory duties within their spheres of influence.
The replies to the Open Door notes were at best noncommittal, yet Hay blandly announced in March 1900 that the powers had “accepted” his suggestions! Thus he could claim to have prevented the breakup of the empire and protected the right of Americans to do business freely in its territories. In reality nothing had been accomplished; the imperialist nations did not extend their political control of China only because they feared that by doing so they might precipitate a major war among themselves. Nevertheless, Hay’s action marked a revolutionary departure from the traditional American policy of isolation, a bold advance into the complicated and dangerous world of international power politics.
Within a few months of Hay’s announcement the Open Door policy was put to the test. Chinese nationalists, angered by the spreading influence of foreign governments, launched the so-called Boxer Rebellion. They swarmed into Peking and drove foreigners behind the walls of their legations, which were placed under siege. For weeks, until an international rescue expedition (which included 2,500 American soldiers) broke through to free them, the fate of the foreigners was unknown. Fearing that the Europeans would use the rebellion as a pretext for further expropriations, Hay sent off another round of Open Door notes announcing that the United States believed in the preservation of “Chinese territorial and administrative entity” and in “the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire.” This broadened the Open Door policy to include all China, not merely the European spheres of influence.
Hay’s diplomacy was superficially successful. Although the United States maintained no important military force in East Asia, American business and commercial interests there were free to develop and To compete with Europeans. But once again European jealousies and fears rather than American cleverness were responsible. When the Japanese, mistrusting Russian intentions in Manchuria, asked Hay how he intended to implement his policy, he replied meekly that the United States was “not prepared. . . to enforce these views.” The United States was being caught up in the power struggle in East Asia without having faced the implications of its actions.
In time the country would pay a heavy price for this unrealistic attitude, but in the decade following 1900 its policy of diplomatic meddling unbacked by bayonets worked fairly well. Japan attacked Russia in a quarrel over Manchuria, smashing the Russian fleet in 1905 and winning a series of battles on the mainland. Japan was not prepared for a long war, however, and suggested to President Roosevelt that an American offer to mediate would be favorably received.
Eager to preserve the nice balance of power in East Asia, which enabled the United States to exert influence without any significant commitment of force, Roosevelt accepted the hint. In June 1905 he invited the belligerents to a conference at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. At the conference the Japanese won title to Russia’s sphere around Port Arthur and a free hand in Korea, but when they demanded Sakhalin Island and a large money indemnity, the Russians balked. Unwilling to resume the war, the Japanese set-tied for half of Sakhalin and no money.
The Treaty of Portsmouth was unpopular in Japan, and the government managed to place the blame on Roosevelt, who had supported the compromise. Ill feeling against Americans increased in 1906 when the San Francisco school board, responding to local opposition to the influx of cheap labor from Japan, instituted a policy of segregating Asian children in a special school. Japan protested, and President Roosevelt persuaded the San Franciscans to abandon segregation in exchange for his pledge to cut off further Japanese immigration. He accomplished this through a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (1907) in which the Japanese promised not to issue passports to laborers seeking to come to America. Discriminatory legislation based specifically on race was thus avoided. However, the atmosphere between the two countries remained charged. Japanese resentment at American racial prejudice was great; many Americans talked fearfully of the “yellow peril.”
Theodore Roosevelt was preeminently a realist in foreign relations. “Don’t bluster,” he once said. “Don’t flourish a revolver, and never draw unless you intend to shoot.” In East Asia he failed to follow his own advice. He considered the situation in that part of the world fraught with peril. The Philippines, he said, were “our heel of Achilles,” indefensible in case of a Japanese attack. He suggested privately that the United States ought to “be prepared for giving the islands independence. . . much sooner than I think advisable from their own standpoint.”
Yet while Roosevelt did not appreciably increase American naval and military strength in East Asia, neither did he stop trying to influence the course of events in the area, and he took no step toward withdrawing from the Philippines. He sent the fleet on a world cruise to demonstrate its might to Japan but knew well that this was mere bluff. “The ‘Open Door’ policy,” he advised his successor, “completely disappears as soon as a powerful nation determines to disregard it.” Nevertheless he allowed the belief to persist in the United States that the nation could influence the course of East Asian history without risk or real involvement.
World History
