Unpacking China—Part III: Trade, Faith, and America’s Pendulating View
How the U.S. revered China through the eyes of Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin.
America’s relations with China in the 1800s and 1900s was more than just benign diplomacy.
Unlike Britain, Russia, and France, it advocated for China, which had deeper historical roots than all four—and Japan—but found itself in a downward spiral.
This devolution, if not exacerbated by predatory circling of its imperialist suitors, was caused by them—their demeanors at the time resembling parasitism rather than the benevolent mutualism expected of trading partners.
The relationship between America and China, though more sympatico, was not perfect, and as regimes, governments, and politics around the globe swirled over a period of more than a century, fluctuated, so did relations between the two.
America’s Perceptions of China Through Time
U.S. Journalist Harold Robert Isaacs documented six periods of American attitude change1 towards China.
He observed "respect" in the 18th century, followed by a shift to "contempt" at about 1840 that lasted until 1905, before it became "benevolent," which lasted until 1937, when the Second Sino-Japanese War started.
This attitude morphed into “admiration” during the country’s World War II tribulations, and lasted until 1944.
According to Issacs' model, the mood changed to “disenchantment” and stayed that way until 1949, whereafter it devolved into “hostility.”
In 1990, British-American Sanologist, Jonathan Spence, updated Isaac's metric with "reawakened curiosity," which supposedly lasted from 1970 to 1974.
Spence further notes that Americans watched China with "guileless fascination" between 1974 and 1979, before attitudes changed again to "renewed skepticism" in the 1980s.
American Admiration for China
Another American journalist, John Pomfret, expanded2 on positive American perceptions of China, pointing out that Benjamin Franklin lauded the country’s penal system and pursued information on its silk industry and indoor heating systems.
Thomas Paine, who was one of America’s founding fathers, actually compared Confucius to Jesus Christ.
To Thomas Jefferson, China’s ability to isolate itself from the world and find virtue in this unilateral state was admirable.
Those who visited the country, like Captain Amasa Delano from Massachusetts, a master mariner, shipbuilder, and author, said of China that it “is the first for greatness, riches and grandeur of any country ever known.”
This admiration was cut short by what appeared to be the bodies of mixed-race babies floating down the Pearl River during his stay around the turn of the 18th century—but that’s a story for another day.
The Birth of Sino-American Diplomacy
The United States was fresh into its independence and awed enough by China to appoint a consul to the country as early as 1784, almost a decade before the British did.
However, China did not formally receive these diplomats until 1844, one year after it welcomed the British consul.
Trading with the U.S. predated this landmark by six decades.
The first American ship to trade with China was the Empress of China, which docked in the eastern country in the same year America established a consulate.
At a time when silver and gold coins, ginseng, furs, tea, cotton, silk, lacquerware, porcelain, and exotic furniture were the primary commodities, America’s first millionaires were made thanks to the humming trade through the East India Marine Society in Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, back in China, craftsmen cottoned on to America’s appetite for luxury produce and adjusted their output.
American Missionaries and Chinese Advancement
The first American missionary to lay down roots in China was Elijah Coleman Bridgman3. He arrived in 1830 and pitted his Christian beliefs against Chinese "idolatry.”
He also founded the English journal, the Chinese Repository, which postured him as the authority on Chinese affairs, culture, and politics.
Pomfret writes that these missionaries played a key role in China’s development by challenging long-standing traditions.
They introduced Western education and culture to individuals who later helped break the yoke of orthodoxy.
Pomfret goes on to say that the missionaries who set up the country’s first universities and hospitals also introduced science, critical thinking, sports, industry, and law.
Some of these institutions, even though under different names, are still the country's best.
Female missionaries played as significant a role by steering the country's women away from infanticide and footbinding.
They also used exercise and sports to promote health and help fight classist social structures by showing the poor they could rise above poverty.
Not everyone welcomed this influx of foreign culture and ideas. The violent Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1900, discussed in Part II, is a testament to that resistance.
Formally known as the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, they burned missions and executed thousands of Chinese Christians, and the American missionaries all but escaped with their lives.
Isaacs, Harold (1955). Scratches on Our Minds: American Images of China and India. p. 71
Pomfret, John (2016). The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. pp. 15–16
Drake, Frederick W. (1986). "Bridgman in China in the early 19th-century". American Neptune. 46 (1): 34–42.
Stay tuned for Part IV
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