The Expansion of the China Trade: Treaty Enforcement and US-China Relations, 1844–54

Historians have widely debated the relationship between China and the West, with scholars such as Stephen R. Platt, Robert Bickers, and Julia Lovell arguing that old histories present the nineteenth century as simply a time when "the West" exerted influence and "the Chinese" responded, a model best described and criticized by Paul Cohen.  Instead these scholars present more complicated histories of diverse interests and groups in China, identifying moments not only of conflict but also cooperation with countries like the United States.  However, their focus on large-scale histories of China-West relations do not adequately address the particularities of specific sites of Chinese-foreign interaction.  

Unequal treaties negotiated with China in the 1840s opened five treaty ports to Western trade. Canton had been trading with Western countries for centuries, and Shanghai quickly became a center of foreign trade after opening.  My paper addresses U.S.-China relations with special attention to the less-studied ports of Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Ningbo.  Specifically, in my project, I investigate American consuls' attempts to enforce the treaty and expand trade, in order to reveal not only large-scale patterns of American-Chinese diplomacy but also port-specific developments during the first ten years of diplomatic relations.  I discuss American traders’ discourse concerning the opening of China and its impact on trade, and juxtapose this against the volume of American imports and exports and accounts of on-the-ground Chinese-American interactions to reveal the previously misunderstood connections between trade and person-to-person diplomacy.  I argue that although officials representing Washington, D.C. and Beijing decided the terms of the treaty, U.S.-China relations are best understood through the lens of individual ports and people.  In conclusion, this project, by closely examining trade and diplomacy at the three treaty ports of Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, sheds new light on the neglected issue of U.S.-China relations at the local scale.

See more of: US-China Relations in Three Keys: Grand Diplomacy, Trade, and Person-to-Person Interactions
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