Abstract

China has nearly 5000 years of history. The U.S. is less than 250 years old. The U.S.-China relationship has evolved from no-contact to rivalry states in the last two century. How did this happen? This paper traces the evolution of the U.S.-China relationship from time ago to eighteenth to nineteenth century, WW I period, WW II Period, and post WW II to current century (in four parts) in order to understand how and why the two great nations have become rivalries and whether they are calculated rivalry?!   
 
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The Impact of WW I
 
Although WW I (7-28-1914 to 11-11-1918) broke out in Eastern Europe triggered by the assassination of Austro-Hungary heir by a Bosnian Serv Yugoslav, but due to the complex military alliances between nations, (Unfortunately, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union had maintained this practice in forming military alliances), the war eventually was extended to a world scale not only involving Eastern European countries but also Britain, France, Russia, the U.S., Japan even China. China joined in on the victors’ side. The U.S. remained neutral but was a big material supplier to the allied powers doing a good business. When the leader of Central Powers, Germany, sunk one U.S. merchant ship by submarine and urged Mexico to initiate war against the U.S., the U.S. declared war against the Central Powers on 4-6-1917. The U.S. did not engage troops until mid 1918. (a smart move) The war ended on November 11, 1918; the Paris Peace Conference was held in next two years to settle the war by developing peace treaties. Thirty two countries participated, China, as a new Republic, was a victor hoping to get many unequal treaties she was forced to sign from 1842-1910 annulled, but the West Powers including the U.S. refused, instead awarded the Chinese territories occupied by Germany to Japan. (Another lesson on international injustice learned by the Chinese) Thousands of Chinese students from more than ten colleges protested at the Embassy District in Beijing, eventually China refused to sign the Paris Treaty, but to no effect.
 
This part of history is bitterly remembered by the Chinese people, especially the intellectuals. Today, when the Western countries still use Hong Kong and Taiwan (subjects left from colonial unequal treaties) to agitate China, one can only expect emotional outbreak from the Chinese people because no one understands that part of history better. Thus, it is so funny to hear the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo, saying that we are not against the Chinese people, we are against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (One wonders what had Mr. Pompeo studied history at Westpoint particularly on the Taiwan issue?). As all Chinese remember, China was a victim of the Western Powers for over a century, it was the CCP that had succeeded in rebuilding China and gave Chinese people dignity traveling today around the world receiving greetings. China was forced to lose Hong Kong, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia, Korea Peninsula, nearly Tibet under those unequal and unfair treaties. Today, Japan, Germany, even France and Britain do understand to some extent how the past history is weighing on the Chinese minds, but the U.S., especially the current State Department, seems to cling to the colonial mirage, still trying to break up China and maintaining the legacy of the unequal treaties created by colonialism.
 
U.S. - China Relations during WW II
 
China not only did not get a fair treatment at the Paris Peace Conference, she was continuously being bullied by the Western Powers and Japan. (So many movies about the Shanghai Foreign Power Jurisdiction Zones vividly exhibited racial discrimination and how being treated as second-class citizens in your own country feel like) The new Republic was trying to rebuild and reunite the nation, but unfortunately, the external forces were more suppressing than helpful. Russia’s revolutions (February and October 1917) toppled the monarchy and established a rigid communist regime. Some Chinese wanted to follow and learn from the Russian revolution experience, some of the Chinese wanted to follow and learn from the American revolution experience and yet some wanted to learn from the Japanese ‘Meiji’ reform (Copying the West and militarizing). China was truly in chaos and shattered in pieces. The Japanese had established the ‘Manchuria’ with an ambition to use it to conquer the entire China, the Soviet had designed to strengthen the Chinese Communist movement to control and make China as a part of Soviet Union. The U.S. backed the KMT party, at the time KMT was nominally the legitimate government for the entire China but in reality it only had a weak control over the South East China. The public U.S. position was honorable (sort of like Monroe Doctrine for South America in play), that is, she supports the legitimate government and urges other countries not to interfere with China’s governance. Of course, words with no force only fall on deaf ears of both Japan and Russia.
 
Japan continued with her aggression and encroached in the North East part of China using Korea peninsula and Manchuria as the base. Eventually Japan not wanting to see a developing China, instigated a war against China (known as Luguoqiao incidence in 1937, another sneaky Japanese military attack), hence breaking out a long Sino-Japanese war for eight years (1937-1945). The Chinese people gave all they got to fight the modernized and well equipped but ruthless Japanese imperial army. The casualty was severe, over 35 million Chinese and 1.3 million Japanese soldiers died. The cruelty of Japanese army was well documented especially by the Nanjing Massacre where 300,000 Chinese civilians were slaughtered after the city was captured by the Japanese. When China accepted Japan’s surrender in 1945 and forgave Japan asking neither reparation nor penalty, Chinese children were told that forgiveness will bring real peace. The Japanese did suffer from the atomic bomb, however, when Japanese prime ministers went to Yasukuni shrine to worship their war criminals and deny their war- crimes such as the Nanjing Massacre, many Chinese were angered. When the Chinese (Koreans and all Asians for this matter) discovered that the Japanese school textbooks white wash the WW II history, their emotions boiled and wondered why a nation could not accept historical facts? The U.S. to this day is mute about Japan’s war crimes in China such as the bio-weapon experiments on Chinese citizens and prisoners. This silence fuels several conspiracy theories about why the U.S. pardoned the Japanese War Emperor and received all war records from Japan including the infamous Japanese 731 military unit’s bio-warfare evidence. While the U.S. continued with bio-weapon research today and used it in the Vietnam War, one would not be surprised that her accusation of China being the culprit of corona virus
and being responsible for pandemic damage of the world infuriates all Chinese people. 


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U.S. - China Relations - Long Time Ago
 
China is an old country if not the oldest independent country never totally annihilated in history. China has nearly five thousand years of written or recorded history with 12 chronologically ordered dynasties even when she was invaded. China with her ‘Chinese’ people is very resilient in absorbing, adapting and molding their environment, both physical and social, into a culturally integrated society even when she was conquered several times in history. Most notably were the Mongolian and Manchurian invasions. Mongolians conquered nearly one third of the world. To the West all the way to the Central Europe crushing Hungary (battle of Mobi, 1241). The Great Khan died in December and the invasion halted, then resumed, and seized Baghdad, the Middle East in 1258. To the South, the Mongols invaded then divided China (Jin, West Hsia, South Soon and East Hsia) starting 1205 against West Hsia till defeating South Soon and establishing Yuan Dynasty (1276-1351). Some Chinese escaped to Tran Dynasty (Today’s Vietnam) and helped them to resist the Yuan. Then Yuan was toppled by the uprising Chinese peasants mainly due to high taxation, four-class system discriminating Han people. Eventually, the Mongols became one of the 56 minority races in China Today.
 
The U.S. is relatively a young country consisting of mainly immigrants from England, then Europe and Africa and Asia over the past five hundred years. The Western historians claimed that Columbus first came to America in 1492 and discovered the Native American Indians (about 1.5 million at that time). Today about 6.8 million native Indians (less than 2%, Chinese Americans about 4m) live among 350 million US population, However, there are increasing evidence showing that America might be found by Chinese earlier than by Columbus. The evidences are: (1) ancient Chinese map showing California coast line and sequoia tree leaves, (2) ancient Chinese artifacts discovered in N. America, (3) Chinese ancient language carvings found on old stones in the mountain states of the U.S., (4) giant stone anchors discovered at the California coast attributed to one being used by General Zhang He of Ming Dynasty who sailed around the world seven times in giant size ships (ten times as big as Columbus boats, 1405-1433), (5) some evidence of similarity of DNA sequence linking American Indians and central mainland Chinese people (He Nan Province) and (6) the greeting language Native Americans used, How (Hao), sounds the same as the Chinese greeting language, 好 (Hao). The U.S. Library of Congress had held a conference on this subject, ‘Who first discovered America’ (May 16, 2005). So despite of the Columbus story, the short history of the U.S. and long distance between the two great nations, the U.S. and China may be far more closely related than historians recognize.
 
We may safely suggest that the U.S.(America)-China relations may have started a long time ago than most people knew, in a very peaceful manner, no battles, no invasions, no colonies, and no wars. However, the events happening in the most recent century or so seem to lead the two nations to rival. Hindsight, one can compare the impact of the great voyages Christopher Columbus and Zheng He made and ask the question: Which kings started the colonialism and religious wars? The answer clearly is: not the Ming Emperor for sure!
 
History Prior-to WW I on U.S.-China Relation
 
Towards the end of 19th century and the turn of 20th century, the U.S. and China are like (metaphorically) a growing teenager and a sick old man. The U.S. was blessed with her vast productive farmland and rich natural resource, her economy was growing fast while the European powers were expanding their imperialism with wars. The expansion of colonialism in America, Africa and Asia was the solid proof. In 1823, the U.S. President Monroe delivered his famous speech warning the European Powers to stop their expansion and colonialism in America, known as the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. foresaw the consequences of colonialism in South and North America, potentially a threat to the U.S. On the basis of her growing economical and military strength, the U.S. declared the Monroe Doctrine, but she was not absent from participating in the colonialism happening in Asia, specifically when the Great Britain along with other European Powers, including even the aggressive Asian island country Japan, began to carve out influence and control territories in China. In resisting colonial expansion in America, the U.S. eventually had a war with Spain over the incident of sinking the ship, Havana. (4-25-1898). The U.S. won the Spanish War and forced Spain to sign the Paris Treaty (12-10-1898) relinquishing her colonial control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippine islands, Guam and other territories. Spain lost her colonial empire but the U.S. gained the control of the above named territories up to today, except Cuba and the Philippines, they became independent countries.
 
In 19th century, the Qing Dynasty was corrupt with weak emperors incompetent in foreign affairs, hence the history witnessed a rapid decay of her empire. The last two young emperors were essentially a puppet of Queen Ci Xi who actually ruled 47 years (1861-1908) before the collapse of Qing. The Qing dynasty faced revolutionary uprisings and lost several foreign wars, first Anglo-Sino Opium War (1839-1842, Nanking Treaty, subsequently the U.S. and China signed the Wangxia Treaty), Second Opium War (1856-1860, Tianjin Treaty, the U.S. and China signed in 1858), Eight Nations War (1900, the U.S. was one of the eight) and Sino-Japan War (1894-1895, Maguan Treaty, Taiwan was ceded to Japan), all unfair treaties granting foreign countries access to markets, ports, free duties, war reparations and ceding territories such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, etc. The Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat Sen eventually toppled the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China (10-10-1911). The new Republic was still under the pressure of the foreign powers and the unequal treaties. For instance, in the Maguan Treaty, Japan not only demanded war reparation equivalent to seven years of Japanese annual national budget but also demanded Taiwan and Liaoning Peninsula (which was canceled because of the objection from Russia and Germany thinking Japan was too greedy and encroached their own interest in north China).
 
Russia and Japan had been at odds over their ambition of controlling China’s Manchuria region (1899-1913), eventually Japan launched a surprise attack on Russian navy at port Arthur (This and the future Pearl Harbor surprise attack ought to be a lesson remembered about Japanese sneaky military strategy) triggered the Russo-Japan War (1904-1905). The Japanese navy gained advantage over Russian navy but at a heavy cost both in terms of casualty and military expense. Japan asked the U.S. (President Ted Roosevelt) to negotiate a peace treaty, known as Portsmouth Treaty (negotiation held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A.). The U.S. was very generous with China’s property, essentially let Russia and Japan both have some control in north China. (History confirms that there is no justice in international affairs. Every nation thinks for itself based on its military and economic strength. While the U.S. advocate the Monroe Dctrine to keep the colonial powers out of America, she did not mind at all in participating in colonial deals in Asia.
(To Be Continued in Part II)




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​Mr. Power is a social science teacher in an american high school. He happens to be assigned to teach a class with lower performance students who shied away from AP classes. In his class, he raised the topic why people can be brainwashed easily, the students poh-pohed his idea and did not believe him. Then he raised a bet with the class that he could prove his point within one semester provided the class would recognize and respect him as a teacher. The students agreed. Then the teacher began his process, first he requested that all students should address him as Mr. Power and answer him with yes-sir standing up straight. The students agreed and they began addressing him respectfully and answered with yes-sir.
 
Then a week later, he asked the class to stand up and stump their feet so the ashes would fall on the AP History class directly below them downstairs. The students started sporadically but with Mr. Power’s encouragement, the whole class engaged the stumping more rigorously and more synchronously. The AP History teacher came to the social science class to see Mr. Power. Mr. Power greeted him outside the class and shoved him away simply saying I gave them permission to do an experiment. Next, Mr. Power told the class that they were very exceptional and gained respect from other teachers and students. He urged them to pick a name for the class and pick a theme color for their clothing. The students enthusiastically obliged calling themselves Raging Hippos (RH4HR for Human Rights) and picked their theme color of all blue or all red. The class by “shame and blame” made every classmate to conform to this color code and a common behavior. Mr. Power then encouraged the class to show their presence by putting the HR (and hippo) logo all over the campus. The class did it vigorously and happily.
 
Mr. Power then praised the class for their unity and encouraged them to enter all class competitions to demonstrate their ability and power. The class did, they won in tug of war, they triumphed in water pollo and took the trophe of lacrosse using all means, rage and cheat included. The class dressed in the same color, spoke in same language and tone, and viewed others as an inferior class. Then, Mr. Power addressed them in class and congratulated them for getting a passing grade for the entire class, but he then said: “you had all been brainwashed! I had proven my point that the mass could be easily brainwashed.” A raging student, Tiger, jumped up and said: No, Raging Hippo will go on, you can not stop us, we will change the entire school. One student sheepishly stood up and said, we should listen to Mr. Power, but Tiger punched him on the nose and pulled out a gun and asked Mr. Power to agree with him. Mr. Power refused then Tiger shot him and then himself (a very sad ending!) Or Mr. Power agreed and the RH group went to the Administration building forcing the school superintendent to accept their demands (a truly dangerous scenario!).
 
The above story was fictitious but drawn from many facts to illustrate the phenomenon we are observing in our society and in our international relations. Think about it, the mass media have been able to change the mood of our society with their story reporting. Over a few events in a short period, masses could be raged to conduct violent riots. Think about Black Lives Matter and police brutality, was there any brainwashing? Yes, I do believe so. Look at our international relations, the mass media (with government coercion perhaps) can build a hate attitude against another country (and her people) with persistent fake news and twisted stories. Do recall how easily people can be brainwashed like the above story in a social science class. It is amazing in the real world, our China policy could be so easily and quickly changed by a few China haters occupying our government policy positions. What do they have? A few hate-China books written years ago with authors never setting foot in China.
 
The current US-China relations are so twisted and biased leading to a dangerous war scenario. Many old timer China experts are “shamed and blamed” if they did not conform to the current brainwashing wave. A few who would speak out would not be given opportunities. There was no honest and open debate on the U.S. China policy among scholars and citizens. When such ‘hate China’ bias being applied to academic world targeting Chinese scholars and students, the protesting voice is ignored or silenced. This is a dangerous phenomenon which should not happen in a democratic nation, but it is happening which may result in a sad ending or a dangerous scenario:  Posing a danger to our nation and to the world!
 
Our current Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo, is like Mr. Power trying systematically to transform his students. With his experience as Director of Central Intelligence Agency, he admitted in a speech at Texas A & M University: “We lie, we cheat, and we steal.” And yet as our top diplomat now, he is declaring a “war plan” against China at a recent speech at the Nixon library with a purpose to white wash Nixon’s strategy of opening and allying with China to combat the expansionary Soviet Union (which was accomplished by the Reagan Administration!) Pompeo's another purpose was demonizing the CCP leadership in China. He tried to separate the Chinese people from the CCP, yet CCP is having a much higher approval rating from Chinese people than any of our Republican or Democratic Party ever received from American citizens.
 
Perhaps, Pompeo believes he can brainwash the American citizens easily, but it is a wishful assumption that he can brainwash the Chinese citizens to revolt against their government. The Chinese lives have never been better before. The Chinese people have more freedom than ever before. The Chinese citizens have traveled to more foreign countries than ever before. It is ignorant to think that brainwashing will work to collapse China.

• China might have 'cheated' in business, trade or technology, but which country didn't? Just review the history of industrial revolution to the present, the Western powers cheated and looted in the worse way (including the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and others) and Japan cheated and looted just as badly. If Pompeo insisted on using brainwashing to establish a 'hate-China' policy, I could predict that it would not succeed. This is simply because that American citizens as well as Chinese citizens can do better than high school students by using factcheck when needed. The Americans and Chinese will not be fooled for too long. Therefore, I may conclude that a China policy based on brainwashing will not work but put the U.S. and the world in danger.