[00:00.00]One could only imagine
[00:03.26]how the Chinese must have felt
[00:05.34]at the turn of the century.
[00:06.88]Could any American imagine a scenario
[00:10.71]of the shoe being on
[00:12.13]the other foot (putting themselves
[00:14.31]in the place of the Chinese)?
[00:16.39]How would Americans have felt
[00:19.24]if Chinese gunboats patrolled
[00:21.97]the Mississippi River up to St. Louis,
[00:24.71]a major city in the heart
[00:26.79]of America? What if the Chinese
[00:29.63]could come and go anywhere
[00:31.38]in the United States, being
[00:33.35]completely immune to all American laws.
[00:37.30]Could Americans accept Chinatown
[00:40.75]in Boston of San Francisco
[00:42.94]being under Chinese law, and
[00:45.89]displaying signs with such captions
[00:47.53]as “No Americans or dogs allowed”?
[00:50.81]What if Manhattan Island and California
[00:54.64]were annexed by China? Would Americans
[00:58.58]tolerate their own officials
[01:00.44]being in collusion with, and being
[01:02.95]bribed by Chinese authorities,
[01:05.25]to let all of above to
[01:07.88]take place? One would think not.
[01:10.95]Is it any wonder that
[01:14.22]imperialism had become such
[01:15.97]an abominable term to the Chinese people?
[01:19.15]The Chinese have made some
[01:22.32]conscientious attempts to fight back,
[01:24.84]in efforts to defy foreign presence
[01:27.68]in China, but without much support
[01:30.20]during the slack reign of
[01:32.38]the Qing Emperor and the Dowager Empress.
[01:35.77]The Imperial family, for so long,
[01:39.06]had been extremely self?indulgent.
[01:42.02]It paid little attention
[01:44.31]to the realities of what
[01:46.37]was happening inside China.
[01:48.33]For so long, the nation's policies
[01:51.84]revolved around the whims of
[01:53.81]the Imperial Family.
[01:56.44]With reliance on its own resources,
[01:59.82]a secret society, called the Order
[02:03.54]of Literary Patriotic Harmonious Fists,
[02:07.16]made one last desperate attempt
[02:09.78]at revenge, to rid the country
[02:12.30]of foreigners. In 1900, these Boxers
[02:16.57]as they were called, stubbornly engaged
[02:19.51]the foreign powers in conflict.
[02:22.14]The former tore up railway tracks,
[02:25.31]attacked Chinese Christians, besieged
[02:28.93]foreign delegations, and eventually
[02:31.45]slaughtered over three hundred foreigners.
[02:34.29]The Americans collaborated with the Japanese,
[02:37.90]consolidated forces and easily overwhelmed
[02:41.95]the Boxers. The latter crumbled
[02:45.34]under the pressure of foreign superiority
[02:47.85]and its own deficiencies in equipment
[02:50.70]and organization. The victors placed
[02:54.38]severe controls on the crippled
[02:56.13]Chinese Government and imposed heavy indemnities
[03:00.72]of billions of dollars. The fact
[03:04.11]that the foreigners were interested,
[03:06.19]only in protecting their
[03:07.83]own interests, was abundantly clear.
[03:11.12]Aside from discriminatory immigration policy
[03:15.93]against Chinese, the U.S. had no
[03:18.66]official direct political or diplomatic relations
[03:22.38]with China until the Second World War.
[03:25.77]The United States took on
[03:28.29]a much cherished isolationist approach
[03:31.57]to world affairs following
[03:33.40]the First World War, after having
[03:35.48]established itself as a major world power.
[03:39.19]The United States did not even
[03:42.15]become a representative of
[03:44.20]the League of Nations, essentially
[03:46.49]the creation of its own then
[03:48.57]President, Woodrow Wilson. This organization
[03:52.62]was set up in 1919 to curb
[03:55.79]international conflict, which could,
[03:57.87]potentially, throw the world
[04:00.60]into a war again. The absence of
[04:03.99]this powerful nation was one of
[04:06.62]the major weaknesses of this
[04:08.37]organization and, consequently, a possible
[04:12.20]factor that actually facilitated
[04:14.06]the resumption of world conflict in 1939.
[04:18.76]The Second World War
[04:22.71]During the Second World War,
[04:26.97]the United States and China were
[04:29.16]allies against the common enemy,
[04:31.56]Japan. A coalition of the United States,
[04:36.49]British Commonwealth countries,
[04:39.00]and other allies dispatched supplies
[04:41.96]and other support to China
[04:43.81]by way of the Burma Road and
[04:46.22]by air over the hump (mountains),
[04:48.85]to close in on Japan from the rear.
[04:52.46]When war broke out in 1939,
[04:57.05]China was experiencing a civil war,
[04:59.90]the Nationalists versus the Communists.
[05:03.18]This civil war was put on
[05:06.36]hold while both the Nationalists
[05:08.43]and Communists joined forces
[05:10.84]to converge on Japan, which had,
[05:13.14]intermittently, hovered over China
[05:16.53]as a menace, or as an imperialist
[05:18.61]thorn in its side, for a good
[05:21.67]century before the war. The war
[05:25.72]brought the United States out
[05:27.35]of its splendid official isolation.
[05:29.87]Once the war was over,
[05:32.28]turbulent times continued to stalk China.
[05:35.99]The civil war picked up
[05:39.06]where it left off. The Americans
[05:41.46]lent its moral support to
[05:43.76]the Nationalists in their struggle
[05:45.52]against the Communists, whereby
[05:47.70]the United States began to formulate
[05:50.22]its Cold War policy of “Containment”
[05:52.84](Containing the spread of Communism).
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