The Chinese Must Go

by Beth Lew-Williams

  Office that “the late outrages in Amer ica” had created “ great excitement at

  Canton [Guangzhou] against Americans.” Hearing reports that the viceroy

  in Guangdong Province was promoting vio lence against Americans, Denby

  swiftly demanded that the Foreign Office officially renounce all forms of ret-

  ribution. Although Chinese officials complied with his request, he still feared

  the worst.4 There was only one U.S. naval vessel off the shores of China, so

  Denby wired, asking for reinforcements and further security, and visited Eu-

  ro pean diplomats to request military assistance if it became necessary.5

  By summer 1886, it became clear that there would be no mass uprising

  against Americans in China, but Denby was still anxious. He reported to

  Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard that, since the rumors began, “hostility

  to the United States confronts me at every point—in diplomatic circles and

  in private life.” 6 Chinese anger meant more than uncomfortable social

  encounters: it threatened to undermine Amer i ca’s relations with China

  and, in so doing, limit access to Chinese goods and Chinese souls. As he

  strug gled to contain the fallout from anti- Chinese vio lence in the U.S.

  West, Denby complained bitterly, “all our evils in China” seem to grow

  “out of trou bles in Amer ica.”7

  Was it pos si ble to close Amer ica’s gates while keeping China’s open? Anti-

  Chinese vio lence forced this question to the forefront of both national poli-

  tics and U.S.- Chinese negotiations in the mid-1880s. While violent racial

  politics pushed for Chinese exclusion in Amer ica, the subsequent outrage in

  China applied countervailing pressure on American statesmen to protect the

  rights of Chinese nationals. Indeed, white vio lence exposed the enduring

  conflict between the dreams of West Coast workers hoping to build a white

  republic and cosmopolitan imperialists with their sights set on China. Rec-

  ognizing the national and international stakes of this local vio lence, U.S.

  leaders knew that they needed to put an end to the unrest. Instead of meeting

  the vio lence on a local scale, however, federal leaders jumped scales. The

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  Cleveland administration offered only sporadic aid for local suppression of

  the vio lence and turned most of its attention to international diplomacy.

  Amer i ca’s leaders recognized that the expulsions stemmed, in part, from

  transpacific pro cesses and imperial relations that reached beyond Amer ica’s

  borders.

  White vio lence made Chinese exclusion into a po liti cal necessity in the

  mid-1880s, but the form this exclusion would take was born from a contin-

  gent and unforeseeable sequence of events. At first, U.S. leaders seized on

  an opportunity to negotiate their way out of this quandary, as they had in

  the past. Only when diplomatic solutions failed did Congress move toward

  unilateral border control. This extraordinary shift in tactics set a new pre ce-

  dent for U.S. immigration law. With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1888,

  Congress dramatically extended U.S. sovereignty by claiming sole authority

  to close Amer ica’s gates, regardless of treaty obligations.

  At the same time, the law signaled a pivotal shift in U.S.- Chinese rela-

  tions. For the previous two de cades, American diplomacy had relied on di-

  rect communication and good favor, but now Congress swung Amer i ca’s

  gates shut without China’s approval. Once exclusion was decoupled from di-

  plomacy, a closed gate no longer seemed to preclude the possibility of an

  open door. By the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese exclusion and U.S.

  imperialism had become synergistic proj ects, drawing parallel lines to

  divide citizens from aliens at home and Western civilization from Eastern

  barbarism abroad.8

  American Visions of an Open Door

  Like Minister Denby, Secretary Thomas Bayard found himself walking a

  narrow diplomatic line when anti- Chinese vio lence broke out in 1885. As

  Amer ica’s chief diplomat, Bayard denounced the anti- Chinese expulsions in

  the name of U.S. interests abroad but also shared the vigilantes’ deep anx-

  iety about Chinese migration. Before he was appointed secretary of state,

  Bayard was a Demo cratic senator who represented Delaware from 1869 until

  1885. Like his father, James Bayard Jr., Thomas Bayard was a proud statesman

  and an unabashed white supremacist. While the father opposed emancipa-

  tion during the Civil War, the son decried Reconstruction. Thomas believed

  that both black men’s “defects” and white men’s prejudices were God- given,

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  so fighting these innate tendencies was “futile.”9 He extended his racial views

  to the Chinese Question, explaining to reporters, “I am a strong believer in

  blood and race . . . and am convinced that the downfall of a man or nation

  is near at hand when disregard for such facts is permitted. . . . All over this

  broad land we should watch and combat the stealthy step towards Mongo-

  lianism.” As senator and then as secretary of state, Bayard’s personal views

  on the Chinese had large po liti cal ramifications.10

  He was certainly not the first U.S. diplomat to question the worthiness

  of the Chinese. In the wake of the Opium Wars, British and U.S. diplomats

  negotiated a series of unequal treaties with China predicated on the belief

  that the Chinese were “uncivilized.” Just as Western countries had previously

  divided the world by religion, into Christendom and heathen lands, liberal

  Western thinkers in the nineteenth century divided the world by culture:

  into “civilized” nations and the “barbaric” realm that lay beyond. Eu ro pean

  countries, through a series of treaties, began to formulate “standards of civi-

  lization,” creating what they believed to be a benevolent and modern system

  that granted equal status to all “civilized nations” and guided their conduct

  through a code of international laws. At the beginning of the nineteenth

  century, the standards for civilization were nebulous, but by century’s end

  treaties and international conventions had at least implicitly defined them.

  To be deemed civilized, a country had to have a modern bureaucratic state

  capable of self- defense, basic human rights, Western norms of diplomacy and

  international law, and legal power over all people within its territory, whether

  native or foreign. Not only did the Chinese government fall short of these

  standards, but the Chinese people’s “barbaric” and “heathen” customs, such

  as polygamy and Confucianism, made it clear to Western nations that they

  could not be classified as civilized. And, by defining China as “uncivilized,”

  Western nations gave themselves license to establish indirect control over

  the weak Chinese state.11

  What form this control would take was a matter of debate across the

  Western world and in Amer ica. While the United States consistently pledged

  to preserve China’s territorial and governmental integrity in the nineteenth

  century, U.S. diplomats’ visions of this open door policy shifted many times.

  The first accord between the tw
o nations, the Wangxia (Wanghia) Treaty

  of 1844, read as a list of U.S. demands and Chinese concessions. But the

  give and take of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and the Angell Treaty of

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  1880 show a shift in Amer ica’s approach, namely a move to promote U.S.

  commercial domination through Chinese cooperation. Key to maintaining

  this new cooperative open door policy, and its façade of equality, was sus-

  taining direct communication and friendly relations between the two

  nations.12

  Though Bayard supported an open door with China, he questioned the

  wisdom of the cooperative open door. During debates surrounding the Chi-

  nese Restriction Act in 1882, Bayard, then a senator, advocated exclusion and

  denounced the Burlingame Treaty in no uncertain terms. He believed that

  by declaring China “an equal among nations,” U.S. diplomats had “over-

  looked or disregarded the difference of race.” “[T]hey saw but one thing— a

  profitable commerce, and they rushed with haste into a treaty that consid-

  ered Americans and Chinamen as if they were all of the same race, habits,

  and characteristics— all equally and alike entitled and fitted to become

  citizens of the Republic of the United States.” According to Bayard, the

  rash treaty was a product of American ignorance in 1860s, but by 1882 Ameri-

  cans knew better. Chinese aliens could never become American citizens

  because the “inundation” of a “wholly diff er ent” race will “destroy the labor

  of our own people.”13

  Despite his misgivings about the cooperative open door, when he became

  secretary of state, Bayard promoted a friendly relationship between the

  United States and China. “What ever may be the differences in our systems

  of government and their policies, both are governments of men, ” he wrote

  to the Chinese minister at Washington, D.C., Zheng Zaoru (Cheng Tsao

  Ju). “For you and your country, my good Friend, I have nothing but good

  will and friendship.”14

  Though Minister Zheng was often at odds with American statesmen, Ba-

  yard was not the only one in D.C. to regard him as a “distinguished” dip-

  lomat and “courteous friend.” Zheng had served as minister to the United

  States, Spain, and Peru since 1882, and before that was viceroy of Tianjin.

  A native of Guangdong, a man of humble beginnings, and after 1883, father of

  a U.S. citizen, Minister Zheng had deep sympathy for the suffering of Chinese

  in Amer ica.15 When he wrote to Bayard that Chinese laborers had been

  “attacked by a mob of American citizens” in Rock Springs, Wyoming, he

  was pleased that his complaint did not fall on deaf ears. The secretary quickly

  granted Zheng’s request for a Chinese investigation of the massacre.

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  A month later, when Zheng wrote warning of pos si ble expulsions in

  Washington Territory, Bayard contacted Governor Squire to instruct him

  to protect the Chinese. After the governor’s efforts failed in Tacoma, Bayard

  drafted a presidential proclamation threatening federal intervention if the

  populace continued such “unlawful acts.” Then, for the president’s annual

  message to Congress in December 1885, Bayard drafted a clear denuncia-

  tion of anti- Chinese vio lence. “ Every effort has been made by this Govern-

  ment to prevent these violent outbreaks” in Wyoming and Washington Ter-

  ritories, declared the president, adding, “Race prejudice is the chief factor in

  originating these disturbances . . . jeopardizing our domestic peace and the

  good relationship we strive to maintain with China.”16

  There were high stakes in maintaining the cooperative open door. Espe-

  cially during the boom and bust economy that followed the Civil War, Amer-

  icans began to fear that their internal market could no longer consume all

  U.S.- produced products. In 1885, Bankers Magazine argued that foreign mar-

  kets were of “pressing importance” while The Age of Steel suggested that

  Amer ica’s excess of industrial products “should be relieved and prevented in

  the future by increased foreign trade.” During a de cade that saw multiple

  economic recessions and labor uprisings, many U.S. businessmen and poli-

  ticians looked to China for a solution.17

  Recognizing the dire ramifications of vio lence, Bayard worked to assuage

  the fears of the Chinese minister after the Tacoma expulsion. Unfortunately,

  Bayard’s efforts were quickly undermined by continued attacks against the

  Chinese on the Pacific Coast. Days after the Chinese were expelled from

  Seattle in February 1886, Minister Zheng wrote a lengthy complaint to Ba-

  yard. Not only did he demand protection for the Chinese in the United

  States, but he argued, on the princi ple of “reciprocal justice and comity,” that

  the United States should indemnify China for the loss of property and lives.

  Bayard’s twenty- six page response denounced “with feeling and indignation

  the bloody outrages and shocking wrongs” inflicted on Zheng’s countrymen.

  Then it explained that the attacks were perpetrated in “remote” territories

  of the United States where Chinese laborers had voluntarily migrated

  despite the arm of the law that was “inchoate and imperfect.” The crimes

  committed were between “private individuals” who did not represent the

  American or Chinese governments. Furthermore, relations between the two

  countries, argued Bayard, were not governed by the princi ple of reciprocity,

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  but by the statutes of treaties. According to these statutes, the United States

  was not bound to grant China indemnity for these crimes, but the president

  would consider repayment purely out of his own benevolence.18

  Bayard was not alone in his efforts to calm Chinese officials. While Ba-

  yard negotiated with Minister Zheng in Washington, D.C., Denby negoti-

  ated with the Chinese Foreign Office in Beijing. Denby and Bayard, both

  northern Demo crats, were on particularly friendly terms, exchanging both

  official and private letters while they served together. (Denby even helped

  to pick out and ship a set of china for Bayard’s wife.) While Zheng peti-

  tioned Bayard in Washington, D.C., members of the Chinese government

  in Beijing visited Minister Denby to make similar demands. Like Bayard,

  Denby explained to Chinese officials that reciprocity had never governed

  Sino- American relations. He pointed out that while Americans were con-

  fined to a few specified areas in China, Chinese were allowed to roam through

  all of Amer ica. Therefore, Chinese in Amer ica could not expect the same

  degree of protection as Americans in China.19

  Denby complained to Bayard that Chinese officials would not understand

  this reasoning. “Of course,” he wrote, “if we were dealing with a fully civi-

  lized race and with one familiar with International Law and the history and

  condition of other nations of the world there would be little trou ble in

  pointing out the difference.” But, he implied, the Chinese government was

  neither civilized nor well- informed. Nevertheless, he assumed there was a

  diplom
atic solution as there had been in the past. In March 1886, Denby

  suggested that President Cleveland send a commission to China because the

  question of immigration “can only be solved by some definitive treaty.”20

  Chinese Visions of Self- Exclusion

  Chinese officials, for their part, felt they fully comprehended the situation

  in the U.S. West. “American business made a profit of millions through ex-

  ploitation of Chinese workers,” the viceroy of Guangdong, Zhang Zhidong

  (Chang Chih- tung), reported to the Imperial Court, but recently “Irish Party

  men, who were jealous of Chinese workers . . . cruelly burned the Chinese

  to seize their property and force employers to fire the Chinese.” Viceroy

  Zhang and other Chinese officials lamented this “extreme tragedy” but saw

  the mi grants’ suffering as only the beginning of China’s worries. In internal

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  correspondence, they expressed deep concern about the effects of white

  vio lence on growing U.S.- Chinese trade, swelling antiforeigner unrest in

  Guangdong, and China’s uncertain position in the world. From his seat in

  Guangdong, Zhang was particularly concerned that the anti- Chinese move-

  ment might prove contagious, spreading across the ocean to other regions of

  the world. If the Chinese diaspora in the United States, Canada, Australia, and

  Southeast Asia suddenly came running for home in great numbers, surely

  the province would be overwhelmed. “We have no place to hold them,” he

  fretted, “Their conditions certainly deserve sympathy, but they also consti-

  tute a huge prob lem for us.” A mass return would spell “a disaster beyond

  imagination.”21

  The obvious solution was to beg, cajole, or threaten the United States until

  federal officials managed to stop the expulsions. When Viceroy Zhang met

  with Minister Denby, he attempted all three tactics, pleading for the United

  States to protect Chinese nationals, promising to quell anti- American un-

  rest in China in return, but warning that he could make no guarantees if

  expulsions continued. “In addition,” he cautioned Denby, “news will spread

  in the international community about the failure of American legal system

  to punish violent mobs. This will hurt the reputation of the United States

  worldwide.” How could the United States allow “mobs [to] control employ-