Referring to at least 2 impacts on each side, discuss the effects of American immigration policies on Sino-American relations in the XIXth century

Thèmes abordés

China, US, XIXth century

Résumé du document

Devoir rendu dans le cadre d'un cours anglophone de Sino-american relations, répondant à la demande suivante : Referring to at least 2 impacts on each side, discuss the effects of American immigration policies on Sino-American relations in the XIXth century. In general, how did those policies change or shape those relations?

Extraits

[...] In China, the violence, at the root and following immigration policies, have little impact on the government. Few events occur to bring support to the Chinese workers in the US but there is no tangible reaction. The only impact that it has is moral support, even though it is not that important. Only rare Chinese diplomats among them Wu Tingfang and Liang Cheng, plead the cause of their compatriots, especially when 2000 Central Pacific Railroad workers protest and go on strike in 1867 to demand equal treatment with other workers (descending from Europe especially). [...]

[...] A first impact of this treaty may thus be recognizing the Chinese people dignity and human rights as well as the consideration that Chinese officials wish for them, across the Pacific Ocean. However, this is a treaty that is cancelled when the Chinese Exclusion Act is passed in 1882. This idea of recognition is yet tangible in the US, after 1882. In 1898, the judgement of the Federal Supreme Court, United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, recognizes American citizenship to a citizen born in 1873 and raised in San Francisco by Chinese parents. [...]

[...] Nativism in the US is not confronted to real Chinese retaliation, which is quite weak. That weakens Sino-American relationship, at the end of the XIXth century, this relationship being unequal as China is far more penalized by those immigration laws than the US: Chinese workers continue to give market value to the US while China cannot protect the dignity and human rights of its population. The US always acts with China to protect and promote its own interests, rather than the one of the Chinese people. [...]

[...] An example may be the Native Sons of the Golden West advocating that: "California was given by God to a white people, and with God's strength we want to keep it as He gave it to us". The means of action of this racist movement combine daily and organized techniques of violence with means of pressure on legislation and courts. At the end of the XIXth century, the "Yellow Peril" "endangers the economic and social health of the community" according to the anti-Chinese nativism. [...]

[...] Organized violence towards Chinese is even more important through mobilized groups such as the Anti-Coolie Association or the Supreme Order of the Caucasians. They want to boycott Chinese workers who are accused to maintain very law wages. Violence is also very important in Los Angeles when twenty residents of Chinatown are hanged or shot, in retaliation of a stray bullet which wounded an American in the neighborhood. Violence also strikes the Chinatown of Denver and Colorado in 1880, Wyoming in 1885, where White people attack 500 Chinese workers and slaughter 28 of them in cold blood, in Rock Springs, or Seattle in 1886. [...]