“An Initial Study on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882” by Liu Yinjun (2003)
An English Translation
In Spring 2023, I took the “California Labor History” course at the City College of San Francisco, taught by Fred Glass, who I served with on the first term of leadership for the California DSA statewide organization. As part of that class, I performed a translation of “An Initial Study on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,” an article in the Journal of Mianyang Normal University by Liu Yinjun (published June 2003 under the Chinese title “1882 年美国排华法案初探”)
The text reflects the Marxist theory of production, tracing the development of class society in California as a history of responses to the evolving needs of social production. For example, sentences like “The development of mining operations meant an urgent need for labor power, but the West was sparsely populated and lacked a sufficient labor force” and “The anti-Chinese movement in the United States first started among the people, eventually being taken up by the government, experiencing a development process from the local area to the whole country.” There’s a kind of birds-eye-view of the class struggle that I have always found interesting about Marx and Engels’ work that I think carries through to a lot of Chinese theory, which is a different point of view than the “labor history” approach taken within the City College class; comparing and contrasting the two approaches to the same historical processes was insightful.
One interesting point in the text is found in Section 3, “Reflections on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882” - the language I have translated as “after realistic consideration seeking truth from facts,” in chinese is “经实事求是的考虑后” (jīng shíshìqiúshì de kǎolǜ hòu). This includes the phrase ”实事求是“, translated often as “seek truth from facts.” It was a Chengyu (four character idiomatic expression) used by Mao and forwarded by Deng Xiaoping as a basic line of the Communist Party of China’s work post reform-and-opening-up in their ideology of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics. I found it interesting that the text would be applying this Chinese-specific principle to American conditions, even arguing that it was a principle that they prescriptively think American lawmakers should have followed!
The text also makes some a few more specific arguments: one being an intervention into the debate about whether the Chinese Exclusion Act was purely targeted at Chinese laborers or also affected business owners and academics. Liu cites the many examples of supposedly “excluded” populations being affected by the law, including academics and diplomats being banned from entering the US. He also argues that the rise of anti-Chinese violence is another argument for defining the Chinese Exclusion Act as going beyond impacting only Chinese laborers.
The other argument Liu makes is about immigration restrictions as domestic economic policy. Liu contends that in the crisis of the 1870s that spurred the anti-Chinese movement, a fuller restriction of immigration would have been a realistic policy (“The U.S. government promptly proposing a measure to restrict immigration across the board could have not only been an option to prevent the development of the situation from becoming more vicious, it may have been fully necessary”). The argument was that though a fuller restriction may have made sense, and keeping it just to Chinese people wasn’t effective policy.
Overall, the piece provides some insights into Chinese academic debates around Sinophobia and Chinese immigration, and outlines some interesting open academic questions that scholars in China and elsewhere are debating about the history of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
In recent years, academic research on Chinese-American history has deepened, and Sinophobia has become an area of focus. Most scholars’ research on the topic has focused on the evolution of Sinophobia and its root causes, but analysis of specific cases is lacking. This article attempts to fill in that gap, focusing on a preliminary investigation of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Because this bill was not only the first nationwide bill passed by the U.S. Congress to restrict foreign immigration, but also “the only [immigration] bill with specific restrictions before 1921,”[1] I hope this article can contribute to in-depth research on the subject of American anti-Chinese sentiment.
1. The historical background of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
In 1848, gold was discovered in the state of California, leading to a gold rush. The development of mining operations meant an urgent need for labor power, but the West was sparsely populated and lacked a sufficient labor force. Across the ocean at this time, the Chinese economy was in a state of collapse; its densely populated Southeastern coastal area had experienced severe natural disasters which made life even more difficult. Taking note of these conditions, American capitalists set their sights on China, hoping to import a large amount of cheap labor from China. With deceptive campaigns by American capitalists, “gold wealth attracted bankrupt Chinese peasants like a magnet.” [2] (p8) It was this dual effect of push and pull that led to a large number of Chinese immigrants arriving in America. From 1848 to 1851, “in the course of just three years, over 25,000 Chinese immigrants came to California.” [3] (p19~20) Following this, the U.S. government welcomed immigration from China in order to meet the demands for a large labor force. In 1868, in order to guarantee the legalization of labor recruitment from China, the U.S. government signed the Burlingame Treaty with the Qing government, permitting Chinese immigration without any restrictions.
However, xenophobia existed in the mines of California from the beginning, and Chinese people were persecuted and discriminated against from the moment they set foot on American soil. At that time, most white miners had gold fever, only going to rich mines to pan for gold, while Chinese panned for gold in poor mines or ones that Americans thought had been exhausted. But their good skills and collaborative spirit were enough to allow them to pan for gold. Because the Chinese were more efficient than Americans, they got more gold and gradually gained the upper hand in the gold-panning process. Americans proclaimed that the Chinese had robbed America of its wealth, and began to persecute the Chinese workers. At that time American miners often said “we’re white and you’re yellow.” 1849 marked the first Anti-Chinese riot in American history, the Tuolumne riot, where more than 60 Chinese miners were driven out of the camp by white miners. This riot was a prominent reflection of the persecution Chinese laborers faced in the United States.
The 1850s saw an influx of Chinese immigration to the United States. Influenced by racists, the state government of California began to take legislative action against Chinese people. In 1852, California enacted a Foreign Worker License Tax, which required each foreign miner to pay a $3 monthly tax. In reality, the tax was aimed at Chinese laborers, and they were the ones who mainly bore the tax. As early as 1850, the California Assembly had passed a bill taxing each foreign miner $20/month [before it was repealed and replaced with the 1852 tax], which forced miners from Mexico and other South American countries to leave in large numbers. This meant Chinese workers were the largest population of foreign miners, and the main target of attacks.
In the wake of the Foreign Worker License Tax, anti-Chinese riots continued to escalate. In 1852, white miners in Tuolumne County passed a resolution to expel Chinese from their camp and prohibit them from working in the mining area. Similar incidents occurred around the same time in Marysville and other places, and the tide of anti-Chinese sentiment rose higher. On December 18, 1856, San Francisco’s Shasta Republic Times reported “In the past five years, hundreds of Chinese have been killed, and incidents that injure Chinese workers occur almost every day.” “These atrocities and illegal acts forced the Chinese to reconsider their situation,”[4] and, as a result, many people left the mines to engage in other industries.
By the 1860s, anti-Chinese sentiment subsided somewhat as the Chinese were tasked with building the Transcontinental Railroad. They made up for a shortage in the labor force for railway construction; according to statistics, “from 1865 to 1869, among the nearly 10,000 railroad workers employed by the Central Pacific Railroad Company, nine out of ten were Chinese workers.” [5] Racism was therefore somewhat constrained, as racism was subordinated to the needs of economic development. But after the first railroad across the continental United States was completed and opened to traffic in 1869, anti-Chinese violence flared up again and reached their highest level yet.
This was firstly because after the completion of the railroad, the Chinese laborers were laid off and flowed into the Western labor market. Together with the labor force coming from the East, they saturated the market. Because the Chinese laborers did not care about the quality of the type of work, and could endure the capitalists’ illegal torture of extending working hours and lowering wages, it was not difficult for them to find jobs. Many white laborers, however, were often picky about their work, disdaining to work or finding the wage offerings too low. Many even did not want to work in factories and farms at all and refused to join the service industry, so the labor force was insufficient. Under these conditions, white laborers who could not find a job became more set in their resentful attitudes against Chinese workers, clamoring that they had taken their livelihoods.
Secondly, in 1873, an economic crisis broke out in the United States. In this crisis, according to statistics, “about 30% of the workers in California lost their jobs; there were 1,500 unemployed workers in San Francisco and 12,000 Chinese who were laid off by the railway company also entered the city… During this period of hardship, Chinese immigration reached its 19th Century peak. From 1870 to 1875, more than 80,000 Chinese laborers came to America, with 20,000 arriving in 1873 alone.” [6] This increased the “competition for jobs” between Chinese and white workers.
Bourgeois politicians blamed white unemployment and the economic crisis on the influx of Chinese immigrants in order to divert white peoples’ anger and alleviate class conflict, constantly inciting white peoples’ hatred of Chinese people and arousing racist fanaticism among the population. The Chinese became the scapegoats for the economic crisis. Though statistics are incomplete, between 1852 and 1882 there were more than 20 local and state pieces of anti-Chinese legislation or judicial decisions.[7] The anti-Chinese sentiment that had started in California then started to spread to Washington. The bourgeois political parties of the United States became the vanguard of the anti-Chinese movement, and the Chinese population of the U.S. faced an unprecedented disaster.
2. Reasons for the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Targeting Of Chinese People
The economic crisis of the 1870s led to an unprecedented rise in anti-Chinese riots. At the same time, the political struggle between the Democratic and Republican parties intensified. The Republican party disappointed the American people by compromising with Southern slaveholders after the Civil War, and their prestige plummeted. The Democratic Party, however, had recovered and by the 1876 election was evenly matched with the Republican Party. Both parties realized the key to winning the White House would be the votes of the working classes of America.
In order to stave off the challenge from the Democratic Party, the Republican Party didn’t flinch at violating its founding spirit. It changed its platform to oppose free immigration and joined the Democratic Party in supporting Chinese Exclusion. The Democratic Party, not to be outdone, advocated opposition to the slave-like Chinese laborers. The difference between the rhetoric of the two major parties was very minor. This created a situation where the two bourgeois political parties competed to exclude Chinese immigrants to vie for American workers’ votes. Both parties believed that “using the Chinese issue to make a fuss was a shortcut to political success."[4] The anti-Chinese movement left the borders of California and became an issue at the center of national politics.
The Republican Party’s new strategy won them two general elections in 1876 and 1880 respectively. At this time, anti-China groups such as “Anti-Coolie Clubs” in San Francisco and the “Workingmen's Party of California” were formed one after another, and the spectre of anti-Chinese violence descended upon the United States. In order to appease domestic workers and remove diplomatic obstacles to Chinese Exclusion, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent a delegation headed by James Burrill Angell to visit China in 1880, resulting in the “Angell Treaty” between the United States and China in 1881.
This treaty stipulated that the Chinese government would agree that the United States could adjust, restrict, or terminate the entry of Chinese laborers without affecting the entry of other foreigners to the United States, but was not in itself an absolute prohibition. The Angell Treaty created a legal basis for the United States to implement a comprehensive anti-Chinese immigration policy, and it was only a matter of time before the introduction of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, submitted by Republican Senator John F. Miller. During Congress’ deliberations, those for and against the bill debated vigorously. Anti-Chinese activists found countless ways to attack the Chinese; some main ideas included that the Chinese had serious vices and were a bad influence, that assimilating them to American ethics and moral standards would be difficult, and that Chinese workers earn low wages and compete with American workers for jobs. Those arguing against the act said that it would violate the free-immigration policy of the Burlingame treaty and the founding principles of the American republic, and that it was the American People slapping themselves in the face. However, under the pressure of the powerful public opinion offensive launched by the racists, the voices of those opposing the act were drowned out and the anti-Chinese activists gained a majority of votes. On May 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the first bill restricting foreign immigration in history: “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to the Chinese,“ commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Per the above analysis, it can be seen that the promulgation of this bill is the result of the struggle between the two major bourgeois political parties in the United States, and the result of the rising anti-Chinese sentiment of the American working class being exploited by the bourgeois political parties. Its introduction was an adaptation to the needs created by the political struggle at the time in America. This was the root cause of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first bill in the history of the United States to prohibit free immigration. It was also a Chinese immigration policy formulated unilaterally without consultation with the Qing government, making the Chinese the only ethnic group who could not freely immigrate to the United States.
The main contents of the bill: First, the bill prohibited Chinese workers from entering the United States within ten years, including skilled workers, unskilled workers and miners. The owner of any ship that smuggled Chinese workers into the country, the owner of the ship will be finedup to 500 yuan or imprisoned for up to one year for each Chinese worker smuggled.
Second, all Chinese non-laborers were required to have an English-language certificate issued by the Chinese government, which contained various qualifications, and certified that the person has the right to enter the United States in accordance with the treaty. The certificate issued by the Chinese government must be inspected, signed and stamped by the U.S. consul at the port of export. However, after entering the United States, the U.S. customs officials would check again. If the customs officials thought that the immigrant did not meet the requirements, they would be deported back to the country;
Third, no federal or state court in the United States would allow a Chinese person to obtain American citizenship, and that no laws enacted by the United States could conflict with the Chinese Exclusion act; and fourth, after the passage of this bill, all Chinese who enter the country illegally could be deported by the order of the U.S. court [8] (p42). On the surface, this bill only prohibited the entry of Chinese laborers. There were certain restrictions on Chinese people other than Chinese laborers, such as teachers, people who do business, study abroad, and travel as "categories enjoying exemption", but at least they are not excluded in principle. But was this really the case?
Regarding the pertinence of Chinese Exclusion under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, there are generally two views in Chinese domestic academic circles: one view is that the Chinese Exclusion Act was aimed at Chinese workers; the other is that the Chinese Exclusion act was not aimed only at Chinese workers but also had relationships to movements to exclude shopkeepers, teachers, students, etc. Those who hold the view that the Act was just aimed against Chinese workers often cite the attitude of the United States towards Chinese studying and traveling in the United States during the anti-Chinese period as an example[9]. In fact, this example is biased, and it does not prove that Chinese exclusion did not target students and Chinese in the United States. From 1872, the Qing government sent 30 young children to the United States every year, and sent four batches of 120 young children to study abroad. It’s true that the study plans for these students were not affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, in 1881, when Yung Wing, the organizer for these overseas student delegations, asked the United States to allow Chinese students to study in the U.S. Army and Naval colleges, he was rejected. Yung Wing was greatly disappointed. He did not expect that at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment was rising day by day, Chinese students studying abroad were the first to be rejected on the basis of "skills".
Against this background, the Chinese Exclusion Act was promulgated in 1882, which fully demonstrated that the Chinese Exclusion Act had a negative impact on Chinese other than Chinese workers, and the spearhead was clearly directed at Chinese students. At that time, Chinese conservatives recalled overseas students back to their motherland in order to prevent them from being polluted by American ideas. Judging from the situation at the time, this was a wise move to avoid persecution under the Chinese Exclusion Act. This is the truth of the matter. As for the practice of the president of Yale University to dissuade Chinese students from returning to China, it only represents his personal behavior, not the government’s behavior under the Chinese Exclusion Act. In fact, the anti-Chinese under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 applied anti-Chinese sentiment outside the United States and within the United States, that is, the Chinese were prohibited from entering the United States outside the United States, while the persecution of the Chinese was intensified inside the United States and they were deported. The targeting of Chinese exclusion under the Act greatly exceeded the scope of Chinese workers in actual operation, involving almost all Chinese.
According to the American Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, only Chinese laborers were prohibited from entering the United States, while non-Chinese laborers had the right to enter. However, the Act also gave American immigration officials and customs officials a great deal of freedom, and their personal will often became the criteria for Chinese to enter the United States. Under the influence of fanatical anti-Chinese sentiment at the time, U.S. immigration officials and customs officials kept looking for excuses to make things difficult for the Chinese who came to the United States and prevent them from entering the United States. There are many such examples. For example, officials would use the lack of English in their passports as an excuse not to allow businessmen to enter the country, forcing them to return to China. Even customs officials arbitrarily interpreted the meaning and scope of the term “Chinese laborer,” including some businessmen as Chinese laborers, and prohibited them from entering [10].
For students studying in the United States, immigration officials applied stricter-than-normal restrictions, and often used justifications like "insufficient expenses for studying and living in the United States", "will stay in the United States after completion of studies", "do not understand English", etc. as natural reasons for refusal. Some were even rejected on the basis of being "too young to enter university studies". In one absurd situation, a Chinese teacher was banned from landing because he had done some translation and editing work for newspapers. The reason was that he had worked as an editor, and editors were also laborers[2] (p284). There are many such examples like this; immigration officials interpreted the term “Chinese laborer” arbitrarily, and put on the cloak of “legality” for their behavior.
At the same time, in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the American bourgeoisie continued to instigate anti-Chinese atrocities, and the massacre of Chinese people was an almost daily event. [11] (p338). The most prominent of these was the massacre of 28 Chinese in Rock Springs, a mining town in Wyoming, in September 1885, where 11 people were burned alive in their houses. This was the most brutal event of the period. Since the promulgation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, anti-Chinese atrocities spread rapidly like a plague, covering almost every corner of the United States. From January to April 1886, the Chinese in 35 residential areas in California were expelled. In 1887, 31 Chinese miners were killed on the Snake River in eastern Washington State, and the Chinese feared for their lives all the time.
Under the pretext of enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the American authorities ran amok and lawless. In 1886, Zhang Yinhuan, Chinese Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, went to the United States to take office. When he arrived at San Francisco Port, he was unreasonably obstructed by immigration officials and was not allowed to go ashore. According to international law at the time, diplomats enjoyed extraterritorial rights. American immigration officials dared to disregard the international law at the risk of the world, which shows how far the situation had developed.
To sum up, the author believes that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a complete exclusion of Chinese immigrants; not only unjust, but also inhumane. Chinese exclusion under the Chinese Exclusion Act targeted not only Chinese laborers, but all Chinese including teachers, students, businessmen, and even diplomatic personnel. Of course, it is true that there were still some Chinese who survived in the United States or were lucky enough to enter the country, but in fact their situation was quite difficult during the period of Chinese exclusion.
3. Reflections on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
The anti-Chinese movement in the United States first started among the people, eventually being taken up by the government, experiencing a development process from the local area to the whole country. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 marked the beginning of the American anti-Chinese movement, and the anti-Chinese movement has become the national policy of the United States. From the signing of the Burlingame Treaty to the promulgation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, we can see:
1. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 violated the Burlingame Treaty and marked a major change in U.S. immigration policy towards China.
Since its founding, America had pursued a policy of free immigration. The signing of the Burlingame Treating in 1868 guaranteed that Chinese immigrants could immigrate to the United States without any restrictions. However, just fourteen years after the treaty was signed, the U.S. government hastily passed and began enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting Chinese immigrants from immigrating to the U.S.. In this sense, the Burlingame Treaty, which was the international law in effect at the time, was torn to shreds and discarded. The promulgation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 represented the end of the liberal era of U.S. immigration policy towards China and the begging of an isolationist U.S. domestic policy.
In fact, the original goals of the U.S. Government’s attracting Chinese immigrants was to supplement the shortage in the labor market and develop the Western part of the country; while the goals of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. were to seek their fortune. Under the influence of parochial attitudes, they dreamed of returning to their hometowns after making enough money. But it beggars belief that at the same time as the Chinese, especially Chinese laborers, were risking their lives to build the Western United States, that anti-Chinese sentiment grew more and more common in American society, with escalating violence and anti-Chinese atrocities that grew out of control. As the economic crisis of the 1870s began to take shape, the situation of the Chinese became even more difficult. Anti-Chinese sentiment met the needs of the political struggle between the two major parties in the country, and the anti-Chinese movement developed from localized behavior to become national policy. Therefore, the Chinese Exclusion Act is the best illustration of the major shift in U.S. immigration policy towards China.
“According to statistics, in the three years from August 1882 to July 1885, the number of Chinese laborers murdered or forced to leave California totalled 50,174.” [12] (p42). This anti-Chinese period lasted from May 1882 to December 1943 (With the passage of the Magnusen Act, as the U.S. formed an alliance with China against Japan in World War 2 -Ed), more than half a century. This not only damaged the reputation of the United States as a Democratic country, but also seriously damaged the feelings of the Chinese people towards America.
2. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was not based on the objective situation within the United States or formulated after realistic consideration seeking truth from facts
When the domestic economy is in crisis, it may become very necessary to adopt a policy of restricting immigration, but the exclusion of Chinese immigrants was not the fundamental way to address the crisis [of the 1870s]. The United States is a country of immigrants, and the contributions of immigrants to the history of United States were massive, eventually helping the United States become a “two ocean country.” In this sense, the free immigration policy pursued by the United States was both noble and based in a realistic analysis of the situation. However, the direct consequence of this policy was that the number of immigrants entering the United States grew rapidly. According to official U.S. statistics, the population of the U.S. grew from 23 million in 1850 to 50 million in 1880, and the biggest reason for this was the influx of immigrants. [13] (p469) At the same time, “from 1860 to 1900, the population of the United States rose from 31 million to 76 million, and during these 40 years, about 14 million foreigners immigrated to the United States” [13] (p157).
Due to the economic crisis of the 1870s, competition for employment was very fierce, and a large number of workers lost their jobs. Although the root cause of the economic crisis lies in the capitalist system itself, it should be pointed out that the economic development of the United States at that time could not absorb so much labor force for the time being. "With the increase of foreign immigrants, restricting immigration became the primary need in the United States" [13] (p161). The U.S. government promptly proposing a measure to restrict immigration across the board could have not only been an option to prevent the development of the situation from becoming more vicious, it may have been fully necessary. But the U.S. Government did not do so.
In order to pass on pressure from the economic crisis, bourgeois politicians aimed their spearhead at the Chinese and continued to add fuel to the fire of anti-Chinese sentiment among white people. The U.S. government issued the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, but in reality the proportion of Chinese — among the immigrants to the United States and as a total proportion of the labor force — was quite small. This point has long been confirmed by scholars in the field. As far as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act itself is concerned, the exclusion of Chinese immigrants could not fundamentally solve the problem but only temporarily ease the class contradictions within the United States
Secondly, due to the exclusion of the Chinese, especially Chinese workers, the development of the Western United States was delayed. In the economic construction of the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, Chinese laborers made outstanding contributions. They not only engaged in the mining industry and accumulated funds for the construction of the Western United States, but also engaged in the construction of railways, which promoted the formation of a unified American market. In addition, they also made great contributions to the development of California agriculture. An archive of U.S. Senate records states as such, saying that without Chinese labor, it would have been impossible to turn California’s wasteland into fertile land, and it would have been impossible to turn all of California into a garden. [14] (p219) It can be seen that the hard work and sweat of Chinese workers undoubtedly permeated the fruitful achievements of California. Despite this, sacrificing the interests of Chinese laborers did not bring any benefits to the United States. On the contrary, the exclusion of Chinese laborers delayed the development of the Western United States. Perhaps this wasn’t an intended effect from the American bourgeoisie. Professor Mary Coolidge, a famous American historian, pointed out in her monograph Chinese Immigration that the development of the western region stagnated due to the loss of labor force such as Chinese laborers, and ripe fruit in California could not be picked in the orchards. This situation was made even more severe by the exclusion of the Chinese, a problem of population flow that was difficult to deal with in California. [14] (p144). Therefore, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had a strong impact on the economic development of the United States.
The United States has a tradition of pragmatic policymaking. If the liberal immigration policy adopted by the United States after its founding had been based on practical considerations, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was not based on the real needs of the United States, greatly compromising this pragmatic tradition. The bill was not formulated according to the national conditions of the United States, politically or economically, and lost a great opportunity for economic development by delaying the adoption of more restrictive immigration policies [beyond just Chinese laborers].
3. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had a strong negative impact on Sino-US relations, representing a major setback in their development.
More and more scholars at home and abroad believe that U.S. immigration policy towards China is closely linked to Sino-US relations, and that the U.S.’ exclusion of Chinese immigrants was undoubtedly a major setback for Sino-US relations and accelerates the separation between China and the U.S..
In 1868, the United States signed the Burlingame Treaty for two purposes: The first was to ensure the legalization of American labor recruitment in China. This point is often overlooked by academia. In the early trade between China and the United States, the total trade volume between the United States and China was 9.5 million U.S. dollars in 1845, and reached 22.5 million US dollars in 1860. During the Civil War, the commercial profits of trade with China reached 20 million U.S. dollars [14] (p154). In order to satisfy the commercial interests of American capital and pursue the growth of American wealth and power, the U.S. government adopted two-pronged measures.
On the one hand, it guaranteed the free flow of immigrants; However, contrary to expectations, during the 14 years since the Burlingame Treaty came into force, U.S. trade with China had been at a low ebb. In the 1870s, as anti-Chinese sentiment grew, America's enthusiasm for rapidly expanding foreign trade with China waned. The Burlingame Treaty became the target of the anti-Chinese activists, who regarded it as the biggest obstacle in their path forward, which must be removed first and then quickly. Under such circumstances, Chinese exclusion has naturally become a theme of American political life, and the American government has no time to take care of the development of business in China and the development of the market.
In 1882, with the promulgation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the United States implemented a "closed door" policy to the Chinese, and this situation became more and more obvious. Sino-US trade did not change until the end of the nineteenth century. But in China, the Chinese Exclusion Act aroused strong dissatisfaction among the Chinese people, especially the Guangdong area and the treaty ports along the Yangtze River, and the commercial interests of the United States in China were extremely adversely affected. Therefore, it can be said that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a huge damage to the relationship between China and the United States, which made the Sino-U.S. trade relationship go through a period of silence and delayed the growth of the U.S. trade with China. At the end of the nineteenth century, with the development of American industrial and agricultural production, the American economy’s demand for new markets became increasingly strong, and the United States once again focused on China. But this market development includes not only the economic market, but also the political, ideological, and cultural markets. The United States was trying to strengthen its control over China from all aspects.
To sum up, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 did not bring any benefits to the United States. On the contrary, it left a shadow that will never be erased in the history of the United States. For Americans, “America’s history of Chinese people is something Americans can never be proud of,” [15] (p221). "It is a historical mistake that should be corrected" [15] (p221).
References
[1] William A Hamm, From Colony to World Power: A History of the United States, D. C. Heath and Company, 1953
[2] Yang Guobiao et al., Chinese American History, Guangzhou: Guangdong Higher Education Press, 1989
[3] Song Li Ruifang, History and Current Situation of Chinese Americans, Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1984
[4] Chen Yifan, Chinese Americans, Worker Press, 1985
[5] Hao Guiyuan, “The Qing Government’s Negotiations with the United States on the Issue of Chinese Exclusion”, Collection of Essays on American History (1981~1983), Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1983
[6] Dai Chaowu, American Immigration Policy and Asian Immigration, Beijing: China Social Science Press, 1999 1
[7] Philip S Foner and Daniel Rosenberg, Racism, Dissent, and Asian Americans from 1850 to the Present, Greenwood press, 1993
[8] Li Jiujiu, Shi Lujia, Two Hundred Years of Sino-US Relations, Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 19841
[9] Chen Xiaoyan, Discrimination and Analysis of the Root Causes of Chinese Exclusion in Modern America, Journal of Hangzhou University (Philosophy Society Edition), 1998, (3): 721
[10] Zhuang Xichang, The Evolution of American Immigration Policy and China, History Teaching Issues, 1998
[11] Huang Shaoxiang, A Compendium of General History of the United States, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1979
[12] Li Jiujiu, Shi Lujia 1 Two Hundred Years of Sino-US Relations [M] 1 Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 19841
[13] T. Harry Williams, Richard N. Current and Frank Freidel, A History of the United States to 1877, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York, 1969
[14] Deng Shusheng, America and Immigration, Chongqing: Chongqing Press, 19901
[15] Deng Shusheng, American History and Americans, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1993