Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Interests Of The United States In China. THE interests of the United States in China, aside from the protection of our citizens?a duty incumbent in all countries?must be calculated exclusively in dollars and cents. We have no territorial rights there, except for a faint approach to them in the form of a share in the foreign settlement at Shanghai. Some persons, looking at the question on what are called
broad grounds, regard the acquisition of the Philippines by the treaty of Paris as a step looking ultimately more to advantages in China than in the Philippines themselves. This act made the American flag a near neighbor of China. From Manila to Hong Kong and Shanghai is a voyage of but a few days, and the great city which is the capital of the Philippines may in that sense be regarded as a
stepping stone to China. Even omitting the Philippines from consideration the United States is a nearer neighbor of China than any European power except Russia, whose possessions touch every inch of her long northern boundary. The breadth of the Pacific, it is true, is a considerable separation between the house of one neighbor and that of another. But the voyagefrom Seattle or San Francisco to China is made in a little over two weeks by an almost direct route, while, except for Russia, Europe must resort to the long and tortuous passage by way of the Mediterranean sea and the Suez canal, and then double half way around Asia to reach the stopping place. The effect of this comparative nearness to China has been to put it in America’s power to gain a preponderance of the empire’s trade. Herein lies the importance to this country of the
open door, which we will consider further on. In the more exalted relation of international comity the United States has played a part i…
