America's China Trade in Historical Perspective
America's China Trade in Historical Perspective

Author: Ernest R. May

Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780674030756

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This volume explores commercial relations between the United States and China from the eighteenth century until 1949, fleshing out with facts the romantic and shadowy image of "the China trade." These nine chapters by specialists in the field have developed from papers they presented at a conference supported by the national Committee on American-East Asian Relations. The work begins with an Introduction by John K. Fairbank, then moves on to analysis of the old China trade up to the American Civil War, centering on traditional Chinese exports of tea and silk. A second section deals with American imports into China--cotton textiles and textile-related goods, cigarettes, kerosene. Finally, the impact of the trade on both countries is assessed and the operations of American-owned and multinational companies in China are examined. For both the United States and China, the economic importance of the trade proves to have been less than the legend might suggest.

Trading Freedom
Trading Freedom

Author: Dael A. Norwood

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2022-01-18

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0226815587

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Introduction: America's Business with China -- Founding a Free, Trading Republic -- The Paradox of a Pacific Policy -- Troubled Waters -- Sovereign Rights, or America's First Opium Problem -- The Empire's New Roads -- This Slave Trade of the Nineteenth Century -- A Propped-Open Door -- Death of a Trade, Birth of a Market.

China, Trade and Power: Why the West’s Economic Engagement Has Failed
China, Trade and Power: Why the West’s Economic Engagement Has Failed

Author: Stewart Paterson

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1907994823

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From a Western point of view, the policy of economic engagement with China has failed. A rapid rise in living standards in China has helped legitimize and strengthen the Chinese Communist Party’s power. How did Western, market-orientated, property-owning, liberal democracies go from being in a position of complete global hegemony in the early 1990s to the current crisis of confidence and loss of moral foundation? This book tells the story of the most successful trading nation of the early twenty-first century. It looks at how the Communist Party of China has retained and cemented its monopoly on political power since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001. It is the most extraordinary economic success story of our time and it has reshaped the geopolitics not just of Asia but of the world. As China has come to dominate global manufacturing, its economic power has been translated into political power, and the West now has a global rival that is politically antithetical to liberal values. The supply-side deflation from allowing 750 million low-cost workers into the global trading system combined with the policy of inflation targeting by Western central banks has led to falling real incomes for many in the West and rising asset prices that have benefited the few. Worse still, China’s mercantilist model is now held up as a viable economic alternative. To have a fighting chance of protecting the freedoms of liberal democracies, it is of the utmost importance that we understand how the policy of indulgent engagement with China has affected Western society in recent years. Only then can the global trading system be reoriented for the mutual benefit of all nations.

Schism
Schism

Author: Paul Blustein

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1928096867

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China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was heralded as historic, and for good reason: the world's most populous nation was joining the rule-based system that has governed international commerce since World War II. But the full ramifications of that event are only now becoming apparent, as the Chinese economic juggernaut has evolved in unanticipated and profoundly troublesome ways. In this book, journalist Paul Blustein chronicles the contentious process resulting in China's WTO membership and the transformative changes that followed, both good and bad - for China, for its trading partners, and for the global trading system as a whole. The book recounts how China opened its markets and underwent far-reaching reforms that fuelled its economic takeoff, but then adopted policies - a cheap currency and heavy-handed state intervention - that unfairly disadvantaged foreign competitors and circumvented WTO rules. Events took a potentially catastrophic turn in 2018 with the eruption of a trade war between China and the United States, which has brought the trading system to a breaking point. Regardless of how the latest confrontation unfolds, the world will be grappling for decades with the challenges posed by China Inc.

Clashing Over Commerce
Clashing Over Commerce

Author: Douglas A. Irwin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-11-29

Total Pages: 873

ISBN-13: 022639901X

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A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs

America's First Adventure in China
America's First Adventure in China

Author: John R Haddad

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2013-03-29

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1439906912

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In 1784, when Americans first voyaged to China, they confronted Chinese authorities who were unaware that the United States even existed. Nevertheless, a long, complicated, and fruitful trade relationship was born after American traders, missionaries, diplomats, and others sailed to China with lofty ambitions: to acquire fabulous wealth, convert China to Christianity, and even command a Chinese army. In America's First Adventure in China, John Haddad provides a colorful history of the evolving cultural exchange and interactions between these countries. He recounts how American expatriates adopted a pragmatic attitude-as well as an entrepreneurial spirit and improvisational approach-to their dealings with the Chinese. Haddad shows how opium played a potent role in the dreams of Americans who either smuggled it or opposed its importation, and he considers the missionary movement that compelled individuals to accept a hard life in an alien culture. As a result of their efforts, Americans achieved a favorable outcome—they established a unique presence in China—and cultivated a relationship whose complexities continue to grow.

China's Influence and American Interests
China's Influence and American Interests

Author: Larry Diamond

Publisher: Hoover Press

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0817922865

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While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

Breaking with the Past
Breaking with the Past

Author: Hans Van de Ven

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 0231137389

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From 1854 to 1952, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service delivered one-third to one-half of all revenue available to China’s central authorities. Much more than a tax collector, the institution managed China’s harbors and surveyed the Chinese coast. It oversaw a college training Chinese diplomats; translated legal, philosophical, economic, and scientific documents; organized contributions to international exhibitions; and pioneered China’s modern postal system. After the 1911 Revolution, the agency began managing China’s international loans and domestic bond issues, and in the 1930s, it created a coast guard to combat smuggling. The Customs Service was central to China’s post-Taiping entrance into the world of modern nation-states and twentieth-century trade and finance, and this is the first comprehensive history of the Customs Service’s activities and truly cosmopolitan nature. At times, the Service kept China together when little else did.

China Goes to Sea
China Goes to Sea

Author: Andrew S. Erickson

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 161251152X

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In modern history, China has been primarily a land power, dominating smaller states along its massive continental flanks. But China’s turn toward the sea is now very much a reality, as evident in its stunning rise in global shipbuilding markets, its vast and expanding merchant marine, the wide offshore reach of its energy and minerals exploration companies, its growing fishing fleet, and indeed its increasingly modern navy. Yet, for all these achievements, there is still profound skepticism regarding China’s potential as a genuine maritime power. Beijing must still import the most vital subcomponents for its shipyards, maritime governance remains severely bureaucratically challenged, and the navy evinces, at least as of yet, little enthusiasm for significant blue water power projection capabilities. This volume provides a truly comprehensive assessment of prospects for China’s maritime development by situating these important geostrategic phenomena within a larger world historical context. China is hardly the only land power in history to attempt transformation by fostering sea power. Many continental powers have elected or been impelled to transform themselves into significant maritime powers in order to safeguard their strategic position or advance their interests. We examine cases of attempted transformation from the Persian Empire to the Soviet Union, and determine the reasons for their success or failure. Too many works on China view the nation in isolation. Of course, China’s history and culture are to some extent exceptional, but building intellectual fences actually hinders the effort to understand China’s current development trajectory. Without underestimating the enduring pull of China’s past as it relates to threats to the country’s internal stability and its landward borders, this comparative study provides reason to believe that China has turned the corner on a genuine maritime transformation. If that proves indeed to be the case, it would be a remarkable if not singular event in the history of the last two millennia.