Fateful Ties

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FEB 23, 2015

Stanford University historian Chang analyzes the past 300 years of Sino-American relations, as the world's most populous nation is poised to regain economic supremacy. It's a succinct, sharply focused analysis, and Chang underlines America's status as a fledgling nation while China was an ancient empire, opening with the familiar scene of the Boston Tea Party. He notes that by the 19th century, Americans required 30 million pounds of Chinese tea per year to quench their collective thirst. As a result, New England entrepreneurs with surnames such as Forbes and Astor sailed Yankee clippers laden with furs across the Pacific to seek their fortunes. Americans, unlike their European counterparts, came to China as the "three M's, merchants, missionaries, and military," with Rev. Harry Luce father of Time and Life founder Henry among the most influential. American Protestant missionaries left the most enduring legacy by setting up institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile, at home, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented legal immigration until 1943, but Pearl S. Buck (the child of missionaries) gave Americans insights into China in an era before mass media. Chang acknowledges that his own heritage, which dates to the 1850s Chinese diaspora in California, provided the impetus for this research, and though his title carries ominous undertones, he ends with an optimistic view of future relations.