ABSTRACT

This chapter summarizes the experience of "business" in China following the acquisition of the "new empire" in 1898-1899. Cotton goods manufactured in the south were marketed in China. Works in the progressive tradition assign great importance to role of "big business" both with respect to the origins of the 1898 war and to the subsequent acquisition of "the empire". Contrasting with the many predictions about the promise of "the China market", in the 1912 publication Copeland assesses the "various fields for further expansion" and concludes that "Canada is, perhaps, the most promising and that trade will develop of itself, hindered only by artificial tariff barriers". A modest achievement, the purpose was strategic—the island was located on the Gulf of Tonkin opposite Haiphong and Hanoi, then part of French Indo-China. Walter LaFeber's discussion of United States' policy with respect to the Philippines and China contains no direct support for his claims about "business" interest and influence.