ABSTRACT
The United States intervened in China with troops to counter the Boxer Rebellion, the anti-imperialist movement that began effectively in June 1900 with the siege of the legation quarter in Peking where the foreign embassies were located. The names and dates of acquisition of the holdings in the maps of the "New Empire" suggest early and sedulous "imperial outreach". Mexican-American relations in the first decades of the twentieth century might well be characterized as involving "informal empire". Early in the twentieth century, Japan began producing cotton cloth and, with greater efficiency, lower costs, and easier access, entirely displaced the United States. The figures on US exports to China for the first half of the twentieth century indicate that most businessmen agreed with Worthington Ford's pessimistic assessment. The American effort is best seen as a relief expedition intended to save the lives of threatened Americans rather than as part of a grand imperial design.
