| ID | 187749 |
| Title Proper | U.S.-Korean Conflict of 1871 and Imperial Commonality in the East Asian Arena |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Nitschke, Christoph |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | When the United States attacked the Kingdom of Korea in May and June 1871, it did so as part of its presence as a minor but ambitious power in the crowded Western Pacific. U.S. expansion had long revolved around ideas of maritime greatness and the dream of linking East Asian and Atlantic world commerce.1 Framing Western-Asian relations for three generations, a fast-multiplying set of unequal treaties opened ports, fixed tariffs, and forced legal exemptions. The United States never acquired possessions under the treaty system, but conquest or purchase was not the only way to make an “insular” empire. First introduced to East Asia in the U.S.-imposed Treaty of Wanghia in 1844, elastic extra-territoriality created a separate legal terrain under the jurisdiction of Western consular courts that “stretch[ed]” the borders of the home polities. By codifying the idea that only Western nations, including the junior United States, were civilized enough for full sovereignty, Americans embraced and advanced this quintessentially imperial order.2 Involvement in Asia was therefore also a device for U.S. recognition alongside globally-active European empires. The United States here engaged in “collaborative competition” with Great Britain, a “hitchhiking imperialism” merely obfuscated by the Monroe Doctrine’s rhetorical demarcations. Out of ambition as well as necessity, U.S. commercial and diplomatic exploits relied on the backing and emulation of the British Empire. In the 1860s and 1870s, the exigencies of the “Salt Water Civil War” and the enormous political-economic challenges of nation-building only reinforced the need for a pragmatic Asiatic presence.3 Americans in East Asia were very much part of what one historian has called “the ultimate test of Europe’s capacity to construct a stable and co-operative colonial order.” It is within this context of collective and cooperative Western imperialism in China and Japan that the U.S. military expedition to Korea has to be placed. |
| `In' analytical Note | Diplomatic History Vol. 46, No.5; Nov 2022: p. 929–959 |
| Journal Source | Diplomatic History Vol: 46 No 5 |
| Key Words | U.S.-Korean Conflict of 1871 ; East Asian Arena |