West Across the Pacific: American Involvement in East Asia from 1 ...

Chapter 3, “The Immigration Cloud and Japanese-American Estrangement” begins as follows:

In this crucial chapter, Conroy documents how it was not so much Philander Knox’s (Taft’s secretary of state) doctrine of dollar diplomacy that upset the delicate balance of the open door initiatives, but racist behavior of Americans toward Japanese immigrants in California that upset that balance. Knox’s policy, Conroy assesses, did lead to some specific difficulties about the relationship between openness, territorial integrity of China, and rightful national interests, especially involving Japan and Russia in Manchuria; but in the long run, the realism of Knox’s framework, emphasizing trade, would cause less harm than the idealism of frameworks like Woodrow Wilson’s, emphasizing spreading democracy. The rise of American racism toward Asian immigrant workers in California represents the main change from 1906 to 1911, and this poisoned Japanese-American compromises to maintain a fair balance in East Asia. Conroy cites London Foreign Office representative in Tokyo Lord Grey’s “British shopkeeper’s assessment.” Quips Grey, “The American fleet paid Yen 3 million for the San Francisco incidents; further installments would be collected in Manchuria.” He referred to the U.S. Atlantic naval fleet’s grand 1908 trip to the Pacific, during which a stop in Japan had not been planned. The fleet ended up doing so to make amends; the sailors bought 3 million yen worth of Japanese goods. Gray also alludes to Japan’s beginning to link the Manchurian and California questions: we will not push the issue in California, but you must accept our legitimate special interests in Manchuria.