The Ambassador Who Served Two Nations: US and China

When it comes to the relationship between the United States and China, many people mistakenly think it started with the landmark visit to China by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Henry Kissinger, who arranged the visit, was and still is considered by many as the most trusted China hand who has been shuttling between the two countries for the last four decades, even in the current increasingly acrimonious environment.

What is much less known is the historical role played by an earlier American diplomat, Ambassador Anson Burlingame, an ardently anti-slavery congressman from Boston whom President Abraham Lincoln appointed as the Ambassador to China on June 14, 1861, not too long after China lost the Second Opium War to the European colonial powers and was forced to cede territories, legalized opium trade, and accepted trade conditions imposed.

Upon arrival to China, Mr Burlingame, whose Chinese name was 蒲安臣, traveled throughout different parts of China learning about the problems of the Chinese people and particularly about the unfairness of the treaties that had been imposed on China by the European colonial powers. Mr Burlingame worked for a cooperative policy with China rather than the imperialistic policies of force which had been used during the Opium Wars and developed relations with the reform elements of the Chinese government. The new approach aimed at treating China in a peaceful manner and upholding that nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Some of the opposition to European colonial ambitions came from American ideals as a new nation that had overthrown their British colonial masters in the American Revolution. But more important was the economic reality. The United States was not powerful enough to project itself militarily against European powers across the world to protect their trade interests, especially as they faced a civil war at home. They wanted to keep world markets open to American traders, not closed in captive colonial markets that Americans were barred from.

For seven years, Mr Burlingame resided in China as the American representative and dutifully served his country with consummate ability and tact. He not only strongly advocated the interests of United States he represented but he did more than this - he succeeded in winning at the same time the respect and confidence of the Chinese officials with whom he came into contact by his invariable fairness and courtesy. In 1865-1866, Burlingame returned to the United States on home leave and toured the country, giving lectures in support of the Chinese and for friendly relations between the two countries. Consequently when he was about to return to the United States at the end of his duty, the Chinese Government entrusted him, with the permission from the United States Government, with a diplomatic mission to the United States. In effect, he became the first de facto Chinese Ambassador to the United States.

Thus he went to China as America's representative and came back to America as China's spokesman. One of the most important results of his mission was the signing of a treaty between China and America which has since borne his name. This treaty has done more than anything to leave in the Chinese mind an ineffaceable impression of the just and fair attitude of the United States towards China. It recognized China as a diplomatic equal, akin to the major European powers. It also recognized China's right to control its own territory, allowed it the right to open diplomatic consulates in US ports, and made a mutual promise to protect each other's citizens in each country. The extraordinary document was the result of Burlingame's close connections and high standing with Republican politicians in Washington and in the administration of President Andrew Johnson.

“His outlook upon the world and its affairs was as wide as the horizon, and his speech was of a dignity and eloquence proper to it. He dealt in no commonplaces, for he had not commonplace thoughts. He was a kindly man, and most lovable. He was not a petty politician, but a great and magnanimous statesman. He did not serve his country alone, but China as well. He held the balances even. He wrought for justice and humanity. All his ways were clean; all his motives were high and fine.” - Mark Twain

Attached in the end of the post is a speech by Burlingame on behalf of China advocating the bi-lateral relationship during his visit to New York. The speech eloquently articulated the sentiment from the China perspective he was representing at the time. For the most part, the speech is so astonishingly relevant to the current political environment as if it was just delivered yesterday.

Lets use some imagination fast forward one hundred fifty years later. If Burlingame could achieve such an impossible feat to bridge the differences between two nations: one of the youngest vs. one of the oldest on the planet at the time with barely anything in common, I am hopeful that US and China today, with so much at stake and so much common interests, should be able to find a diplomatic solution to overcome the current crisis, no matter how remote that may appear.

(Mr Anson Burlingame was born in New Berlin, New York. I did not know at the time but Mr Burlingame is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, less than 3 miles from where I used to live when I was studying at MIT.)

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Speech by Mr Anson Burlingame in New York on June 23, 1868

Mr. President, and Citizens of New York, our ?rst duty is to thank you for this cordial greeting: to say to you that it is not only appreciated by us, but that it will be appreciated by the distant people whom we represent to thank you for this unanimous expression of good will on the part of the great City of New York; to thank you that, rising above all local and party considerations, you have given a broad and generous welcome to a movement made in the interests of all mankind.

We are but the humble heralds of the movement. It originated beyond the boundaries of our own thoughts, and has taken dimensions beyond the reach of our most ardent hopes. That East, which men have sought since the days of Alexander, now itself seeks the West. China, emerging from the mists of time, but yesterday suddenly entered your Western gates, and confronts you by its representatives here tonight.

What have you to say to her? She comes with no menace on her lips. She comes with the great doctrine of Confucius, uttered two thousand three hundred years ago, “Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.” Will you not respond with more positive doctrine of Christianity, “We will do unto others what we would have others do unto us?” She comes with your own international law; she tells you that she is willing to come into relations according to it, that she is willing to abide by its provisions, that she is willing to take its obligations for its privileges. She asks you to forget your ancient prejudices, to abandon your assumptions of superiority, and to submit your questions with her, as she proposes to submit her questions with you – to the arbitrament of reason. She wishes no war; she asks of you not to interfere in her internal affairs. She asks you not to send her lecturers who are incompetent men. She asks you that you will respect the neutrality of her waters, and the integrity of her territory.

She asks, in a word, to be left perfectly free to unfold herself precisely in that form of civilization of which she is most capable. She asks you to give to those treaties which were made under the pressure of war, a generous and Christian construction.

Because you have done this, because the Western nations have reversed their old doctrine of force, she responds, and, in proportion as you have expressed your good will, she has come forth to meet you; and I aver, that there is no spot on this earth where there has been greater progress made within the past few years than in the empire of China. She has expanded her trade, she has reformed her revenue system, she is changing her military and naval organizations, she has built or established a great school, where modern science and the foreign languages are to be taught.

She has done this under every adverse circumstance. She has done this after a great war, lasting through thirteen years, a war out of which she comes with no national debt. You must remember how dense is her population. You must remember how difficult it is to introduce radical changes in such a country as that. The introduction of your own steamers threw out of employment a hundred thousand junk-men. The introduction of several hundred foreigners into the civil service embittered, of course, the ancient native employees. The establishment of a school was formidably resisted by a party led by one of the greatest men of the empire.

Yet, in de?ance of all these, in spite of all these, the present enlightened government of China has advanced steadily along the path of progress – sustained, it is true, by the enlightened representatives of the Western powers now at Peking, guided and directed largely by a modest and able man, Mr. Hart, the Inspector-General of Customs at the head of the foreign employees in the empire of China.

Yet, notwithstanding all these things, notwithstanding this manifest progress, there are people who will tell you that China has made no progress, that her views are retrograde; and they tell you that it is the duty of the Western Treaty Powers to combine for the purpose of coercing China into reforms, which they may desire, and which she may not desire – who undertake to say that this people have no rights which you are bound to respect. In their coarse language they say, “Take her by the throat.” Using the tyrant’s plea, they say they know better what China wants than China herself does. Not only do they desire to introduce now the reforms born of their own interests and their own caprices, but they tell you that the present dynasty must fall, and that the whole structure of Chinese civilization must be overthrown. I know that these views are abhorred by the Governments and the countries from which these people come; but they are far away from their countries, they are active, they are brave, they are unscrupulous, and if they happen to be offcials it is in their power to complicate a?airs, and to involve, ultimately, their distant countries in war.

Now, it is against the malign spirit of this tyrannical element that this mission was sent forth to the Christian world. It was sent forth that China might have her di?culties stated. That I happened to be at the head of it was, perhaps, more an accident than any design. It was, perhaps, because I had been longer there than my colleagues, and because I was about to leave; and, perhaps, more than all, because I was associated with the establishment of the co-operative policy which, by the aid of abler men than myself, was established not many years ago; and it is to sustain that policy – which has received the warm approval of all the great Treaty Powers, and which is cherished by China – that we are sent forth. It is in behalf of that generous policy, founded on principles of eternal justice, that I would rally the strongest thing on this earth, the enlightened public opinion of the world.

Missions and men may pass away, but the principles of eternal justice will stand. I desire that the autonomy of China may be preserved. I desire that her independence may be secured. I desire that she may have equality, that she may dispense equal privileges to all the nations. If the opposite school is to prevail, if you are to use coercion against that great people, then who are to exercise the coercion, whose force are you to use, whose views are you to establish? You see the very attempt to carry out any such tyrannical policy would involve not only China, but would involve you in bloody wars with each other.

There are men – men of that tyrannical school – who say that China is not ?t to sit at the Council Board of the nations, who call her people barbarians, and attack them on all occasions with a bitter and unrelenting spirit. These things I utterly deny.

I say on the contrary, that this is a great, a noble people. It has all the elements of a splendid nationality. It is the most numerous people on the face of the globe; it is the most homogeneous people in the world; it has a language spoken by more human beings than any other in the world, and it is written in the rock. It is a country where there is greater uni?cation of thought than any other country in the world. It is a country where the maxims of great sages, coming down memorized for centuries, have permeated the whole people, until their knowledge is rather an instinct than an acquirement; a people loyal while living, and whose last prayer, when dying, is to sleep in the sacred soil of their fathers. It is the land of scholars, it is the land of schools, it is the land of books, from the simple pamphlet up to encyclopedias of 5,000 volumes. It is a land, as you Mr. President, have said, where the privileges are equal; it is a land without caste. For they destroyed their feudal system twenty-one hundred years ago, – and they built up their structure of civilization on the great idea that the people are the source of power. That idea was uttered by Mencius, twenty-three hundred years ago, and it was old when he uttered it. The power goes forth from that people into practical government, through the competitive system, and they make scholarship the test of merit.

I say it is a great people; it is a polite people; it is a patient people; it is a sober people; it is an industrious people, and it is such a people as this that the bitter boor would exclude from the council hall of the nations; it is such a nation as this that the tyrannic element would put under its ban. They say of this people – nearly half of the human race – that they must become the weak wards of the West – wards of nations not so populous as many of their prov- inces – wards of people who were young when their youngest village in Manchuria was founded.

I do not mean to say that the Chinese are perfect. Far from it. They have their faults, like other people; they have their pride, like other people; they have their prejudices, like other people. These are profound, and must be overcome. They have their conceits, like other people, and these must be done away with; but they are not to be done away with by talking to them with cannon, by telling them that their people are weak, and that they are barbarians No, China has been cut o?, by her position, from the rest of the world. She has been separated from it by limitless deserts, and by broad oceans. But now, when the views of men expand, we behold the very globe itself diminished in size. Now, when science has taken away, or dissipated the desert; when it has narrowed the ocean, we ?nd that China seeing another civilization approaching on every side, has her eyes wide open. (Applause.) She sees Russia on the north, Europe on the west, America on the east. She sees a cloud of sail on her coast, she sees the mighty steamers coming from everywhere – “bow on.” She feels the spark from the electric telegraph falling hot upon her everywhere; she rouses herself, not in anger, but for argument. She ?nds that by not being in a position to compete with other nations for so long a time she has lost ground. She ?nds that she must come into relations with this civilization that is pressing up around her, and feeling that, she does not wait but comes out to you and extends to you her hand.

She tells you she is ready to take upon her ancient civilization the graft of your civilization. She tells you she is ready to take back her own inventions, with all their developments. She tells you that she is willing to trade with you, to buy of you, to sell to you, to help you strike o? the shackles from trade. She invites your merchants, she invites your missionaries. She tells the latter to plant the shining cross on every hill and in every valley.

For she is hospitable to fair argument. I say she tells you she is willing to strike o? the shackles of trade. She o?ers you almost free trade today. Holding the great staples of the earth – tea and silk – she charges you scarcely any tari? on the exports you send out in exchange for them. (Applause.) She is willing to meet the inferior questions which are now arising as to transit- dues, and if you only have patience with her, and right reason on your side, she will settle these to your satisfaction.

But the country is open; you may travel and trade where you like. What complaint then, have you to make of her? Show her fair play. Give her that, and you will bless the toiling millions of the world. Their trade, carried on in foreign vessels, which has in my own day in China, risen from $82,000,000 to $300,000,000, is but a tithe of the enormous trade that will take place with China when she gets into full fellowship with the rest of the world.

Let her alone; let her have her independence; let her develop herself in her own time, and in her own way. She has no hostility to you. Let her do this, and she will initiate a movement which will be felt, in every workshop of the civilized world. She says now: “Send us your wheat, your lumber, your coal, your silver, your goods from everywhere – we will take as many of them as we can. We will give you back our tea, our silk, free labor, which we have sent so largely out into the world.” It has over?owed upon Siam, upon the British Provinces, upon Singapore, upon Manila, upon Peru, Cuba, Australia, and California. All she asks is, that you will be as kind to her Nationals as she is to your Nationals.

She is willing not only to exchange goods with you, but she is willing to exchange thoughts. She is willing to give you what she thinks is her intellectual civilization in exchange for your material civilization.

Let her alone, and the caravans on the roads of the North, toward Russia, will swarm in larger numbers than ever before. Let her alone, and that sil- ver which has been ?owing for hundreds of years into China, losing itself like the lost rivers of the West, but which yet exists, will come out into the a?airs of men. Let her alone, and those great lines of steamers, the “P. and O.” and Messagerie Imperiale, may multiply their tonnage. Let her alone, and your own great line, the pride of New York, the Paci?c Mail – and as many other lines as you may choose to establish – may increase their ton- nage tenfold; and they will still, as at present, have to leave their freight upon the wharves of Hong-Kong and Yokohama.

The imagination kindles at the future which may be, and which will be, if you will be fair and just to China. But, citizens of New York, I must close. I have spoken at considerable length already. I must thank you once again for this kind, this generous, this unanimous reception. So intertwined are the a?airs of men, that whatever New York thinks and feels unanimously, will be felt and thought in all the commercial capitals of the Christian world.

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