Obama's Trip On Anniversary of U.S. Occupation and Attack on China
"U.S. Attack on China." That is not a typo.
In the uneasy years before the U.S. Civil War, a still-young nation found itself in a strange alliance with its former colonial owner, the British Empire, and America's key Revolutionary War collaborator, France.
The British were leading the charge, not the Americans, but it's understandable that Chinese observers would lump the British, French and Americans together as "Westerners." The British wanted unfettered access to Chinese markets, to expand the coolie trade, relaxation of duties, and, some say, an expansion of the opium trade. This latter aspect has caused journalists and others to refer to the ensuing conflict as the Second Opium War.
A small group of U.S. military, as few as 300 men, were given the task of protecting Americans living and working in China. Two ships, the USS Portsmouth and the USS Levant, were dispatched when tensions rose. The group then occupied Guangzhou (then called Canton), apparently without firing a shot. It was November 1856. The force withdrew on November 15 after negotiations with government officials.
During the withdrawal, at least one small boat was fired upon by the Chinese, with one exchange killing the coxswain. The Americans planned a retaliatory action that was to be carried out in the afternoon of the next day, November 16, the anniversary of President Obama's China visit.
To defend against shore-to-ship fire from Chinese forts, on November 20 the Americans attacked two of the forts, killing scores of defenders. But a larger Chinese force from the Qing Army was several miles away in central Guangzhou. This force assembled and gathered a force of at least a thousand men to retake the forts that had been lost. These major fortifications, according to some historians, were the most powerful in the Chinese Empire at the time.
The details of this military action can be gathered from a dramatic (though perhaps not wholly reliable) account that Bernard Nalty authored in his US Marine Corps 1958 account of the "Barrier Forts Battle." It's a good read for military history buffs, though little is known about the Qing Dynasty's military leadership or strategy; the apparently official USMC account covers the skirmish in valorous detail from a U.S. perspective.
So with the thousand-strong Chinese advancing upon the much smaller but better-trained force of American - ahem - imperialists who had overrun their forts, fast forward exactly 153 years ... and cut to Shanghai and President Obama's 2009 visit to the PRC.
"Mr. Obama, is the United States prepared to apologize for its role in what your historians call Second Opium War?"
To my knowledge, that question was not asked of the U.S. President on this visit.
It cannot be easily confirmed, but it would be fair to assume that Chinese history books cover this battle, and the Second Opium War more generally, with greater care than U.S. texts.
...Your time — and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse,
the final moment — the flower burning in the Day — and what comes after,
looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city
a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China...
from "Kaddish, Part 1" by Alan Ginsberg
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
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