Frontier Defense and the Open Door: Hunt's U.S.-China Policy

Hunt's Central Thesis

Michael H. Hunt's view of history and the world's events is that, as a historian, he should go beyond researching "historical simplicities" — and that by grasping a more "authentic version" of history, a historian and his informed society can "better cope" with today's and future dynamics. Hunt further believes that there are "relatively narrow limits" within which one country can expect to "bring its influence to bear" on another nation. A "realistic definition" of those narrow limits of influence, he continues, "presupposes" an equally realistic understanding of the nation being affected.

The bottom line of his thesis is that the United States — its diplomats with contacts in China and its policymakers with reference to China — has "traditionally slighted" the Chinese. This "misjudgment" on the part of America toward China should be, and in his book certainly is, brought out with clarity by historians who have the courage to be "critics" and not merely "chroniclers" of U.S. failures in this regard. Hunt concludes that his book was written with "one eye open for the misconceptions and prejudices of American statesmen and diplomats," and the other eye following the "Chinese side of the story."

This thesis is quite convincing from several points of view. Whatever influence the U.S. has attempted to bring to bear on nations in the Far East turned out to be, in most cases, what Hunt describes as something that "usually entails unforeseen consequences and unjustified costs." Moreover, as documented throughout Hunt's book, the U.S. has not demonstrated a "realistic definition" (ix) of the "limits of national influence" on Far Eastern nations.

Awareness of Previous Scholarship

Much of the material Hunt presents as part of his research is used strategically in his careful analysis. His engagement with previous historical documentation is meticulous, and when he summarizes others' research, he makes clear whose view he is promoting.

Although Hunt does not weave a wealth of previous research material — whether contrary or supportive of his positions — into his narrative, he appears exacting and thorough. One must remember that Hunt claims, and even emphatically asserts, that relatively few books or scholarly works have been published that look into the issues he is tackling with regard to U.S. policy and China and Manchuria. He states in his thesis that he is quite impatient with histories of American political involvement with China, because they have not always presented a "realistic" view of the arrogance the U.S. has displayed toward the East in general.

As for his thoroughness as a researcher, readers can quickly see that he goes to great lengths to back up his presentations of factual data, dates, names, treaties, speeches, and governmental actions. In his eighth chapter, "Crosscurrents in American Policy" (138–151), Hunt employs a total of 55 footnotes. He is exceedingly careful to footnote any documents used to support his contentions. Within those footnotes, he does more than merely cite a source — he also signals when certain pages of a reference work are "of particular interest," as on page 139, footnote 2, in his analysis of President Theodore Roosevelt's policy on Japan. This is Hunt's way of indicating that what he has written can be verified through previously documented historical sources.

Evidence Used to Prove the Thesis

This is not the kind of book — such as a psychology text or a literature review — where authors with opposing or contradictory views are presented in direct juxtaposition to the author's conclusions. Unlike a literary symbol in a novel, which can be interpreted in several ways, history is considerably less subjective. Even within the more objective genre of history, this book follows a path less frequently chosen — one that other researchers have largely declined to tread — and therefore there are not many editorial positions in opposition to Hunt's conclusions. Hunt nonetheless does a fine job of building his case where persuasion is required.

A clear example of Hunt's effort to prove his thesis appears on pages 143–144, written in the context of the U.S. Open Door Policy with reference to China, Manchuria, and Japan. The issue at hand is the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway and what role, if any, Japan and Russia would play, since the railway would leave China and enter Manchuria. Hunt assembles the pieces of the puzzle skillfully so that the reader can see the clearest possible picture.

The Secretary of State under President Roosevelt during the early twentieth century was Elihu Root, who, along with his young, activist staff, saw patronage with China as a way "to establish an informal American empire in East Asia." This policy was doomed to failure, however, as Hunt points out on page 138 — reinforcing his thesis that Americans have never truly understood China nor its history and culture — because "the activists thought of China in conventional stereotypes and lacked a coherent and detailed body of knowledge about either China or Japan to guide them."

Adding fuel to the fires set by Root's narrow vision and lack of cultural understanding of China was Root's decision in 1905 to bring into his department "forceful personalities" who held a "broad conception" of the U.S. role in the Pacific and a "strong anti-Japanese bias." One of these young figures was Willard Straight, who, like his aggressive State Department colleagues, had developed a "contempt for 'Orientals'" and a taste "for power and the diplomatic game." Hunt goes to considerable length to paint a portrait of Straight that builds his larger case, as stated in the thesis: the real history of U.S. involvement in the Far East is a shameful, arrogant story that needs to be told by historians willing to act as critics rather than mere chroniclers.

Straight had traveled through China, Korea, and Japan, Hunt explains, in search of a "romantic, elusive goal he pursued" — a "Kiplingesque desire to play the man of action in a strange land." Much of the detail on Straight was drawn from Straight's diary and from letters to family and colleagues, all carefully footnoted by Hunt. Straight was also, according to documents uncovered by Hunt, a racist and an anti-Asian demagogue. The larger question this raises is how a man so ignorant of Chinese culture, so absorbed in his own fantasy of being a "man of action," and so poorly schooled in diplomacy could have arrived at such a prestigious position in the U.S. State Department. Hunt quotes Straight directly: "I now find myself hating the Japanese more than anything in the World…[which is due] to the constant strain of having to be polite and to see favors from a yellow people" (144).

Conclusion

Hunt's Frontier Defense and the Open Door stands as a carefully documented, if openly partisan, account of American diplomatic failures in the Far East. His argument that U.S. policymakers were driven by cultural ignorance and racial arrogance is supported by meticulous primary-source research, and his broader thesis — that historians must serve as critics rather than mere chroniclers — gives the book an enduring relevance to the study of U.S. foreign policy history.