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Review of Chinese and Americans: A Shared History. Guo-qi Xu,
Chinese and Americans: A Shared History, 332pp. Cambridge,
Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2014.
HUANG Yi*
Keywords: China-U.S. relations, Sino-American Messengers, theInternationalization; Modern Cultural intercourse.

This monograph consists of three parts,
covering the period from mid-19th century
until the restoration of diplomatic relations
between the PRC and the United States inthe mid-20th century. The topics of the threeparts are as follows.
Part One: Messengers of the NineteenthCentury
Part Two: The Internationalization ofChina and the United States
Part Three: Popular Culture and SinoAmerican Relations
The subject of the part one is messengersof the nineteenth century. It mainly describes
the early intercourse between Late Qing
China and the United States, which began in the 1860s, through the following
three historical events: the Anson Burlingame Embassy toward the westernpowers, the Chinese Education Mission in the nineteenth century America,and Ge Kunhua’s, extraordinary experience as the first Chinese language
teacher in the United States. The first part gives us a full sense of theprogressive spirit of the Chinese people in the process of modernization and	  * Huang Yi 黄逸 is MA Student, Graduate School of East Asian Cultures, KansaiUniversity86

Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 10 2019the broad mind of the American nation. Undoubtedly, after the disaster of theBoxer Uprising from 1900 to 1901, China finally realized the necessity ofkeeping in line with the modern international community. Therefore, the early
20th century is an important moment in the Chinese history when ancient
China began to internationalize.
In the part two, Xu uses a lot of first-hand materials to show the influenceof American civilization on China in the early 20th century through theintercourse between two remarkable American scholars, Frank Johnson
Goodnow and John Dewey, and China. As a messenger of American administrative law and constitutional adviser of Yuan Shi-kai administration,
Goodnow asserted that the Chinese people at that time were not mature
enough for a democratic form. This caused him a long misunderstanding. On
the other hand, he conveyed the legal knowledge to China and kept theAmerican government and elite organizations informed about the development of Chinese internationalization. The intercourse between Dewey and theChinese younger intellectual generation in the early 20th century shows
another aspect of American culture’s influence on China. Through thedissemination of his many Chinese students and admirers, Dewey’s philosophy and ideas on education became popular in China for a while, andexerted a certain influence on the New Culture Movement and the New Life
Movement in the modern Chinese history.
Part three begins with the YMCA and the Linkage of Modern Chinese
Sports, especially the connection with China’s Olympic dream. Then, throughthe sport intercourse of the young People’s Republic toward the Americanpeople, so called the Ping-Pong diplomacy, explores the phenomenon ofmulticultural intercourse in modern U.S.-China relations. Throughout thiswork, Xu uses a great deal of historical documents and materials in Chineseand English, takes their shared history as breakthrough point of SinoAmerican relations in the past 200 years, highlights the shared characteristicsof Sino-American historical studies through the narration of some important
historical figures and historical events, and provides a new perspective andfield for the future study of U.S.-China relations.
Among the three parts, undoubtedly, the views on Anson Burlingame andhis mission in the first part gives me the greatest inspiration and influence.1
In this part, Anson Burlingame is regarded as the representative of Americancivilization. He successfully organized and implemented the cooperation
policy of the United States towards Qing China, which provides a construc1 The subject of my dissertation is a comparative study of the Anson Burlingame andIwakura Embassies from the perspective of Anglo-American news reports of the19th century.

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tive precedent for the open door policy at the end of the 19th century. As theauthor points out, the success of Burlingame’s cooperation policy depends
first on the cooperation of Britain, the strongest country at that time, and thecoordination with European powers. More importantly, after the bitter lessonsof the first and second opium wars, the ancient Celestial Empire began to bewilling to engage with Western nations in an equal manner, especially underthe encouragement of the friendly Anson Burlingame to China, to seek a newmode of relations between China and western world. Inspired by this spirit of
the times, Anson Burlingame, as the representative of the youngest nation
towards the oldest nation of the world, and eventually led China’s firstmodern diplomatic embassy to the wider world. In this moment, the value ofthe first Chinese messenger is observed by the American media:
One of the greatest honors ever paid to an American citizen, one of thegreatest acknowledgments and compliments ever given abroad to thiscountry, and one of the most useful positions ever awarded to one of ourcountrymen, is contained in the recent appointment of Hon. Anson
Burlingame as Ambassador to all the treaty Powers by the Chinese
government.…This Honour is unique. Very few countries ever selected
an ambassador before from among the citizens and officers of thecountry to be visited, and then extended his position to other countries
and confided to him the gravest matters of international law and ofcommerce. The mission is highly important, too, since it is designed toadvance our Pacific trade, and gives us full control of Chinese relations
with Europe, one of the most important and delicate matters pertaining
to our diplomacy. We feel a natural and national pride in the selection
thus made by China for such important work, and cannot but believe thatthe mission will be signally valuable to our trade and manufactures, anduseful to our growing relations with the Orient.2
Here, Burlingame is actually worthy of the China’s first messenger, as Xu
argues. At the same time, because of his special status, serving as both
American ambassador to China and a full representative of the Chinese court
to the West, he made a historic contribution to Sino-American relations.
Therefore, it is self-evident that the real history of Anson Burlingame and hisembassy is not only a part of Chinese history, but also a part of Americanhistory. It is also an important part of the history of the intercourse ofmodern Chinese and Western civilizations.
In this work, the shared history between China and the United States iswoven by the personal experiences of those important messengers. In fact, the2 North American and United States Gazette, Feb.10, 1868.

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Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 10 2019

Sino-American history which is shared by China and the United States is aglorious crown weaved by the tireless efforts of countless Chinese andAmerican personages, who dedicated themselves to mutual understanding andcooperation between the nations of the United States and China for a longtime. Although Anson Burlingame occupies an unshakable position in SinoAmerican relations, there were more Americans who stood behind him, andwho were earlier than him, rooted in the traditional Chinese society, anddevoted themselves to seeking the integration and coexistence of Chinese andWestern cultures. For example, Samuel Wells Williams is mentioned manytimes in this work.3 If we may say, Burlingame, the modern Moses from theyoungest nation of the world led Cathay into the modern international familyby the way of politics and diplomacy, the influence of Samuel Wells Williams
may be more profound and significant in the Sino-American relations. All ofworks of Samuel Wells Williams reveal an outstanding American sinologist’sunderstanding, sympathy, and expectation of ancient China. This noble
behavior also runs through Anson Burlingame’s short and glorious life.4 In
1875, when Samuel Wells Williams retired and returned to the United States,
the American media’s comments on his service and career in China are as
follows:This service so impressed our Government that he was at once commissioned as Secretary of Legation to China, and he still holds that position,
under the oldest Commission in our diplomatic corps. During twentyyears of labor inadequately paid, he has been of more value to ourcountry than any of our Ministers to China; and in the three treaties withthat country, which bear the names of Cushing, Ward and Burlingame,respectively, Dr. Williams was the intelligent adviser and agent, andwithout his acquaintance with the country and the Governments and thepeople, probably our diplomacy would have been in vain.5
As first China’s messenger, Burlingame laid a solid foundation for thedevelopment of Sino-American relations. That is, the United States treats
China equally, sincerely helps her enter a modern civilized society and helps
her realize modernization. The product of this consensus is the Burlingame
Treaty signed in Washington in July 1868. This treaty opened the door tomodern Sino-American exchanges. As described in this work, it provides a
3 cf. 陶徳民編『衛三畏在東亜：美日所蔵資料選編』、大象出版社、2016年。陶徳民「近代東アジアの変貌を目撃した二人の西洋人―『衛三畏文集』とDiaries and Travel Journals『関西大学中国文学会紀要』（37）（2016年）。
of Ernest Satowに寄せた序文―」
4 cf. Frederick Wells Williams. Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese Mission toForeign Powers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.
5 “A Remarkable Missionary Printer,” Daily Evening Bulletin, Sept.13, 1875.

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precious opportunity for the younger generation of China to study in theUnited States and understand the values of the American nation. The
following report shows the views of the American media in the 1870s on theearliest Chinese schoolboys studying in the United States.
The Chinese Government has sent forty students to the United States.
Those young men, who are of the Mandarin class, are to receive acollegiate education in this country, in a course that shall embrace aknowledge of our language, and practical art and science. The intention
at first was to send these students to England, but the advice and influence of George. F. Seward, United States Consul-General, caused them
to be sent to our country. Each one of these young men will go back,unintentionally, but surely, as a preacher on the value of international
intercourse, and the folly of the past exclusiveness of the greatest ofAsiatic nations.6
It was from then on that the American nation began to really influence
China, and China began to really face up to the young United States. OnAugust 8, 2008, on the day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic
Games, the newly established Embassy of the United Sates in the People’s
Republic held a ribbon cutting ceremony. To this ceremony, the US
Department of State issued a memorial album entitled《共同走过的日子－美中A Journey Shared: The United States and China-Two Hundred交往两百年》
Years of History. John Israel, a professor of Chinese history at the Universityof Virginia, pointed out in a commentary on this memorial album thatcommerce and culture are two main themes that allow us to grasp the two
hundred years history of intercourse between the United States and China.7 It
is through bilateral trade that young Americans begin to contact andunderstand the Chinese nation. By sending missionaries, they begin tointroduce American values and cultures to China with passion. It goes without
saying that Samuel Wells Williams has an unshakable place in that album.
During the first and second opium wars, it was with the efforts of thoseAmericans, who came to China earlier than Anson Burlingame, and thevalues and the morals of young American nation which ultimately prevented
the United States from doing as much harm to China as did the British.
Through his good deeds, Anson Burlingame raised the dialogue between
the two nations to a spiritual level. The Burlingame Treaty provided a broad
6 Daily Evening Bulletin, Aug.29, 1872.
7 John Israel, “《共同走过的日子－美中交往两百年》A Journey Shared: The United Statesand China-Two Hundred Years of History,” The Chinese Historical Review, 19:2,163.

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platform for all-round intercourse between the two nations in the spiritualfield and laid a solid foundation for the centuries-old Sino-American cooperation. As discussed in this work, it is on this basis that Goodnow puttedforward his own unique views on China’s constitutionalism. Dewey’s philosophical thoughts have influenced a large number of Chinese modernthinkers, including Hu Shi. Even in the cold war period, countless Chinese,
who were educated in the United States before 1949, silently prayed for therenewed cooperation between China and the United States. In fact, they are
the successors of Anson Burlingame, the watchers of friendly intercourse
between China and the United States, and the promoters of close cooperation
between China and the United States. The good wills of Anson Burlingame’s
spirit is embodied and inherited in them.
As Akira Iriye commented in the preface of this work, Xu’s monographbreaks through the category of traditional historical research, standing at theheight of the community of human destiny, it expands the field of investigation from one country’s history and one nation’s history to the field ofmulticultural coexistence. It shows the progress and integration of humancivilization and society by studying important historical figures and events.
This kind of research thinking and its achievements inspire the younger
generation of historical researchers, who are exerting a far-reaching andlasting influence not only in the field of historical research, but also in theinternational field of cooperation and multicultural integration. As far as I am
concerned, this masterpiece has greatly benefited me and has become an
important spiritual motive force guiding my future research.
Finally, I would like to conclude this review by quoting a statement by
Gu Wei-jun, the Chinese minister dispatched to the United States shortly after
the establishment of the Republic of China, the first republic in Asia. Thismessage fully reflected China’s new generation who were engaged in thedevelopment of Sino-Western intercourse initiated by Anson Burlingame, thefirst messenger of China and United States.
One of these facts is that the Chinese people are a progressive people. It
was only fifty years ago, in 1868, that Anson Burlingame, in response tothe welcome extended to him by the citizens of New York as the head ofthe first Chinese diplomatic mission sent abroad, announced that China
was “ready to take upon her ancient civilization the graft of your civilization.” Since that time progress in the modernization of China has beenvery rapid.8
8 Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo, “The New China and Her Relation to the World,”
Proceeding of the Academy of Political Science, vol.7, No.3 (1917): pp.1+3-9.