The China Trade and Transformations in Early U.S. Political Economy

Abstract

<p><em>Trading Freedom</em> affords deep insight into the foundational impact of Sino-U.S. commerce on the developing U.S. political economy across a “long nineteenth century” that stretches from the 1780s to the decade after Chinese Exclusion (1882). According to author Dael Norwood, early U.S. policymakers and politicians assessed how the global prospect and pursuit of “China Trade” would bolster domestic development amidst ongoing compromises over federal authority, slavery, and westward expansion. After the Civil War, Reconstruction policies embraced the global flows of goods and people in expanding individual rights related to citizenship and immigration. Corruption and financial crisis ended Reconstruction, ushering in a new era of political compromise that stymied liberal idealism of wedding freer global trade to expansive civil rights. U.S. policymakers, diplomats, and large corporate entities pursued regulatory measures to direct U.S. exports into a “China Market” of Chinese consumers whom federal policies deprived of previous rights of movement to and from the United States.</p>