Timeline Sino-American relations

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• 1784 - "America's first trading ship to go to China, named The Empress of China anchored there Saturday, August 28, 1784. On board as Supercargo, (the ship's business agent), was Samuel Shaw, representing the first USA businessmen willing to risk sending a cargo for trade with China." - The Beddoe Tract
• 1807 - "On September 4, 1807, a thin-looking, twenty-five-year-old Englishman, Robert Morrison, stepped off an American steamer in the southern Chinese port of Canton." - from Jesus in Beijing - More Christian protestant missionaries to China, among them many Americans here
  
• 1810 - "American Board, organized in Boston in 1810. This organization, one of the most significant Protestant missionary organizations in USA, sent out missionaries to China, India, South America, Africa and the Middle East..." - Turkish studies
• 1818 - "Samuel Russell & Company in Canton, China and Perkins & Company in the USA jointly set up an electrical company called Russell & Company..." - link
• 1823 - "The Monroe Doctrine, which was proclaimed by the USA in 1823, was evidence of its claims to the monopolistic exploitation of the countries of Latin America. During the 1840’s and 1850’s the USA foisted unfair treaties on China and Japan." - Colonies and colonial policy
• 1839 - "His American Fur Company purchased tons of Turkish opium and shipped the contraband to the USA. In 1839, the first Opium war between China and England to suppress opium traffic into China begins. The Chinese loose in 1842, and the English takes over (some say stole) Hong Kong as a convenient trading post with direct access to mainland China." - Golden Triangle
• 1842 - "Significant urban development [for Shanghai] began only after the signature of the Treaty of Nanking between Britain and China in 1842, at the conclusion of the first Opium War. With that and subsequent agreements with the USA and France, China agreed to open Shanghai and certain other ports to foreign commerce." - Secret War in Shanghai
• 1844 - "The Treaty of Wanghia is a diplomatic agreement between the Qing Dynasty of China and the United States, signed on 3 July 1844 in the Kun Iam Temple. It is considered an unequal treaty by many sources." - Wikipedia
• 1849 - "The first significant Chinese immigration to the United States began with the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855, and continued with subsequent large labor projects, such as the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad. During the early stages of the gold rush, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were tolerated, if not well-received." - Wikipedia
• 1847 - "In 1847, the American Methodist Episcopal Society (North) entered the field of China, and soon surpassed all others in the number of its agents and members." - Wikipedia
  
• 1854 - "Beginning in 1854, American warships conducted cruises along the Yangtze River in China. Initially the mission of these cruises was to show the American flag and support American consular officers. The mission became more complex over time with the added trappings of supporting American foreign policy in defining the relationship between the USA and China and later with Japan." - link
• 1855 - China's Taiping rebellion - "The U.S. diplomats were essentially an appendage of British policy. In 1855, the Rev. Peter Parker, an old China hand from Yale, was named U.S. consul. He proposed that the United States back the British treaty demands, and that France should be given Korea, while the U.S.A. took Formosa." - link
  
• 1866 - "On the world scene, the USA, China, Brazil, Mexico, France, and Argentina together account for 75% of the world's corn production, the US accounting for about 40% of this total." - excerpt from book
• 1868 - "The entry of the Chinese into the US was, to begin with, legal and uncomplicated and even had a formal judicial basis in 1868 with the signing of the Burlingame Treaty between the United States and China." - Wikipedia and Relevance of The Compromise of 1877
• 1877 - "William Scott Ament was a missionary to China ... and was known as the "Father of Christian Endeavor in China." Ament became prominent as a result of his reported heroism during the Boxer Uprising..." - Wikipedia
  
• 1887 - "In 1887, Barker worked with the Chinese ambassador to the USA, Chang Yen Hoon, to develop railroad, telephone, and telegraph lines in China." - link
  
• 1989-1901 - "The United States played a secondary but significant role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion..." - Wikipedia
  
• 1899 - " In September 1899, Hay addressed notes to the governments of Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, mentioning that US “commercial organizations” wished to maintain an “open door” in China." - link - see also Open Door Policy (Wikipedia)
  
• 1904 - " Even in 1904, when the exclusion of Chinese workers became permanent, small numbers of students, businessmen, and clergy continued to enter the USA from China." - excerpt from book
  
• 1918 - "In the Far East the USA did not try to prevent Japan's occupation of Northeast China in 1931." - link
  
• 1923 - "Since around that time, anti-Japanese propaganda had been spread by the Americans who were in China..." - link
  
• 1929 - "the USA and China signed a customs agreement which meant that the two countries from 1 January 1929, would recognize each other's customs autonomy and afford each other a most-favored-nation status in the customs area..." - excerpt from book
  
• 1936 - "In 1936, the USA accounted for 22 percent of China's exports and 20 percent of its imports." - excerpt from book
  
• 1937 - "American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl Buck, and Time Magazine of Japanese brutality in China." - Second Sino-Japanese war 1937-1945
  
• 1945 - "After World War II ended in 1945, the hostility between the ROC and the CPC (Communist Party of China) exploded into open civil war. General Douglas MacArthur directed the military forces under Chiang Kai-shek to go to the island of Taiwan to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, thus beginning the military occupation of Taiwan." - Wikipedia
  
• 1949 - "After the fall of China to communism in 1949, all US embassies in China were closed because the Chinese Communist leadership believed that the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai Shek had been funded by the USA in the civil war..." - excerpt from book
  
• 1950 - "After the civil war, the USA did not recognize the PRC and used its veto power to prevent the PRC from taking the seat designated for China in the UN Security CounciL In April 1950, the USA embargoed nearly all goods into China." - excerpt from book
  
• 1950 - "Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when the U.S. and PRC's forces fought directly against each other in the Korean War starting on November 1, 1950." - Korean War
  
• 1956 - " Under the influence of the competitors between the USA and USSR in the field of military prowess, China started its development of space technology in 1956." - link
  
• 1965-1970 - "Between 1965 and 1970, over 320,000 Chinese soldiers fought the Americans along side the North Vietnamese Army." - Vietnam War
  
• 1972 - "The Soviet Union issued its first sharp at tack on President Nixon's trip to Peking on Tuesday, accusing China of "entering a dangerous plot with the ruling circles of the USA..." - link - see also 1972 Nixon visit to China
• 1975 - "China accused the United States today of supporting Tibetans who seek to restore the exiled Dalai Lama to power in Tibet, which the Chinese Communists control." - link
  
• 1979 - "In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China." - Wikipedia
• 1980 - In 1980, Deng Xiao Ping founder of modern China launch his new policy of opening China to the world and warm considerably the relations with USA." - link
• 1981 - "The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by PRC objections to the level of U.S. arms sales to the Republic of China on Taiwan." - Wikipedia
• 1989 - "In the period before the June 3–4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements." - Wikipedia - see also Tiananman Square protests of 1989
• 1998 - "On 18 June 1998, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhu Bangzao in a public occasion called for a US–Chinese agreement on a NFU nuclear policy." - link
• 2001 - "Sino-American relations changed radically following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The PRC offered strong public support for the war on terrorism." - Wikipedia
  
• 2003 - "According to the Union of Swiss Banks and the OECD, in June 2003, China, Japan, Hongkong and South Korea together held 696 billion dollars' worth of US Treasury Bonds." - link
  
• 2004 - " In April 2004, at the Sino-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, China and the USA agreed to lift the ban and resume trade on poultry products between the two countries." - link
• 2009 - "With Barack Obama taking office on January 20, 2009, there are hopes for increased co-operation and heightened levels of friendship between the two nations." - Wikipedia
  
• 2011 - Hu Jintao visit to the White House - "The Chinese president was treated lavishly, granted the honor of the third state dinner of Obama's presidency." - link
  

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