with the United State becoming a colonial power in the Pacific after its victory in the Spanish American war, many American imperialists desired to extend U.S. economic expansion to China. America textbooks point out that the United States was recovering from one of the worst depressions when the opportunity to go after the elusive "China trade" became a reality. U.S. economic imperialism was nearly thwarted, the text add by the "great power"(i.e.,Western Europe and Japan) who had already carved into their own "sphere of influence". Coveting the China trade, the American Secretary of State circulated his "Open Door Notes" to the great power (
page 126 History Lessons: Teaching, Learning, and Testing in U.S. High School Classrooms S. G. Grant )
Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary in the eye of Latin America
Brazil
The consolidation of the capitalist regime after the civil was also favored the US imperialist expansionism throughout the American continent and Asia. The Monroe Doctrine and the theory of Manifest Destiny formed the ideological basis for the US to assume the guardianship of the entire American continent......
Cuba, in 1898, was a Spanish colony and it was fighting for its independence under the leadership of Jose Marti. Under the pretext of protecting North American properties and lives, the US intervened in the region, combating the Spanish army and winning Cuba's independence. In this war, the US obtained for itself the annexation of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.
The Cuban Constitution of 1901 included, by US imposition, the Platt Amendment, which gave the right to the US to intervene in the country, in addition to the concession of an area of 117 Km. Guantanamo Base(still today , an American military base on Cuban territory). The intervention in Cuba lasted until 1959, when Fidel Castro assume the government f the island and installed a socialist regime.
In 1903, the US encourage the Panamanian separatists' movement in Colombia. In exchange, the US received from the newly formed Panamanian government the right to finish the construction of a canal, linking the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. That work started in 1881 by France. Later ,the US also obtained from the Panamanian government the right to control the Canal Zone indefinitely. But During the 70's , a nationalist campaign promoted by the Panamanian government denounced that agreement and the US agreed to turn the canal back to Panama at the end of the 20 the century.
The US also intervened in Nicaragua in 1909, and occupied its territory until 1933 aiming to stabilize the region which was in a near constant state of rebellion. During the period of occupation there were insurrections against the American military presence in the country. ....
Through its many military interventions, the US ended up exerting complete economic guardianship in the region. page 135
Costa Rica
The foreign companies were developing in those territories that controlled an economy in parallel with that of the host country, where in general , US laws governed both contracts and workers and dollars were used an currency. ...
The necessities of US consumers determined the type of Latin American production. For example, the expansion of the automotive industry in the United States favored the exploitation of rubber in the Amazon basin and in the growing boom of petroleum in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico.
While the Caribbean specialized in the cultivation of sugar cane, the United Fruit Company dominated vast plantations of bananas in all of Central America, Venezuela and Colombia. The economies of Brazil and Costa Rica also depended to a high degree on their coffee production and the demand for their product in Europe and in the United States. page 136
There are also descriptions by Cuba ,Nicaragua and Caribbeans but I'll stop here for now. But note that all of Latin American countries characterize the US as Imperialist.
And it is interesting to see how Japan emulated Monroe doctrine and applied it to Asia.
It is no exaggeration that Japan , more or less, mirrored the U.S. But Alas there was an intersection Japanese Imperialist and the U.S. Imperialists were destined to meet, and collide---their interests conflicted over China. (It is ironical that Truman was later blamed for having lost China.)
It might be offensive for Americans to hear that Japan mirrored the U.S.
But it seems that is exactly what Japanese were in mind.
We have learned many things from America ----especially in dealing with neighboring unstable government, and when we put the lesson into practice, we are severely criticized by our teacher -- -Inazo Nitobe(Address at Institute of Politics, Williams town, Massachusetts,1932)
Haven't you heard of Perry? Don't you know anything your country's history?....Tokugawa Japan believed in isolation; it didn't want to have anything to do with other countries and had its doors locked tightly. then along came Perry from your country in his black ships to open those doors; he aimed his big guns at Japan and warned, "If you don't deal with us, look out for these;open your doors, and negotiate with other countries too." And then when Japan did open its doors and tried dealing with other countries, it learned that all those countries were a fearfully aggressive lot. And so for its own defense it took your country as its teacher and set about learning how to be aggressive. You might say we became your disciples. Why don't you subpoena Perry from the other world and try him as a war criminal?---- General Ishiwara Kanji, at the Tokyo war-crime trials in May 1946.( page 173 the tragedy of Great power politics. John J. mearsheimer)
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Under Wilson, the United States intervened in Latin America more often than at any other time in our history. We landed troops in Mexico in 1914, Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, Mexico again in 1916 (and nine more times before the end of Wilson's presidency), Cuba in 1917 and Panama in 1918. Throughout his administration Wilson maintained forces in Nicaragua, using them to determine Nicaragua's president and to force passage of a treaty preferential to the United States.
In 1917 Woodrow Wilson took on a major power when he started sending secret monetary aid to the "White" side of the Russian civil war. In the summer of 1918 he authorized a naval blockade of the Soviet Union....(page 23) Not one of the the twelve American history textbooks in my sample even mention it. .....Textbooks might (but don't ) cal Wilson's Latin American action a "Bad neighbor Policy....Some textbooks blame the invasion on the the countries invaded:"Necessity was the mother of armed Cari bean intervention.....(page 24).........
All twelve of the textbooks I surveyed mention Wilson's 1914 invasion of Mexico, but they posit that the intervention was not Wilson's fault.
(Lies My teacher told me James W. Loewen
Roosevelt mixed conciliation with firmness in dealing with Japan's evident new power. On the one hand, he sanctioned agreement with japan that mutually recoginized U.S. interests in the Philippines and Japanese in terests in North Asia. At home, when the San Francisco School Boad angered Japan with its order to establish a separate school for "Oriental" children, Roosevelt summoned school officials to the White House to resolve the issue. On the other hand , he also dispatched the U.S. fleet on a world tour to demonstrate American power and resoluve to the Japanese. It was at this time that both the U.S. and Japanese navies began to regard each other as primiary hypothetical enemies. page 95 Japan rising,Kenneth B. Pyle
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