China and the Founding of the United States: The Influence of Traditional Chinese Civilization by Dave Xueliang Wang (review)

Dave Xueliang Wang's China and the Founding of the United States draws from a broad and ever-evolving literature on early U.S.–Sino relations to determine how early Americans "welcomed positive elements from Chinese civilization while integrating those same elements into an authentic, distinctly American culture that in turn had been inspired by the winds of change propelled by the best of the Age of Enlightenment that had emerged in Europe" (1). Benjamin Franklin, who worked hard to cultivate an image as a Confucian-like dispenser of folksy wisdom, quickly becomes the central figure in Wang's story. Yet the author also takes care to examine the ways that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, and John Adams also selectively selected borrowed from Chinese philosophy, technology, horticulture, and culture to help promote their visions of America as a nation distinct from its British roots.

Wang's account is timely, coming as it does a quarter-century after the publication of Jacques Down's pathbreaking The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844 (Chicago, 1997) and Weng Cheong's The Hong Merchants of Canton: Chinese Merchants in Sino-Western Trade, 1684–1798 (New York, 1997). Throughout his work, Downs revealed how Philadelphia merchants, cast out of British markets in the wake of the American Revolution, dispatched the Empress of China to Guangzhou to break into the lucrative China trade. Cheong accordingly examined how Hong merchants adopted western business practices in dealing with American and European merchants. Down's and Cheong's work inspired James R. Fichter, John R. Haddad, John Kuo Wei Tche, and Paul Van Dyke to chart how the founding generation's positive views of China as an ancient, scholarly, and orderly society gave way in the 1840s to depictions of the Chinese society as authoritarian and stagnant.

China and the Founding of the United States begins by discussing how leading colonists viewed Confucius as an exemplar of the frugality, self-discipline, and virtue they hoped to inculcate in ordinary Americans. As Wang reminds us, Benjamin Franklin once noted that when Confucius "saw his country sunk in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having by his doctrine won them to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes" (156–57). Yet Wang also shows how Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Rush admired Confucius's commitment to rigorous education, particularly moral instruction, as essential to social harmony. In Chapter 2, we learn how leading founders pointed to Chinese architectural triumphs as examples for America to emulate. For instance, Franklin invoked the Great Wall to argue for a barrier to defend British North America from French Canada. Gouvernour Morris furthermore cited China's grand canal in calling for an artificial waterway to connect the Hudson to the Great Lakes. (This project would find completion with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.) Noting that both China and the United States were primarily agricultural nations, Wang, in Chapter 3, reveals how early Americans incorporated Chinese crops and plants into their physical landscapes. For instance, Franklin urged American farmers to invest in mulberry bushes and tallow trees, which could be used in silk and soap production. George Washington instructed his slaves to plant gardenias, camellias, and Cherokee roses on the grounds of Mount Vernon. Chapter 4 examines how wealthy Americans purchased "Chippendale Chinese" furniture, wallpaper, and rice paper to demonstrate their gentility and sophistication. Although many colonists boycotted tea during Parliament's taxation schemes of the 1760s and 1770s, they quickly returned to their favorite non-alcoholic beverage following the American Revolution. Leading Patriots also wanted to create a factory to churn Chinese porcelain locally rather than relying on British knockoffs. Chapter 5 examines the origins of U.S. trade with China, centering on...