Xiaoyan Zhou

Qing Perceptions of Anti-chinese Violence in the United States: Case Studies from the American West Xiaoyan Zhou

This book concerns Qing perceptions of Anti-Chinese violence in the United States. Before the Opium War, the number of overseas Chinese was ignored by the Qing government, which labeled them as ?deserters? or ?political conspirators?. The Opium War (1839-1842) resulted in a humiliating treaty, and the opening of the Treaty ports in the 1840s quickened the process of Chinese immigration. These increases in the number of overseas Chinese immigrants led to ill-treatment and violence in the American West including the 1880 Denver Riot and the 1885 Rock Springs Chinese massacre. After an initial period of ignoring emigration and emigrants, the government of the Qing dynasty was quite concerned about the welfare of its subjects abroad, but that it was quite new to the game of international diplomacy in the arena of nations. China?s efforts to protect its subjects abroad were thus stymied by that lack of experience, and by the fact that it did not have much real leverage, either in economic or military power, to persuade other states to extend the same benefits to Chinese immigrants as they generally did to European immigrants.