The recent incident between China and the U. S., involving the crew of one of our spy planes that inadvertently landed on Chinese soil due to harassment from a Chinese jet pilot, is the embodiment of a longtime American interest in the Chinese people, as one of the greatest opportunities for trade that ever existed. American clipper ships, called Chinese clippers, sailed from New England ports in the l8th and l9th centuries and created a class of trader barons, who became wealthy beyond imagination for their era. Other countries soon followed and fought for trading rights with the Chinese monarchy of that time, which opened a limited number of ports to trade.

In the 20th century, China underwent a tremendous upheaval as a monarchal system of government that had existed for thousands of years began to crumble. In order to sustain the monarchy, the Boxer Rebellion was encouraged in l900 to attack foreign interests wherever they existed in China. Again, trade was at the heart of the matter and the U. S., along with its European trading partners, helped to put down the rebellion. The monarchy crumbled and a fledgling democracy began to take hold. Once again, our trading interests spurred our diplomatic policy towards China and we supported that democracy.

As the Chinese democracy found it difficult to govern such a vast land, local warlords came into power and threatened the authority of the central government. In response, the U. S. and its trading partners asserted gun boat policy to protect our trading interests and our Christian missionaries.

This period of time also saw the beginning of the fledgling Communist party that competed with the warlords for control of the more rural portions of China and became a threat to the central government. All of this competition for control was bad for business, especially since China was and still is a vast storehouse of natural resources. In the early ‘30’s, another powerful nation, Japan, took an interest in China and its resources and set up a puppet government in Manchuria and turned its attention to invading China.

The central government by this time was too weak and the U. S. began looking to one of the strongest warlords, Chiang Kai-shek, as having the best chance to defend our interests in China. As the fighting between the Chinese warlords and Japan increased, the Communists who had retreated to their mountain stronghold during the Long March called a temporary truce with the warlords.

The U.S. offered clandestine aid to Chiang Kai-shek prior to our official entry in WWII. After we entered WWII, it became our policy to openly support Chiang Kai-shek and we and our British allies constructed the Burma Road and flew over the Himalayas to keep our Chinese allies supplied with war materials to enable them to fight the Japanese. With the end of the war, we continued to support Chiang, hoping that he would be strong enough to take on the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and restore democracy to China. It didn’t work. Chiang was driven out of mainland China to his island fortress of Formosa, now Taiwan.

We continued to support Chiang even though his government wasn’t a democracy at the time and the Formosa Straights became a battleground between the Communists and Nationalists, with the U. S. fleet protecting Formosa from an invasion. Thus, we had abandoned our long-standing policy of trade with mainland China to support a semi-dictator on his island empire.

After 50 years, we haven’t changed our policy towards supporting the Taiwanese government even though it isn’t in our best interests, especially if we want to continue that historic trade that began with the clipper ships and lasted into the early 20th century. What amazes me is that we continue to use spy planes off the Chinese coast when our spy satellites can tell us everything that we want to know as to what is going on in that country. I’m thankful that our crew is home, but I don’t give a fig about the status of that spy plane. It isn’t worth risking the potential for developing trade with the largest trading partner in the world. It’s time to reevaluate our policy of supporting a breakaway province of China created by a warlord, and like l3th century Marco Polo, rediscover the paths to trade.