FYI EP2: The Historic Relationship between The US and China.

Chronology of U.S.-China Relations, 1784-2000

Eighteenth century

1784: First Representatives of the United States Went to China

A ship called the Empress of China became the first vessel to sail from the United States to China, arriving in Guangzhou (Canton) in August. The vessel’s supercargo, Samuel Shaw, had been appointed as an unofficial consul by the U.S. Congress, but he did not make contact with Chinese officials or gain diplomatic recognition for the United States. Since the 1760s all trade with Western nations had been conducted at Guangzhou through a set group of Chinese merchants with official licenses to trade. Some residents of the American colonies had engaged in the China trade before this time, but this journey marked the new nation’s entrance into the lucrative China trade in tea, porcelain, and silk.

1785: First Chinese Arrived in the United States

Three Chinese sailors arrived in Baltimore, where they were stranded on shore by the trading ship that brought them there from Guangzhou. There is no record of what happened to them after that.

1796: Macartney Mission to Beijing

The British Minister Plenipotentiary, Lord George Macartney, became the first Western diplomat to journey to Beijing in an effort to establish direct diplomatic relations with the Chinese imperial court. He received a rare audience with the Emperor, but in the end the effort was unsuccessful.

1810s: The Opium Trade Began

British merchants, seeking a commodity to trade for Chinese goods, began to smuggle Indian opium into China. Seeing that this raised the profit margins of the British, most American firms followed suit, although most obtained their opium from Persia, rather than India.

1830: First American Protestant Missionaries Arrived in China