US to control business with the Asian countries
The United States began its expansive activities Westward by overthrowing the Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani, in 1893. These expansive moves are referred to as the “Masculine thrust toward Asia” by Takaki. In his numerous articles, journals, and blogs, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan encouraged the American people, the upper class, to focus on sea power by building a vast economy based on sea conquest. He described sea power as the future that the American empire needed. In his article, “The New Empire: American Ascension and the New Navy,” he pushed the government to focus on sea superiority with the increasing industrialization. After the American-Spanish war, the US had emerged victorious in the Asian continent and needed a vast influence in China, that would provide both market and cheap labor for industrialization (Takaki, 1979). To meet its goals, Mahan proposed that the US needed to annex the Philippines, which was strategic for the conquest of China. Before his proposals, the Atlantic Ocean was critical to the world economy, but with his new revelation, the Pacific would prove more strategic to the world economy. He described this concept as the “Pacific Age.” His main suggestion was that by winning military superiority in the Sea, America would have influence over.
By the 1830s, Americans had a vast industrial set-up with constructions in the railway sector, machinery, and industries, which led to an increase in industrial production. However, the population growth was far less as compared to the increased productivity in the industries. This led to the emergence of the need for new overseas markets that would help in ensuring the sustainability of these industries (Takaki, 1979). Industrial areas had turned into cities and towns whereby people were migrating into the urban areas in search of employment in the industries. With over-crowding in the cities, there was a new threat to the capitalist rich people.
The rise of socialist societies was hugely influenced by the movement of people to cities and towns. Workers in the industries lived together in “industrial cages” that ensured that the workers did the same thing over and over. Due to this condition of working together, workers developed socialist ideas and posed a threat to capitalism. This led to a clash between the “dangerously rich and the dangerously poor.” The rich advocated for the capitalistic ideas, while the poor sought to uphold the socialistic ideas, which would hold them together.
With the increasing gap between the extremely rich and the poor, there was the development of modern-feudalism whereby the poor depended on the rich for survival. In their belief, the Anglo-Saxon population saw themselves as being ahead of other races in terms of development. Thus the other races were not fit to work in complex machinery. Additionally, the West provided land not only for economies but also for solving the class-tensions between the rich and the poor (Takaki, 1979). By the 1890s, civilization had occurred in cities and towns, and people had migrated into these cities. For this reason, there were no lands in these cities for expansive activities, a problem that prompted the rich to look for alternative lands in the West (Bevis, 2019). In these cities, Reverend Strong argued that civilization and savagery were finally meeting, brewing social problems.
American Imperialism in Asia began with the ideas of cultural racial and economic superiority. In racial superiority, Americans believed they were better than the Asians; thus, they needed to spread civilization in their world. Economically, the annexation of these countries would result in huge benefits, as they would offer a ready market for American manufactured goods (Quince, 2017). In this imperialism, the US took the Philippines from Spain, emerging as a new power in the Asian market. Primarily, imperialism was an outcome of the economic prosperity of the American people.
While economic ambitions drove expansion to the western parts, the US intentions in naval supremacy meant that the country was interested in controlling business in the Pacific. China, Japan, and Korea provided many imports that were more exotic as compared to exports from the US. For this reason, the US had other plans, other than the economic reasons (Takaki, 1979). The US Navy would play a crucial role in invoking economic rationale, which promoted the strategic extension of the US. For this reason, the Navy started acquiring bases in the Pacific world, leading to the creation of a “two-ocean navy.” In this new concept, the US would control business in the Pacific and the Atlantic by having the army in the two regions
Through the annexation of the Philippines, the US was not only in a strategic position to control business with the Asian countries but was also close to the China Sea. For this reason, the US would require little effort in instances of confrontations with the Asian countries. In essence, the initially economic interests yielded other strategic benefits to the US, with both military control and political influence in the Asian world (Quince, 2017). For instance, in the Korean and the Vietnamese wars, the US used its Pacific bases to conduct attacks and reinforcements. Thus the US influence in the Pacific is, by a great extent, crucial to the country.