26 Times the US Sent Armed Forces to China

Fifty years after President Richard Nixon’s historic flight to China that heralded closer and warmer ties between the U.S. and the communist country, relations between the world’s top economies have chilled considerably.

Tensions remain high since former U.S. President Donald Trump escalated confrontation with the People’s Republic of China over long-simmering concerns about the country’s authoritative, state-controlled capitalism, rising militarization, and approach to human rights. The Americans had hoped that opening trade relations would instill a more liberal Chinese government system but now seem fed up with China’s state capitalist system.  

For their part, the ruling Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping accuses the U.S. of attempting to suppress the country’s development as China attempts to shift away from its heavy reliance on factory work to an economy focused on domestic consumption. Chinese officials also view the U.S. as a superpower in decline, wreaked domestically with ongoing racial injustices, growing income inequalities, cultural polarizations, and political gridlock. (Also see, comparing America’s 20 richest cities to China’s.)

With the many issues between the two countries, it is worth looking back at the history of U.S.-China relations, particularly the decades leading up to the communist takeover of the country in 1949. 

These actions date back to 1843, when the U.S. first deployed forces on Chinese soil in the wake of Britain’s victory in the First Opium War — actions that underscore just how turbulent China’s history was prior to the emergence of communism under Mao Zedong and his “Great Leap Forward” that led to the death of tens of millions of Chinese during the Cold War.

To identify the 25 times the United States has sent armed forces to China, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2023,” a report updated June 7, 2023 by the Congressional Research Service.

U.S. military interventions in China can be divided into three categories: the latter half of the 19th century as Western powers (namely Britain and the United States) pried open trade concessions through violence and coercion; the tumultuous period in the early years of the 20th century that led to the end of China’s imperial dynasties and eruption of civil war; and the years leading up to and through World War II and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. (See China’s 8 biggest weapons manufacturers and what they build.)

This period includes British traders flooding China with opium and two wars the Chinese fought against Japanese occupiers — events that fostered anti-foreigner sentiment among the Chinese population that required the U.S. to routinely deploy forces to protect its citizens and trade interests.

Here is every time the U.S. sent military forces to China.

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