MAP 21.1 The Great Powers in East Asia, 1898–1910
European powers established dominance over China by way of “treaty ports,” where the powers based their naval forces, and through “spheres of influence” that extended from the ports into the hinterland. This map reveals why the United States had a weak hand: it lacked a presence on this colonized terrain. An uprising of Chinese nationalists in 1900 gave the United States a chance to insert itself on the Chinese mainland by sending an American expeditionary force. American diplomats made the most of the opportunity to defend U.S. commercial interests in China. As noted in the key, all place names in this MAP are those in use in 1910: Modern Beijing, for example, is shown as Peking.