Race and International Politics:

How Racial Prejudice Can Shape Discord and Cooperation among Great Powers

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Zoltán I. Búzás, M.A.

Graduate Program in Political Science

The Ohio State University

2012

Dissertation Committee:

Alexander Wendt, Advisor

Ted Hopf

Randall Schweller

Ismail White
Copyrighted by

Zoltán I. Búzás

2012
 Abstract

This dissertation is motivated by the fact that race is understudied in the

discipline, despite its historical importance in international politics, its ubiquity in

adjacent disciplines, and its importance in the “real” world. It attempts to mitigate this

problem by extending the study of race to the hard case of great power politics. The

dissertation provides a two-step racial theory of international politics according to which

racial prejudices embedded in racial identity can shape patterns of discord and

cooperation. In the first step, racial prejudices embedded in different racial identities

inflate threat perceptions, while prejudices embedded in shared racial identities deflate

them. In the second step, racially shaped threat perceptions generate behavioral

dispositions. Inflated threat perceptions predispose racially different agents towards

discord, while deflated threat perceptions predispose racially similar agents towards

cooperation. The theory works best when states have dominant racial groups, they hold

activated threat-relevant racial prejudices, and when threats are ambiguous.

Three empirical chapters assess the theory’s strengths and probe its limits. The

first shows how racial prejudices regarding fundamental difference and aggressive

intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japan and, with British cooperation,

led to the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923). The second traces how

ii
racial prejudices regarding aggressive intentions and irrationality inflated American

threat perceptions of Chinese nuclear proliferation and, with Soviet cooperation, resulted

in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The last one illustrates how racial prejudices of

immorality and aggressive intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japanese

foreign direct investment in the 1980s and led to the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment. The

dissertation concludes with a discussion of race and the legitimacy of the liberal

international system in the context of rise of the developing world.

iii
 Acknowledgments

I wrote the dissertation during what is now called “The Great Recession,” when

much of the world struggled with debt. In a way, it is a child of its time. In the course of

writing it I accumulated so much intellectual and emotional debt that without regular

“bailouts” from generous friends and teachers I would not have been able to finish it. The

generous grant awarded by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies allowed

me to do archival research without accumulating financial debt. In classes offered by

Richard Herrmann, Jennifer Mitzen, and Daniel Verdier I learned even more than I

realized at the time. Fellow graduate students did much to make my graduate school

experience more productive and more fun. At the “Wendt workshop” they provided

useful feedback on various draft chapters. On the fun side, I particularly enjoyed

Thursday night soccer. For all this and more, I thank Bentley Allan, Austin Carson,

Aldous Cheung, Kevin Duska, Jason Keiber, Josh Kertzer, Tim Luecke, Eleonora

Mattiacci, Fernando Nunez Mietz, John Oates, Xiaoyu Pu, and Clement Wyplosz.

I was fortunate to have the support of an outstanding dissertation committee.

Randy Schweller has provided critical feedback and encouragement since the early days

of the dissertation writing seminar (PS 846). Ted Hopf’s expertise, careful reading of and

detailed feedback on every chapter made the dissertation incomparably better. Ismail

iv
White guided me patiently to the most relevant aspects of the race literature. Most

importantly, I am grateful to Alex Wendt. It was in one of Alex’s seminars that I got

interested in race and international politics. His gentle guidance, encouragement, and

generosity were critical ingredients not only of completing the dissertation, but of my

professional development more generally. As an academic, I will aspire to live up to the

high standards of professionalism, open-mindedness, and kindness Alex embodies.

Prior to the years spent at Ohio State, I have benefitted enormously from being

taught by several people. As an undergraduate, the classes of Ovidiu Pecican, Liviu

Tirau, and Sergiu Miscoiu sparked my interest in international politics. Daniel M. Green,

Matthew J. Hoffmann, Stuart Kaufman, and Mark Miller helped me take the first steps in

graduate school.

I am most thankful to my family. My parents, Ernest and Georgeta Buzas, have

been an infinite reservoir of emotional support. Our Saturday afternoon chats have

always put things in the right perspective. Mom’s occasional “Are you still not done

yet?” gently reminded me that I cannot retire from graduate school. My brother, Ernő,

was a good friend. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Erin Graham, to whom I owe

most. Erin read every page of the dissertation and provided detailed feedback, listened to

my long monologues on race during our evening walks, and made me laugh when I

needed it most. I am truly blessed to have had her in my life throughout this time.

v
 Vita

2004 ............................................................ B.A. European Studies and International

Relations, Babeş-Bolyai University (RO)

2006 ............................................................ M.A. Political Science, University of

Delaware

2007-2012 ................................................... Graduate Student Associate, Department of

Political Science, The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Political Science

vi
 Table of Contents

Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iv

Vita ............................................................................................................................... vi

List of Tables............................................................................................................... viii

List of Figures ............................................................................................................... ix

Chapter One: Introduction ..............................................................................................1

Chapter Two: A Racial Theory of International Politics ................................................. 31

Chapter Three: Race and the Demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1923 ......... 91

Chapter Four: Race and the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty ......................................... 165

Chapter Five: Race and the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment ......................................... 233

Chapter Six: Conclusion ............................................................................................. 295

References ................................................................................................................... 322

Appendix A: List of Texts Used in Chapter Three Content Analysis ............................ 357

Appendix B: List of Texts Used in Chapter Four Content Analysis .............................. 363

vii
 List of Tables

Table 1. A Typology of Race Relations ......................................................................... 21

Table 2.1: Mapping the Race Debate ............................................................................. 41

Table 2.2: Hypotheses Linking Racial Identity to Threat Perception .............................. 70

Table 3.1: Japanese in the United States, 1880-1920 ...................................................... 97

Table 3.2: Power Indicators: US, Britain, and Japan .................................................... 121

Table 3.3: Content Analysis Frequency Test ................................................................ 154

Table 4.1: Content Analysis Threat Frequencies ......................................................... 225

Table 4.2: Alternative Explanation Keyword Frequencies ........................................... 226

Table 5.1: Japanese FDI Perceived as More Threatening than European and Canadian

FDI .............................................................................................................................. 250

Table 5.2: Direct Investment Position in the United States by Country of Ultimate

Beneficial Owner, 1980-90 ......................................................................................... 252

Table 5.3: The 1988 Trade Act Votes and COPE Ratings ........................................... 284

Table 6.1: Summary of Findings ................................................................................. 300

viii
 List of Figures

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: The Causal Chain......................................................................................... 78

Figure 3.1: Content Analysis Frequency Test by Year ................................................ 155

Figure 3.2: Word Cloud of Concordance Test .............................................................. 157

Figure 4.1: Rising ‘Yellow Peril’ and Falling ‘Red Peril’ ............................................. 188

Figure 4.2: China More Peaceful After Going Nuclear ................................................ 218

Figure 4.3: Correlation between Race and the China Threat ......................................... 227

Figure 5.1: Voting on the 1988 Trade Act ................................................................... 284

ix
 Chapter One: Introduction

One of the earliest and most influential textbooks in International Relations (IR),

written in 1925, opened with an invitation to imagine how “the Man in the Moon” would

see the “Human World”. One of the first things he would notice, readers were told, is that

the globe is inhabited by people of “different hues”. In Europe and America he would

find the white man, in Asia the yellow and the brown man, and in Africa he would find

the black man. If “the Man in the Moon” looked carefully enough, he would find that

people differed not only in terms of physical characteristics, but also in terms of “material

and mental accomplishments”. In Europe and North America he could see “sky-scraper

cities, steaming ships, roaring railways, blasting furnaces, soaring airplanes, honking

automobiles, and greasy gas-stations.” Asia and Africa were home to “the more leisurely

life of the shepherd, the farmer, the huntsman and the nomad,” but also to “sleeping

sickness, pugnacious neighbors, beasts of the jungle, the terrors of nature…and the

grasping exactions of the white man.”

If the “Man in the Moon” took a closer look, he would notice that troubled

relations among races were at the heart of international politics. As the rise of the non-

white world challenged “white supremacy,” the author worried about “the conflict of

color”. In the Middle Ages wars were religious, in the nineteenth century they were

1
national, but in the twentieth century they threatened to be racial. What made interracial

relations particularly explosive was the deep-seated nature of racial prejudices.1 The

textbook then went on to discuss various other topics in international relations, many of

which were connected to race and racism.

This IR textbook serves as a reminder that race is one of the most powerful ideas

that shaped modern international politics and its study. The views of the author,

Harvard’s Raymond L. Buell, were representative of the discipline at the time. 2 The

importance given to race reflects the recognition that to a significant extent international

relations were interracial relations. 3 For centuries, race contributed to the hierarchical

structure of the international system. The degree to which political units were sovereign,

were protected by international law, and had privileged access to material resources

depended partly on their position in this racial hierarchy. Because at the discipline’s birth

racial ideas were remarkably influential, IR was profoundly shaped by race, as Buell’s

International Relations illustrates. That Foreign Affairs grew out of The Journal of Race

Development suggests that thinking about international politics was intertwined with

race.4 As one scholar put it fourteen years after Buell,

“For the last century there has been growing in the popular mind the belief that race
is a hidden and all-powerful force essential and decisive for the human animal in
his evolutionary process. It is held to embrace an extraordinary range, being
responsible for cultural clashes between nations, for economic rivalries, for the

1
Buell 1925, 3-5, 57.
2
That Buell and his position on race was representative of the discipline is supported by several indicators:
1) his IR textbook was positively received in the discipline, was widely used at the college level, and went
through multiple editions (Saunders 1926; Garner 1930; Vitalis 2000, 353, fn 89); 2) he also published
widely in the mainstream political science journals of the time (including Political Science Quarterly,
Foreign Affairs, and APSR) and occupied positions of influence in the profession.
3
Lauren 1996, 10, 47.
4
Vitalis 2010, 929.
2
 necessary enslavement of inferior races, for revolts against authority, for migration
and wars.”5

Since Buell wrote his IR textbook, much progress has been made on the problem

of racism. Before things got better, they first got worse, however. Although Buell’s

concerns about racial conflict did not materialize in a global race war, they were partially

fulfilled by the Holocaust and the merciless killing during World War II. Following

WWII, decolonization and civil rights movements gradually dismantled (at least

formally) the racial hierarchic system. The United Nations Charter, the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, and various other legal instruments prohibited racial

discrimination. In addition, progress has been made on material inequality and racial

prejudice. Global wealth inequality is decreasing as the developing world is catching up

with the developed world. Public opinion surveys consistently find that explicit racism is

declining. These legal-institutional, material, and social-cognitive changes amount to a

shift from a racial hierarchic international system to one based on racial equality.

Although the importance of this systemic change cannot be understated, it should

not be equated with a change from a racial to a post-racial system. A large body of

interdisciplinary work on race has made a convincing case for the continuing, albeit

changing, relevance of race.6 Even in the US, where Barack Obama’s election as

President signaled a change in racial attitudes, and where racial categories are changing

in interesting ways, post-racialism is not in sight.7 Race remains one of the central

5
Snyder cited in Furedi 1998, 62.
6
Banton 1990; Goldberg 2002; Murji and Solomos 2005; Winant 2002.
7
Bobo and Dawson 2009; Hochschild, Weaver, and Burch 2012.
3
categories through which we think, talk, and act. Once thought to be “the phlogiston of

our time,”8 race continues to subtly influence international politics.

Several examples suggest the continuing influence of race and racism. Brazil’s

former president, Lula da Silva, in 2009 blamed the financial crisis on “the irrational

behavior of white people with blue eyes.”9 Far from being an idiosyncratic statement, the

statement reflects Brazil’s color-conscious approach to international politics. 10 Few know

that one initial impetus of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests was the Nanjing anti-

African movement, sparked by Chinese opposition to contact between African male

students and Chinese women.11 The secretary-general of the Organization of African

Unity called the racial incidents “appalling,” while African students, haunted by Chinese

cries of “Black devils, go home!,” talked of “apartheid in disguise.” 12 Some argue that

American opposition to Japanese whaling is partly motivated by racism. While Norway

harvests annually 700 minke whales in the North Atlantic Ocean (0.5 percent of the total

population), and Japan harvests 400 minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean (0.05 percent

of the total population), it is Japanese whaling that elicits stronger opposition. Some

studies found that racism is partly to blame. 13 South Africa’s apartheid system survived

until 1994 and some of its effects persist. The UN’s Durban Conferences on race and

racism still elicit passionate debates. Issues related to immigration, global inequality, and

indigenous rights typically also contain a racial aspect. European far right parties flirt

8
Montagu 1962, xii.
9
BBC, 27 March, 2009.
10
Spektor 2010, 3.
11
Sullivan 1994; The New York Times, January 4, 1989, A3.
12
The Economist, January 7, 1989, 50.
13
Tanno and Hamazaki 2000.
4
with racism on a regular basis. Despite considerable progress made against racism, the 10

to 12 million Roma citizens of the European Union are still subject to systematic racial

discrimination.14 France’s 2010 deportation of Roma immigrants was only one

manifestation of Western European intolerance towards this stateless, darker-skinned

minority. But racial discrimination against the Roma is much worse in Eastern and

Central Europe. Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a Romanian Member of the European

Parliament, who received more than a quarter of the votes in the 2000 Romanian

presidential election, reportedly stated that “We are not interested in what Gypsies want.

All [Gypsies] should be put in jail. There is no other solution.” 15

The continuing relevance of race is also manifest in international efforts to

counter racism. For example, some argue that human rights emerged in response to racial

discrimination. This is how one scholar summarizes the importance of race in this regard:

“The first global attempt to speak for equality focused upon race. The first human
rights provisions in the United Nations Charter were placed there because of race.
The first international challenge to a country’s claim of domestic jurisdiction and
exclusive treatment of its own citizens centered upon race. The first binding treaty
of human rights concentrated upon race. The international convention with the
greatest number of signatories is that on race. Within the United Nations, more
resolutions deal with race than with any other subject.”16

Buell may be impressed with the progress made on international and domestic

racism. But given that he considered racism as one of the most difficult issues in

international politics, he may be skeptical that it was entirely abolished. Despite

considerable economic growth in the developing world, wealth inequality still correlates

14
Goldston 2002.
15
Cited in Goldston 2002, 155.
16
Lauren 1996, 4.
5
with race both within and between states. Despite the dismantling of the legal-

institutional aspect of the racial hierarchic system, there are still institutional structures

which favor some racial groups over others. 17 Buell may be particularly skeptical that

what he saw as “deep-seated racial prejudices” disappeared. He may suspect, as some

studies have shown, that legal prohibition and normative delegitimation made racial

prejudices more subtle and complex, rather than eliminating them altogether. 18

This dissertation argues that the continuing relevance of race and racism in

international politics is to an important extent based on the social-cognitive micro-

structures represented by racial prejudices. It focuses on racial prejudices embedded in

racial identities to show that race shapes patterns of discord and cooperation among great

powers. Under particular conditions racial prejudices “color” the threat perceptions of

agents, predisposing them to discord or cooperation. Agents with shared racial identity

will perceive each other as less threatening and will tend to cooperate. Agents with

different racial identities will perceive each other as more threatening and will be

predisposed towards discord.

The dissertation is motivated by dissatisfaction with the gap between the past and

present importance of race in the “real world” and its relative neglect in mainstream IR.

My survey of leading IR journals from their establishment to January 2012 found only

five articles on the subject.19 This neglect is even more puzzling when we consider that

17
For general discussion of structural racism see Bonilla-Silva 1997; Wight 2003.
18
On implicit racial prejudices see Phelps and Thomas 2003; Quillian 2008 . For a critique see Tetlock and
Arkes 2004 . On the complexity and subtlety of racial prejudices see Fiske et al. 2009.
19
I searched for “race” or “racial” in the titles, keywords and abstracts of article in the following journals:
International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, World Politics,
6
race receives substantial attention in other disciplines, and even in other subfields of

political science, such as American politics. 20 If race is still important in America and IR

is still primarily an “American social science,”21 then IR pays surprisingly little attention

to race.

Two developments make it particularly timely to think about race and

international politics. First, one of the most important changes occurring in the

international system is “the rise of the Rest.”22 As the balance of power shifts to the

developing world, it is a good time to think about what the racial implications for

international politics might be. As we move from a unicolor to a multicolor world, the

governing institutions of the international system will have to change accordingly if they

are to be legitimate. There will be more pressure for greater representation of currently

underrepresented non-whites in leading international organization. The European

presidency of the International Monetary Fund and the American presidency of the World

Bank are already under challenge. The rise of China may also result in a hegemonic

competition with the US which could be exacerbated by racial prejudices. In this context,

a deeper understanding of “politics among races” would be helpful. Second, advances in

genomics may raise questions about current understandings of race; genetics may even

reshape existing social identities, giving rise to new “biosocial groups.” 23 Although it is

European Journal of International Relations, and Review of International Studies. The five articles are the
following: Cotton 2009; Klotz 1995; Malik 2000; Marx 1996; Shilliam 2006.
20
Nonetheless, in political science in general race receives less attention than it deserves (Smith 2004).
Race also receives considerable attention in American history (Krenn 1999).
21
Hoffmann 1977, 59.
22
Zakaria 2009.
23
Hacking 2006. On genomics and race also see Hochschild, Weaver, and Burch, chapter 4.
7
too early to know what the specific international implications of these two developments

will be, they are likely to bring race into public attention.

The remainder of the Introduction provides more examples of the importance of

race in modern international politics. Next, it surveys the small, but growing literature on

race and IR. The third section briefly summarizes the argument of the dissertation and its

contributions. The chapter concludes with the road map of the dissertation.

Race and Modern International Politics

To convince the reader that the neglect of race by mainstream IR is an important

omission, this section provides a brief historical overview of race in modern international

politics. It shows how race shaped the international system, the state, and interactions

among states. In addition, the section points out how race sheds new light on our

understanding of central concepts and empirical phenomena of the discipline.

Race and the International System: Racial Hierarchy

Race served as an organizing principle for the international system for centuries.

Despite widespread acceptance of the anarchic nature of the international system, 24 IR

scholars have recognized the existence of “hierarchy under anarchy.” 25 However, few

recognized the role of race in this regard. 26 Race structured the system hierarchically,

with states occupying the rank corresponding to the position of their dominant racial

24
Anarchy here, as in much of the discipline, refers to the absence of world government, not chaos.
25
Wendt and Friedheim 1995.
26
For some exceptions see Doty 1993, 456; Hobson and Sharman 2005; Hunt 1987; Persaud and Walker
2001, 374.
8
group in the racial hierarchy. In what we could call the racial culture of hierarchy, the

white race was at the top, followed by the yellow and the brown races, and the black race

at the bottom. The lower a political entity ranked in this hierarchy, the more likely it was

that it would be denied sovereignty and it would be colonized.

Along with other cultural and material factors, this racial hierarchy was mirrored

by various international arrangements. One example is provided by the hierarchic

nineteenth century British treaty system against slave trade.27 British treaties with

“civilized” European and American states emphasized the sovereign equality of the

parties and stipulated shared enforcement, while British treaties with less “civilized”

African and Arab rulers carefully avoided references to equality and excluded the latter

from enforcement. The League of Nations Mandate System is another example of such a

hierarchic arrangement. To integrate former German and Ottoman colonies into the

international system as sovereign states, the Mandate System established a three-tiered

system of administration. Former colonies in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific

were classified as A, B, or C tier mandates, partly based on their perceived degree of

development. The final classification closely paralleled racial hierarchy. 28

The racial hierarchic system was first challenged by Japan at the 1919 Paris Peace

Conference. Japanese delegates pushed hard for the inclusion of a racial equality clause

in the League of Nations Covenant. They insisted that they wanted only the general

recognition of the principle of racial equality, leaving its application up to individual

27
Keene 2007. Although the study explains this hierarchy based on the distinction between “civilized
nations” and “barbarous people,” the centrality of race in this distinction cannot be ignored.
28
Anghie 2004, chapter 3.
9
states. Anglo-Saxon states were the main opponents of the proposal, apparently because

they were concerned that it would undermine their exclusionary immigration policies.

During the April 11, 1919 session of the League of Nations Commission, eleven out of

seventeen delegates voted in favor of the Japanese proposal. President Woodrow Wilson,

who served as the chair, ruled that in contrast with previous proposals the racial equality

clause required a unanimous vote rather than simple majority, and the proposal was

defeated.29 After WWII racial equality was formally recognized, but some of the material

and ideational legacies of racial hierarchy are remarkably persistent.30

Race and the State: The Racial State

Race not only structured the international system, but also shaped the nature of its

main unit, the state.31 For good reasons, the discipline focuses mainly on the role of

nationalism in shaping states. Nonetheless, bringing race in would provide a more

accurate picture of the forces that shaped the make-up of states. Goldberg summarized

the importance of race for the complexion of the state in the following way:

“It [race] has established who can be imported and who exported, who are
immigrants and who are indigenous, who may be property and who citizens; and
among the latter who get to vote and who do not, who are protected by the law and
who are its objects, who are employable and who are not, who have access and
privilege and who are (to be) marginalized.” 32

29
While all other delegates voted for the Japanese proposal, the US (2), British (2), Portuguese (1), and
Romanian (1) delegates did not register their votes. They effectively vetoed the racial equality clause
without voting against it and thus mitigating the opprobrium of the world public opinion. For a detailed
account of Japan’s search for racial equality at the Paris Conference see Shimazu 1998; Lauren 1996, ch. 3.
30
Gaertner and Dovidio 1977; Jones 2008.
31
On how the state shaped race see Goldberg 2002 and Nobles 2000.
32
Goldberg 1993, 87.
10
 In Nazi Germany the Aryan body-politic was ‘purified’ from the Semitic element

through mass extermination. 33 Eugenics was employed in much of Europe to ‘improve’

the racial stock of the citizenry. In Switzerland the practice of sterilization and castration

of “lesser races” and other undesirables lasted until 1973.34 White settler states such as

South Africa, Australia, or the United States were built on “white nationalism” at the

expense of other racial groups.35 In Latin America, most notably Argentina, the Creole

elite perceived itself as essentially white and employed eugenics and immigration

legislation to ‘whiten’ the state at the expense of blacks, indigenous Indians, mestizo, and

other ‘nonwhite’ racial groups.36 In Asia, modern China was conceived of as the home of

the Han race-nation (minzu), while Japan’s identity was dominated by the pure Yamato

race.37 A recent provocative book makes the case that North Korea is built more on racial

than communist ideology. 38 In light of these examples, the argument that the state is best

conceived of as being based on a racial, rather than a social contract makes sense. 39

Race and Interaction among States: Politics among Races

By shaping both the international system and its units, race also has implications

for the nature and intensity of unit interactions. Sometimes international cooperation

occurred along the “color line”. During World War II the Anglo-Saxon “allies of a kind”

33
Burleigh and Wippermann 1991.
34
Mottier and Gerodetti 2007. For the role of eugenics in Latin America see Stepan 1991; for its role in the
US and the UK see Hansen and King 2001.
35
Gerstle 2001; Guelke 2005; Marx 1998; Moran 2005; Willard 1967 [1923].
36
Stepan 1991.
37
Dikötter 1992; Weiner 1994.
38
Myers 2010.
39
Mills 1997.
11
were united against Japan. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the Cabinet that

“We could never stand by and see a British Dominion overwhelmed by a yellow race,”

while US Admiral Ernest King advocated the protection of Australia and New Zealand

from Japan because they were “white men’s countries.”40 Racial cooperation was

sometimes formalized, as the example of the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, and United

States Security Treaty (ANZUS) illustrates. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

labeled it “an elite Anglo-Saxon club,” and a secret British Embassy memorandum saw it

as a “white man’s pact,” guarding its members not only from ideological, but also from

racial threats.41 Of course, it would be inaccurate to reduce ANZUS to a racial alliance,

but to overlook its racial aspect would be equally flawed. Race could also shape the form

of international cooperation. Peter Katzenstein and Christopher Hemmer convincingly

argue that variation in racial identity helps explain why transatlantic security cooperation

took on a multilateral form (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), while the transpacific

one took on a bilateral “hub-and-spoke” form. Although much of this variation can be

explained by various economic and strategic factors, the role of shared racial identity

should not be disregarded. A considerable segment of the Atlantic elite, which dominated

US policymaking, was of European ancestry and identified with Europe culturally and

racially. Racial identification made transatlantic cooperation seem natural, while it made

transpacific cooperation appear less so. US policymakers perceived their European allies

as “relatively equal members of a shared community,” but they saw their Asian allies as

40
Cited in Thorne 1978, 7.
41
Koshiro 1999, 42, 45.
12
“part of an alien and, in important ways, inferior community. 42 Consequently,

transatlantic relations were managed multilaterally, while transpacific relations were

managed bilaterally. Some, like former US Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton

even saw NATO as a step towards an Atlantic Federal Union. As he put it in a Senate

testimony, “my idea would be that in the beginning the union would be composed of all

countries that have our ideas and ideals of freedom and that are composed of the white

race.”43

There are also good reasons to believe that security community and democratic

peace have racial aspects. Shared racial identity can facilitate the development of deep

trust and the norm of peaceful conflict resolution, which are central to security

communities. 44 It is not an accident that Karl Deutsch’s pioneering work on security

communities focused on the North Atlantic. 45 As discussed in more detail below, Deutsch

also explored how race could serve as a signaling device, which allowed quick and

reliable identification of racial groups. 46 Such identification could facilitate the

development of security communities and make them appear natural. Race also shaped

the origins of the democratic peace. The mutual perception of states as true democracies,

which lies at the heart of democratic peace, 47 can be facilitated by shared racial identity.

Moreover, one of the most important cases employed to illustrate the emergence of

democratic peace shows evidence that peace broke out to a large extent for racial reasons.

42
Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002, 575.
43
Cited in ibid., 593.
44
On security communities see Adler and Barnett 1998.
45
Deutsch 1957.
46
Deutsch 1970, 123.
47
Owen 1994.
13
In the 1895 Venezuela crisis the US and Britain backed down from the brink of war, after

the initial escalation of tensions and a war scare. The public and the leaders justified the

decision to keep the peace at least as much based on shared Anglo-Saxon racial identity

as based on shared democratic regime type. 48 As one study put it, “…what caused peace

over Venezuela was Anglo-Saxon democracy, not Anglo-Saxon democracy.”49 War

among Anglo-Saxon democracies was made unthinkable to a large extent because of the

aversion to killing racial kin. It is also worth noting that in the political thinking of the

time, regime type was to race what in vulgar Marxism the ideational “superstructure” is

to the material “base”. Many believed that only superior races, especially the Anglo-

Saxons, were capable of democracy, the highest form of regime type. 50

Race shaped not only peace and cooperation, but the likelihood and intensity of

war as well. World War I illustrates how race can influence the likelihood of war. As

pan-nationalist movements appropriated racial ideas of Social Darwinism, they saw

international politics as a natural struggle. The idea of a racial war between the Germans

and the Slavs became widely held by the public and by leaders including the Chief of the

German General Staff Helmuth von Moltke, former German Chief of Staff Alfred von

Schlieffen, and German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. 51 Kaiser Wilhelm

II himself was convinced that international conferences could not solve the tensions

between Slavs and Germans because “it is not a question of high politics, but one of

48
Kupchan 2010, ch. 3.
49
Vucetic 2011, 11.
50
Thompson 1978, 41.
51
Ferguson 1992, 726; Mombauer 2001, 152-153.
14
race…for what is at issue is whether the Germanic race is to be or not to be in Europe.”52

Not surprisingly, a commonly held “unspoken assumption” on the eve of WWI was the

belief in the inevitability and even necessity of war.53 What Stephen Van Evera calls “the

cult of offensive” was underpinned by racial ideas. 54

Race also influenced the intensity of violence in war, as the bloody fighting of

WWII illustrates. Undoubtedly other factors contributed to the fierceness of the conflict,

but it is difficult to deny the importance of race. Instructions given to German soldiers on

the Eastern front made clear that the rules of war did not apply. This was to be a racial

war in which the goal was to exterminate the inferior Slav race mixed with Jewish and

Asian elements, creating Lebensraum (living space) for the superior and pure Aryans. 55

Similarly, race intensified conflict in the Pacific, causing unimaginable atrocities on both

the American and the Japanese side. Allied forces came to believe that “the only good Jap

is a dead Jap.”56 To be sure, Dresden’s firebombing in WWII was as savage as any, but

this was the exception, not the rule in American-German encounters. If 57.8 percent of

Russian POWs taken by Germans died in captivity, only 4 percent of Anglo-American

POWs taken by Germans died in captivity. 42 percent of American soldiers said they felt

“all the more like killing” Japanese soldiers after having seen them, while only 18 percent

felt this way about Germans.57 Race does not account for all this variation, but it certainly

does for part of it.

52
Cited in Fischer 1967, 33.
53
Joll 1968.
54
Van Evera 1984, 62.
55
Connelly 1999; Weingartner 1996.
56
Dower 1986, 78-79.
57
Bartov 2001 [1985], 153, 155.
15
 In sum, race shaped the international system, the state, and various interactions

among states. In conjunction with the more recent examples mentioned earlier, I hope

these examples made a convincing case for the relevance of race in IR. To be sure, race

does not always matter, and even when it does, it typically interacts with a host of other

factors to shape specific outcomes. Nonetheless, race is important enough to deserve

more attention in the discipline.

Race in International Relations Theory

Race is underappreciated in mainstream IR theory. Realist approaches pay

attention to ethnicity and nationalism, but not to race and racism. Stephen Van Evera

provides a systematic discussion of nationalism and war, while Barry Posen deploys the

security dilemma to explain ethnic conflict. 58 Even John Mearsheimer makes a quick

reference to “hypernationalism” as a factor which may shape patterns of conflict.59

Democratic peace theory largely neglects race. According to liberalism race should not

matter, but there are reasons to think that it does. A look at the list of imperialist conflicts

and covert operations performed by white liberal democracies against non-white non-

democracies leaves one wondering whether race is indeed epiphenomenal. 60 While

dyadic versions of democratic peace emphasize that democracies are peaceful only when

dealing with other democracies, according to monadic versions liberal democracies

58
Posen 1993; Van Evera 1994.
59
Mearsheimer 1990. It is worth noting that Mearsheimer sees hypernationalism as the result of intense
European security competition and so not independent of structural forces.
60
One study identifies thirty-three imperial wars involving white liberal democracies against non-white
political entities between 1838 and 1920, and eight American covert operations in non-white countries
during the Cold War. For further details see Rosato 2003, 589-590.
16
should be peaceful regardless of the regime type of their counterparts. Yet Dan Reiter and

Allan Stam note that “What makes imperial wars especially disturbing to the liberal

conscience is that they demonstrate also that it is easier to generate public consent if the

target is racially or ethnically different from the attacker.” 61 English School approaches

incorporate nationalism as a fundamental institution of international society but reserve a

less central role for race, despite its attention to the “standard of ‘civilization’” in

international politics. 62 Race has always lurked in the background of international

society, but only more recently started to receive some attention. 63 Constructivist

approaches provide exciting accounts of how gender, religion, culture, or national

identity matters in international politics. 64 Yet race regrettably receives less attention. A

recent series of edited volumes on civilization in world politics constitutes an important

exception.65

Although race is understudied in mainstream IR theory, a small but growing body

of literature exists on the margins of the discipline. There are two main waves of race

literature in IR. The first wave emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. 66 The initial impetus for

it was a practical concern. Decolonization and civil rights movements sparked racial

tensions and many worried about a global race war: “Already the most destructive war in

the history of mankind has been fought in the name of racial supremacy. Another one

61
Reiter and Stam 2002, 152.
62
Bull and Watson 1984; Buzan 2004; Gong 1984; Mayall 1990.
63
Keal 2003; Keene 2002; Callahan 2004.
64
Bukovansky 2002; Hall 1999; Katzenstein 1996; Philpott 2001; Risse-Kappen 1996; Towns 2010.
65
Katzenstein 2009, Katzenstein 2012a and Katzenstein 2012b. Sadly, although the last two are particularly
relevant to race, they were published too late for me to engage with them more seriously.
66
Here I omit earlier work on race as my focus is on the post-World War II period. For a good review of
how race was intertwined with the early years of the discipline see Vitalis 2010.
17
could be fought eventually in the name of racial equality.” 67 Some, like Harold Isaacs and

Robert Gardiner struggled with these problems in a historically informed fashion. 68 But

theoretical tools to understand race in international politics were largely absent. The most

important pioneering effort to provide a theoretical framework for thinking about race in

IR was the edited volume Race among Nations: A Conceptual Approach.69 Two

contributions in particular are representative of the first wave. First, James Rosenau

developed a racial theory of international politics with racial identity as the independent

variable. Next, he identified intervening variables at different levels of analysis and

formulated a number of hypotheses connecting racial identity to conflict (the dependent

variable) through these intervening variables. 70 Second, Karl Deutsch offered a theory of

race as a signaling device and discussed prominent economic and cultural implications.

The theory was based on a conception of race as “a built-in, rapid, inexpensive, and

reliable signaling device” which allowed “the identification of a group of persons on the

basis of some physical characteristic, very quickly, very cheaply, very reliably, and

without elaborate procedures for verification.” 71 The theories of Rosenau and Deutsch

illustrate the main features of the first wave: the use of race as a cause and the definition

of race based on physical difference.

The second wave of race literature in IR emerged at the end of the Cold War and

has continued since then. This wave went beyond the first in two main respects. First, it

shifted the emphasis from race as a cause to race as an effect. Unsatisfied with the largely

67
Le Melle 1970, xv; see also Browne 1961; Segal 1966.
68
Gardiner 1967, 307; Isaacs 1969, 237.
69
Shepherd and Le Melle 1970.
70
Rosenau 1970.
71
Deutsch 1970, 123.
18
taken for granted approach to race of the first wave, it highlights the socio-politically

constructed nature of race.72 One group of scholars is critical of teaching and research in

IR for making race and racism invisible, and proposes ways in which these can be

systematically included in the discipline. 73 Another group discusses how race shapes and

is shaped by international politics in a wide range of issues areas, including nuclear

proliferation, global wealth inequality, US sanctions against apartheid South Africa, and

global labor recruitment and supply. 74 Second, this wave moves from a definition of race

based on physical difference to a broader one based on naturalization. What is distinctive

about race in this view is not phenotype, but the fact that it fixes identity boundaries

between various groups, which may or may not be phenotypically different. This broader

approach also led scholars to think harder and more systematically about how race

interacts with nation, class, and gender to shape international politics. 75

Although they differ regarding the definition and use of race, the two waves

share a substantive focus on race relations of domination. Race relations of domination

involve actors with vastly asymmetrical capabilities and different racial identities.

Examples include anti-Semitism and colonialism. This focus is justified given that the

worst human suffering was confined to race relations of domination, but it is also based

on two problematic assumptions. The first assumption is that race and racism imply

hierarchy. Although there is much evidence in support of this assumption, scholars have

shown that hierarchy is not a necessary element of race and racism. Fundamental

72
Doty 1993.
73
Callahan 2004; Chin 2009; Chowdhry and Rai 2009; Grovogui 2001; Hobson 2007; Krishna 2001;
Mittelman, 2009; Vitalis 2000.
74
Biswas 2001; Jones 2008; Klotz 1995; Persaud 2001.
75
Chowdhry and Nair 2002; Short and Kambouri 2010.
19
difference is sufficient.76 Admittedly, hierarchy and fundamental difference are difficult

to disentangle empirically and the latter may just be the former in disguise. Nonetheless,

in principle hierarchy is not a necessary element of race and racism. The second

assumption is that racism implies only negative prejudices. However, to every negative

racial prejudice towards one racial group there is typically a corresponding positive racial

prejudice towards another racial group, usually one’s own. In addition, recent studies

show that prejudices in general and racial prejudices in particular can take a positive,

benevolent form.77

If hierarchy and negative prejudice do not capture all types of race and racism,

then race relations of domination, important as they may be, are not the only ones worthy

of study. We can map race relations along two dimensions which are at the heart of

racism: power and difference. 78 According to the race dimension actors can have shared

or different racial identities. According to the power dimension actors can be relatively

equal in terms of material capabilities (symmetrical power relations) or they can be

relatively unequal (asymmetrical power relations). Symmetrical power relations never

imply complete equality, but they are sufficiently different from vastly asymmetrical

power relations to warrant a separate category. Japan may not have been as powerful as

some Western states, but it was powerful enough to resist colonization. This made

Japanese-Western relations qualitatively different from Western colonial relations with

Africa. Based on these two dimensions we can formulate a typology of race relations,

76
Goldberg 1993, 94.
77
Glick and Fiske 2012; Ikuenobe 2011.
78
Fredrickson 2002, 9.
20
which includes not only race relations of domination, but also race relations of protection,

of discord, and of cooperation.

POWER RELATIONS

Symmetrical Asymmetrical
RACIAL IDENTITY

DISCORD Domination
Different

COOPERATION Protection

Shared

Table 1.1: A Typology of Race Relations

Race relations of protection are characterized by actors with shared racial

identities and asymmetrical distribution of capabilities. An example is the relationship

between Britain and its white Dominions during the first half of the twentieth century.

Race relations of cooperation are characterized by actors with shared racial identity and

relatively symmetrical distribution of capabilities. British-American relations during the

interwar period fall in this category. Another example is the racial solidarity of former

African colonies, which cooperated under the banner of Pan-Africanism in their struggle

for self-determination. Finally, race relations of discord are characterized by actors with

21
different racial identities and relatively symmetrical distribution of capabilities. The

relationship between the US and Japan during WWII is one example.

This dissertation attempts to contribute to the race literature in IR by building on

the strengths of the extant literature and extending its substantive focus. I use race

primarily as an independent variable or cause as the first wave does, but I embrace a

constructivist understanding of race as the second wave does. Substantively, much of the

discipline focuses on race relations of domination. In addition, there is an

interdisciplinary body of literature on race relations of cooperation and protection, which

explores how racial ideas of Anglo-Saxonism shaped interactions in the Anglosphere. 79 I

extend the study of race to race relations of discord and cooperation.

There are at least two concerns pertaining to race as a cause and to focusing on

racial discord. First, by showing that race is not a natural but a social kind, social

constructivism aims at emancipation from racial iniquities. One may worry that

employing racial identity as a cause undermines this normative effort because it “permits

biology/genetics to re-enter through the back door.”80 In light of the past complicity of

the social and natural sciences in legitimizing racist ideas, these concerns are well

founded. However, because today the social constructivist position on race is dominant in

the social sciences, revisiting the explanatory efforts of the first wave of racial theorizing,

equipped with the advances made by the second wave is less dangerous. Nevertheless, to

prevent it from turning into “tacit ontology,” 81 we should keep in mind that I bracket the

79
Anderson 1981; Kramer 2002; Lake and Reynolds 2008; Vucetic 2011.
80
Doty 1993, 450.
81
Wendt 1999, 115.
22
social construction of racial identities for reasons of tractability rather than ontology.

Perhaps one can think of this bracketing as a version of “strategic essentialism,” where

racial difference is strategically essentialized to make it more vulnerable to criticism and

to fight racial oppression. 82 Second, one may worry that focusing on race relations of

discord lends further support to “clash of civilizations” 83 types of arguments. For this

reason, it is important to emphasize that there is no inherent cause of discord among

racial groups. Rather, this discord is driven by racial prejudices. By identifying these

racial prejudices and their pernicious international effects, I hope that the dissertation will

have a self-falsifying, rather than a self-fulfilling effect. The normative rationale is to

challenge, not legitimize racism.

The Argument and Its Contributions

The dissertation argues that race matters in great power politics. More

specifically, it shows that racial identity can shape patterns of discord and cooperation

among Asian and Western great powers. The logic of the argument is fleshed out in a

two-step racial theory of international politics. In the first step, racial identity influences

threat perceptions. Agents’ racial identities and prejudices are activated by specific

international events. As a consequence, agents perceive others through a racial lens.

There are four kinds of threat-relevant racial prejudices which “color” perceptions of

others: pertaining to intentions, morality, the body, and reason. Agents with different

82
Spivak 1987, 205; Du Bois position in favor of “conservation of race” can also be interpreted in this way;
see Du Bois 2009.
83
Huntington 1996.
23
racial identities are perceived as 1) having aggressive intentions; 2) immoral or devious;

3) fundamentally different; 4) and irrational. Meanwhile, agents with shared racial

identity are perceived as defensive, moral, fundamentally similar, and rational. Various

combinations of these racial prejudices embedded in different racial identities inflate

threat perceptions, while shared racial identities deflate threat perceptions. Typically all

four categories can be identified in any given empirical case, but one or two tend to be

dominant.

In the second step, racially shaped threat perceptions generate behavioral

dispositions. Inflated threat perceptions predispose racially different agents towards

discord, while deflated threat perceptions predispose racially similar agents towards

cooperation. Although racial identities predispose actors towards certain behaviors

through the logic of habit, 84 they do not determine policy options and outcomes. To

explain specific outcomes, racially shaped threat perceptions interact with strategic

calculations, political ideologies, and domestic politics. This eclectic second step

provides an opportunity to show how the racial theory developed in the next chapter

complements other IR theories to shed new light on international phenomena. The theory

works best when states have dominant racial groups, their racial identities and prejudices

are activated, they hold threat-relevant racial prejudices, and when threats are ambiguous.

The dissertation makes four main contributions. First, it contributes to the race

literature by showing that the explanatory power of race is not confined to asymmetrical

power relations, but extends to the more symmetrical power relations of great power

84
Hopf 2011.
24
politics. Also, much of the race literature focuses on the US and a limited number of

African, European, and Latin American states. The dissertation extends this empirical

focus to Japan and China, which are often neglected. Furthermore, it addresses the

concerns of those who worry that race theories based on prejudice are necessarily

individualistic and miss the larger, structural aspects of race and racism. Since racial

prejudices are as social as they are cognitive, they cannot be confined to individual

subjectivity. They function as micro-structures which uphold legal-institutional and

material macro-structures of racism, and should be taken seriously.

Second, the dissertation adds a “color of threat” theory to the literature on threat

and threat perception. Sophisticated realist theories such as the “balance of threat” and

the “balance of interest” recognize that threat perception is not simply a function of

material capabilities.85 Cognitive and social psychological approaches offer useful

theories of how various psychological biases shape threat perception. 86 Liberals and

constructivists showed that shared regime type and collective identity impact threat

perception.87 Drawing on these theoretical insights, I formulate a racial theory of threat

perception. As discussed in Chapter 6, this “color of threat” theory both corrects and

complements instrumental theories of threat inflation.

Third, the dissertation contributes to constructivist IR theories by showing that

constructivism can offer good theories of continuity. The literature tends to provide

theories of ideational change, typically based on cases where “bad” norms are replaced

85
Schweller 2006; Walt 1987.
86
Jervis 1968; Jervis 1976.
87
Haas 2005; Owen 2005; Rousseau 2006.
25
by “good” ones. Excellent studies show how territorial conquest, landmines, slave trade,

nuclear and chemical weapons and many other bad things have been delegitimized and

legally prohibited. 88 This body of literature identifies and explores important progressive

shifts in the international system. However, by focusing on benign change, it also tends to

pay less attention to much malign continuity. By exploring how race has shaped discord

and cooperation among great powers before, during, and after decolonization, this

dissertation contributes a case of malign continuity to this literature. It shows that

constructivism can provide not only good theories of ideational change, but also good

theories of ideational continuity. Kenneth Waltz argued that continuity in the

international system is best explained by structural approaches. Despite the diversity of

units, structural constraints limit the diversity of outcomes. 89 I agree with Waltz, but I

would broaden his argument to include not only material, but also ideational structures.

As Ted Hopf observed, social constructivism in other disciplines “has been concerned

with explaining why more change has not occurred than one might feasibly expect given

the brute material world and stark inequalities.” 90 As discussed in more detail in Chapter

2, the microstructures constituted by racial prejudices embedded in racial identities

explain in part why more change has not occurred regarding racism.

Finally, this study has policy implications as well. Given the rise of the

developing world, many of the most important bilateral relations in the future will span

across racial identities. Policymakers should be particularly alert to the ways in which

88
Kaufmann and Pape 1999; Price 1995; Price 1998; Tannenwald 1999; Zacher 2001.
89
Waltz 1979.
90
Hopf 2009, 282.
26
racial prejudices might influence their perceptions and behavior. Similarly, in the context

of the “war on terror,” both the elites and the public needs to be aware of the threat

inflationary effects of race to avoid costly overreactions to Arab terrorism. Finally, given

the power of prejudice over perception and action, the dissertation favors making

domestic and international institutions more racially inclusive. This could undermine the

pernicious effect of racial prejudice and could ensure impartiality based on a “balance of

prejudices”.

Outline of the Dissertation

Next, Chapter 2 provides a social-cognitive racial theory of international politics.

The theory challenges the colorblind nature of much IR theorizing by suggesting that

patterns of international discord and cooperation sometimes follow the color line. Its two

step theory argues that states with shared racial identities under certain conditions

cooperate against states with different racial identities. The chapter embraces a racial

constructivist conception of race, derives hypotheses from the theory, and formulates a

research design to evaluate them against alternative explanations. The three empirical

chapters test the theory across time and issue areas to assess its strengths and limitations.

Chapter 3 focuses on the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923). It

asks why the U.S. misperceived the alliance as threatening and contributed to its demise.

The chapter shows that difference in racial identity between the U.S. and Japan inflated

American threat perceptions. First, Japanese immigration activated American racial

identities and prejudices. Next, based on their racial prejudices Americans imputed

27
aggressive intentions to Japan and consequently believed that a Japanese-American war

was inevitable. As racial prejudices inflated threat perceptions, Americans came to

misperceive Japan as a “Yellow Peril”91 and pushed for the demise of the Anglo-Japanese

Alliance. Britain cooperated with the US in allowing the alliance to expire, partly due to

shared racial identity and partly due to strategic reasons. The alliance became the victim

of the “Yellow Peril” at the 1921 Washington Conference. Its termination opened the

way for Anglo-Saxon—Japanese alienation and German-Japanese rapprochement,

arguably making World War II possible.

Chapter 4 discusses why under President John F. Kennedy the US pursued a

nuclear test ban more vigorously than ever before, despite many years of unproductive

negotiations. It shows that American efforts to achieve a test ban were motivated not so

much by general fears of nuclear proliferation, but by more specific fears of Chinese

nuclear proliferation. First, the Korean War activated American racial identity and

prejudices. Then, because of difference in racial identity, the US perceived Communist

China not only as a ‘Red Peril’, but also as a ‘Yellow Peril.’ Therefore, China was

perceived as more threatening than the USSR, which was seen only as a ‘Red Peril’.

Based on racial prejudices underlying the ‘Yellow Peril’, the US imputed aggressive

intentions and occasionally irrationality to China. That an aggressive and even irrational

China would go nuclear appeared particularly alarming. The Soviets shared these fears,

partly for racial reasons, partly due to the Sino-Soviet split and fears of a German bomb.

91
‘Yellow Peril’ refers to a racial image based on racial prejudices. According to this image Asia (usually
represented by China or Japan) poses an existential threat to the West (usually represented by the US)
through war, economic competition, or immigration (Thompson 1978).
28
The superpowers saw a test ban as a strategy against the Chinese nuclear program and

signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The treaty ultimately failed to inhibit

Chinese nuclear proliferation, but it did represent an important step towards subsequent

arms control measures and Soviet-American détente.

Chapter 5 asks why US Congress pushed for restrictions on foreign direct

investment in the US (FDIUS), eventually achieving the passage of the Exon-Florio

Amendment to the 1988 Trade Act. It argues that Congress weakened America’s open

investment policy through Exon-Florio in response to the public’s racially inflated threat

perceptions of Japanese FDIUS. Japan’s impressive economic growth and its trade

surplus with the US led to trade frictions, which activated the American perception of

Japan as a ‘Yellow Peril’. Based on racial prejudices underpinning this lens of

perception, the American public imputed aggressive and devious intentions to the

Japanese. Americans then perceived the smaller FDIUS from Japan, a non-white

democratic ally, as more threatening than the larger FDIUS from Britain, a white

democratic ally. By the late 1980s the ‘Yellow Peril’ trumped even the ‘Red Peril’ as

Americans perceived Japan, their non-white democratic ally, as more threatening than

the USSR, their white communist enemy. Congress acted on these racially inflated fears

to restrict American investment policy. The President’s support for open investment and

subsequent selective application of Exon-Florio mitigated the extent to which US open

investment policy was undermined.

The concluding chapter summarizes the main findings of the dissertation and

evaluates the strengths and limitations of the theory. Next, it turns to future avenues of

29
research that extend the theory to new issue areas or correct some of the limitations of the

dissertation. Finally, the chapter closes with a discussion of race, legitimacy, and the

future of the liberal international system in the context of the rise of the developing

world.

30
 Chapter 2: A Racial Theory of International Politics

Much of the study of international politics is animated by efforts to identify and

explain patterns of international discord and cooperation. A central question pertaining to

this problem is whether there are recurring patterns of cooperation among like units and

patterns of discord among unlike units. Do birds of a feather flock together? Do birds of

different feathers fly apart? Do like units cooperate against unlike units?

The conventional wisdom, most eloquently articulated by realism, is that patterns

of discord and cooperation are primarily a function of interests, rather than unit

similarity. In this view there is no close connection between unit similar and shared

interests. This idea is at the heart of Balance of Power, raison d’état, and Realpolitik. As

British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston put it in 1848, “We have no eternal allies and

we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests

it is our duty to follow.”92 Hans Morgenthau’s second principle of realism stipulates that

“The main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of

international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power.”93 Any birds

can flock together as long as they have shared interests, but as soon as these shared

interests vanish, they will fly apart.

92
Cited in Heath 1969, 39.
93
Morgenthau 1985, 5.
31
 Neorealist theories further weakened the idea that unit similarity matters for

discord and cooperation. Kenneth Waltz’s assumption that all units are alike in that they

are functionally undifferentiated was meant to divert the discipline’s interest from unit

properties.94 The only unit property that mattered for explaining international outcomes

was capability, because the distribution of capabilities was a structural variable which

explained the recurring balance of power. All other factors were relegated to the unit

level and the theories that focused on them were ostracized as “reductionist.” Because

structure intervened between actions and outcomes, one could not explain outcomes

based on unit properties.95 Even if some decision makers wished to cooperate with like

units against unlike units, the imperatives of the balance of power forced them to make

decisions based on calculations of power. Birds of a feather often had to join the weaker

side regardless of unit similarity to balance against the stronger side and ensure their

survival. Units that did not abide by this imperative would be selected out.

Although national interests and the distribution of capabilities undoubtedly shape

international discord and cooperation, they do not render unit similarity irrelevant. Henry

Kissinger was correct that if ideological similarity “determined foreign policy, Hitler and

Stalin would never have joined hands any more than Richelieu and the Sultan of Turkey

would have three centuries earlier.” 96 States sometimes do ally with ideological

adversaries to restrain these adversaries or to counter more immediate threats from third

parties. 97 Yet just because ideological similarity does not determine foreign policy, it

94
Waltz 1979,101.
95
Ibid., 60-61.
96
Kissinger 1994,332.
97
Resnick 2010/2011; Schroeder 1975.
32
does not mean that it is irrelevant. It may still matter in more subtle ways. Mark Haas

found that ideological similarity plays an important role in great power politics by

deflating threat perceptions among ideological similar states.98 Moreover, even if

ideological similarity did not matter at all, one could not conclude that unit similarity is

inconsequential since ideological similarity is only one of the numerous respects in which

units can be similar. Which of the multiple identities shapes foreign policy depends on

which identity is salient in any given situation.

We have good reasons to think that sometimes like units cooperate with each

other and engage in conflict against unlike units. Systemic constraints derived from the

distribution of capabilities are often indeterminate, allowing considerable unit agency.

Neoclassical realism points out that how systemic constraints are translated into behavior

depends on the character of the units.99 Similarly, as Alexander Wendt showed, how the

distribution of capabilities shapes states’ calculations depends on the distribution of

identities. 100 Shared identities are not unit-level properties, but structural, hence they can

shape international outcomes.

Democratic peace theory found evidence of peace and cooperation among

democracies and of conflict among democracies and non-democracies.101 Shared

democratic regime type facilitates peace and cooperation among democracies for

normative, institutional, and economic reasons. 102 Democratic alliances and zones of

peace such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union

98
Haas 2005.
99
Rose 1998.
100
Wendt 1992,397.
101
Doyle 1983a; Doyle 1983b; Doyle 1986; for criticism see Layne 1994; Oren 1995; Spiro 1994.
102
Mousseau 2003; Owen 1994; Russett 1993; Schultz 1998;
33
(EU) may have been conceived in response to Soviet power or threat,103 but the fact that

the members of these organizations are democracies is not a coincidence. Their shared

threat perception of the USSR was to a large extent a function of their shared regime

type. The flipside of peace and cooperation among democracies is discord among

democracies and non-democracies: “The very constitutional restraint, shared commercial

interests, and international respect for individual rights that promote peace among liberal

societies can exacerbate conflicts in relations between liberal and non-liberal

societies.”104

Democracies are not the only birds that sometimes flock together. For example,

Randall Schweller showed that revisionist states tend to ally against status quo states due

to shared interests, regardless of the balance of power: “Satisfied powers will join the

status-quo coalition, even when it is the stronger side; dissatisfied powers, motivated by

profit more than security, will bandwagon with an ascending revisionist state.”105 John

Owen’s study of alliances in the sixteenth century Holy Roman Empire found that

Protestant estates allied with each other against Catholic estates. This religious alignment

was particularly strong when estates believed that the opposing side intended to roll back

their religion.106 Charles Kupchan showed that, independent of regime type, stable peace

was more likely to flourish among culturally similar states.107 Shared interests and threat

perceptions were also at the heart of other non-democratic alliances including the League

of Three Emperors, the Warsaw Treaty Organization, and the Holy Alliance.

103
Mearsheimer 1995; Rosato 2011.
104
Doyle 1983b, 324-325.
105
Schweller 1994, 88.
106
Owen 2005.
107
Kupchan 2010.
34
 Similar patterns of conflict and cooperation are observable in the case of non-state

entities as well. Social identity theory provides robust micro-foundations for cooperation

within groups, which under certain circumstances may also spill over into conflict

between groups.108 Universal cognitive limitations and motivations of self-esteem give

rise to categorization and the association of positive features with in-groups and negative

ones with out-groups. There is substantial empirical evidence which shows that shared

identity facilitates cooperation within ethnic groups and facilitates conflict across them.

For example, in weak states ethnic groups confront an anarchic environment and the

security dilemma kicks in. Chauvinist elites can then easily mobilize ethnic myths and

symbols that justify interethnic hostility and amplify fears of group extinction, which

trigger ethnic conflict.109 Others show how shared ethnic identities can facilitate

economic transactions as they increase trust and decrease uncertainty. 110 These racial

dynamics are applicable to state behavior as well.

This chapter provides a racial theory of discord and cooperation. According to

Niall Ferguson, race, along with ethnicity, was one of the main causes of conflict in the

Age of Hatred of the twentieth century.111 In spite of this, the influence of race on

international discord remains underexplored. As a study put it more than forty years ago,

“Race hatred has already taken its place among the very real sources of human

discord…It remains, however, to be shown to what extent the race issue contributes to

tension and conflict at the international, in the sense of inter-State, level, as a separate and

108
Brown 2000; Mercer, 1995.
109
Kaufman 2001; Lake and Rotschild 1996; Posen 1993.
110
Tai Landa 1995.
111
Ferguson 2006.
35
clearly identifiable factor.”112 International racial cooperation remains similarly

understudied. Apart from the difficulty of isolating the causal effect of race, this relative

neglect is due to the conventional wisdom that race matters little in the international

realm. Arnold Wolfers opined that “some Americans may feel enmity for the colored

races, but this does not prevent ‘cordial’ or ‘friendly’ diplomatic relations between the

United States and many African and Asian nations.”113 Wolfers’ point is well taken

insofar as domestic sentiments do not determine international politics. But neither are

they inconsequential. I argue that when threats are uncertain, states have dominant racial

groups, and these groups hold salient threat-relevant prejudices, states with shared racial

identities are likely to cooperate against states with different racial identities.

The chapter is organized as follow. The first section locates the dissertation in the

broader race literature and conceptualizes the “independent variable” of the theory, racial

identity. The second section explains how racial identity shapes threat perceptions. Racial

identity functions as a lens of perception, where perception of other groups is “colored”

by racial prejudices. Shared racial identity deflates threat perceptions, while difference in

racial identity inflates threat perceptions. The third section discusses how threat

perception predisposes states towards discord or cooperation. Inflated threat perceptions

facilitate discord, while deflated threat perceptions facilitate cooperation. The theory does

not imply that cooperation across racial groups or conflict within them does not occur.

Nonetheless, racial difference makes discord easier and cooperation harder. The chapter

112
Preiswerk 1970, 55.
113
Wolfers 1962, 25.
36
closes with a discussion of research design including case selection, methods, and the

operationalization of inflated threat perception.

WHAT RACE IS: DEFINING RACIAL IDENTITY

There is perhaps no other concept associated with so much controversy and

human suffering as race. The Holocaust, colonialism, apartheid, slavery, Jim Crow and

eugenics are only a few examples where oppression, exclusion, and even extermination

occurred in the name of race. It is not surprising then that the concept is surrounded by

deep ontological and normative disagreements. This section starts with a brief overview

of the broader race debate and locates the dissertation in it. Then it defines racial identity

as a collective identity based on beliefs of common origins and shared physical traits, and

distinguishes it from other forms of identity.

Embracing Racial Constructivism

For centuries, the conventional wisdom about race was based on racial

essentialism. According to this approach, 1) humankind can be divided into discrete

biological races, 2) with distinct and stable physical markers, 3) which stand for inherited

and essential social, cultural, and moral traits, 4) based on which races can be ranked

hierarchically. 114 Although traces of racial essentialism can still be found in the ordinary

use of race, respectable natural and social scientific approaches have abandoned it.

114
Rattansi 2007, 31.
37
 The main disagreements in the current race debate are ontological and normative.

Disagreements along the ontological axis focus on what race is made of and whether it is

real. Disagreements along the normative axis are about whether we should continue to

use race or whether we should drop it in an effort to combat racism. The two axes are not

independent, insofar as one’s ontological position tends to shape one’s normative

position. Those who think that race is real tend to favor its continued use, whereas those

who think that race is not real tend to advocate its abandonment. Based on the two axes

we can identify three main positions in the race debate: racial naturalism, racial

skepticism, and racial constructivism. 115 These positions overlap in interesting ways.

Racial naturalists and racial constructivists agree that race is real, but disagree about what

it is made of. Racial skeptics and racial constructivists agree that race is a social kind, but

disagree whether race is real.

Racial naturalists, mostly students of genetics, evolutionary biology, and

philosophy of biology, argue that race is a natural kind and favor its continued use. In this

view, race refers to subspecies of Homo sapiens whose members share some combination

of common ancestry, genotype, and phenotype. 116 A recent strand, cladism, defines races

as “ancestor-descendant sequences of breeding populations, or groups of such sequences,

that share a common origin.” 117 Cladists measure genetic distance between breeding

populations based on difference in gene frequencies, to identify races. This new strand of

racial naturalism distances itself from racial essentialism. Although it argues that race is

115
Mallon 2006.
116
Keita et al. 2004; Kitcher 2007; Mayr 2002.
117
Andreasen 1998, 200, 206.
38
biological, it conceives of race as dynamic rather than stable, avoids extending its

implications to social and moral traits, and denies racial hierarchy.

This new strand of racial naturalism is less vulnerable than racial essentialism to

many of the criticisms made against the biological ontology of race: 118 that phenotypic

variation is continuous and phenotypic traits vary independently, precluding discrete

categorization; that genetically pure racial groups have never existed; that most genetic

variation occurs within racial groups; and that variation in phenotype does not correlate

well with variation in genotype.119 The more difficult questions are whether we should

call the breeding populations of racial naturalism “races,” since they do not map well

onto, and even cross-classify, folk racial categories;120and whether what these breeding

populations are sufficiently isolated reproductively today to warrant the continued use of

the term. 121 Racial naturalists recognize that races were the product of interaction

between different environmental conditions and relative reproductive isolation. As

reproductive isolation decreases, races are disappearing. Moreover, given the harm that

nineteenth century race science caused by legitimating racism, it may be prudent not to

call breeding populations “races”. Indeed, some racial naturalists are reluctant to use

“race” in their research. 122

Racial skeptics and racial constructivists argue that race is a social kind. This

ontological position emerged as a critique to racial essentialism, which provided

scientific legitimacy to oppressive racial categories. By showing that race is not a

118
Sesardic 2010.
119
King 1981; Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin 1984; Outram and Ellison 2010; Zack 2002.
120
Glasgow 2003.
121
Appiah 1994, 100.
122
Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza 1994.
39
biological, but a social kind, it opened the possibility of changing or even abolishing race

altogether. This position does not deny the existence of physical difference, but argues

that there is nothing objectively racial about it. Races are socially constructed through the

imposition of a set of racial ideas to particular human groups.

While racial skeptics and racial constructivists agree on the social ontology of

race, they disagree whether this implies that race is real or not. This disagreement leads to

divergent normative positions. Racial skeptics believe that because the concept of race

refers primarily to a biological kind, showing that race is social implies that race is not

real.123 For this reason their normative position favors the elimination of the concept of

race. They worry that its connection to racial essentialism is too intimate and it facilitates

racism. Racial constructivists believe that it is a mistake to eliminate race and champion

its conservation as long as racism exists. Although they agree with skeptics that

biological races do not exist, they believe that race can be social and real. 124 Since race

has always had both biological and social aspects, race can be real as a social kind. They

worry that eliminating race would make racism less visible and would leave its victims

without a valuable resource of resistance. While skeptics see race as facilitating racism,

constructivists tend to see it as facilitating anti-racism.

123
Appiah 1994; Montagu 1945; Zack 2002.
124
Mills 1998; Sundstrom 2002; Taylor 2004.
40
Approach Ontological Position Normative Position

Racial Naturalism Race is biological and real Conservationism

Racial skepticism Race is social and not real Eliminativism

Racial constructivism Race is social and real Conservationism

Table 2.1: Mapping the Race Debate

The racial theory presented in this chapter embraces the social ontology and

normative conservationism of racial constructivism. Ontologically, racial constructivism

occupies the middle ground between racial naturalism and racial skepticism, which

allows it to strike a balance between reifying race 125 and treating it as an illusion.126 On

the one hand, racial naturalism’s conception of race risks reifying race and perhaps

legitimizing racism. The advantages of biological ontology may outweigh disadvantages

in forensic anthropology, genomics, and biomedicine, but even there it has drawbacks. 127

In my view in international politics the disadvantages of a biological ontology would

outweigh its advantages. What is most interesting about race in this realm are its social

meanings and political implications. Because racial naturalism operates with a

deflationary conception of race, limiting it to biology, it cannot capture these. On the

other hand, racial skepticism risks treating race as an illusion, because it denies its reality.

125
Reification means the treatment of social facts in a taken for granted manner, as if they were natural
facts.
126
Goldberg 1993, 69; Omi and Winant 1986, 3, 69.
127
Fujimura, Duster, and Rajagopalan 2008; Whitmarsh and Jones 2010.
41
I am persuaded that race is as real as any other social kind. The etymology of race

suggests that race has as much cultural as biological content.128

Normatively, I am unconvinced that race should be eliminated. It is beyond the

scope of this chapter to engage this aspect of the race debate more seriously since

“Resolving this disagreement requires a complex assessment of many factors,

including, the epistemic value of ‘race’ talk in various domains, the benefits and
costs of racial identification, the value of racialized identities and communities
fostered by ‘race’ talk, the role of ‘race’ talk in promoting or undermining racism,
the benefits or costs of ‘race’ talk in a process of rectification for past injustice, the
cognitive or aesthetic value of ‘race’ talk, and the degree of entrenchment of ‘race’
talk in everyday discourse.”129

I favor conservationism based on my reading of the extant literature, most of

which argues that its benefits outweigh the costs.130 The quasi-consensus seems to be that

talking and thinking about race does more to combat than to facilitate racism. Although

the invention of race made racism possible, its elimination would not make racism

impossible. It would, however, make its detection and mitigation more difficult. Yet

because we should be sensitive to the concerns of racial skeptics, I focus below on racial

identity rather than race. Even prominent racial skeptics like Anthony Appiah grant

reality to racial identity and find its use less objectionable than that of race.131

128
Banton 1977; Hannaford 1996; Rattansi 2007.
129
Mallon 2006, 550.
130
Glasgow 2006, 172-176.
131
Appiah 1994.
42
Defining Racial Identity

The analytical focus on racial identity is popular in the race literature. Already

scholars of the first wave of the race literature in IR, like James Rosenau, argued for this

approach.132 It allows us to address the real effects of race and provides victims of racism

with a valuable resource. At the same time, it mitigates worries of racial eliminativists,

because the reality of racial identity does not presuppose the biological reality of race.

Like other “imagined communities,”133 the identity derived from group membership can

be real even if the group rests on imagined foundations. As Paul Gilroy argued, “‘Race’

must be retained as an analytical category not because it corresponds to any biological or

epistemological absolutes, but because it refers investigation to the power that collective

identities acquire by means of their roots in tradition.”134 Needless to say, despite its

advantages, race as collective identity cannot exhaustively capture the various ways in

which race matters. It is one, albeit central, aspect of larger racial orders. 135 According to

Howard Winant, “Race must be grasped as a fundamental condition of individual and

collective identity, a permanent, although tremendously flexible, dimension of the

modern global social structure.”136

Defining racial identity and differentiating it from other collective identities is

challenging. Much of the political power of race is due to its connotative poverty and

denotative ambiguity, which explains its extraordinary ability to define very different

132
Rosenau 1970.
133
Anderson 1993 [1983].
134
Gilroy 1987, 247.
135
King and Smith 2005; Omi and Winant 1986.
136
Winant 2002, 3.
43
populations across time and space. 137 Yet its historical use, scholarly definitions, and the

ordinary concept of race suggest that racial identity is not entirely devoid of defining

elements. Beliefs of common descent and shared physical markers are at the heart of

racial identity.

During its long and controversial history, the meaning of race revolved around

common descent. The Oxford English Dictionary defines race as “A group of people,

animals, or plants connected by common descent or origin.” 138 The ancients already had

an awareness of phenotypic differences. 139 But racial categories and identities emerged in

response to European voyages of discovery which brought whites in contact with non-

whites. Thus, the markers of common origin tended to be visible, phenotypic traits. In his

popular Systema Naturae (1735) the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus formulated one of

the earliest racial classifications, identifying the following races: Homo americanus,

Homo europaeus, Homo asiaticus, and Homo afer.140 During the nineteenth century

when racial theories acquired unprecedented influence, 141 racial identity was broadly

applied to various pan-ethnic groups (Germans), classes (blue-blooded aristocracy), and

religious groups (Jews). This broad usage loosened but did not sever the link between

racial identity on the one hand, and common origins and phenotypic markers on the other.

Blue eyes and blond hair were invented as the phenotypic markers of the German Aryan

race. Phrenology and craniology “discovered” systematic differences in the skulls of the

137
Goldberg 1993, 80.
138
www.oed.edu, last accessed in January 2012.
139
Lauren 1996, 6; Rattansi 2007, 13-14.
140
Rattansi 2007, 25.
141
MacMaster 2001.
44
various European nations and categorized them into different racial groups.142 When non-

phenotypic groups were racialized, phenotype did not disappear as a marker of racial

identity. Rather, it emerged in the form of negative physical stereotypes such as the Irish

simian appearance and ‘Africanoid skull’, or the Jewish hooked nose.143 Higher classes

were attributed whiter skin than lower classes. In a biography of George Lord Curzon,

Harold Nicolson relates this story. During World War I Curzon saw private soldiers bathe

after returning from the trenches. “Dear me!” he said, ‘I had no conception that the lower

classes had such white skins’.”144 Whether the story is real or not, it suggests an attempt

to link racialized class to phenotype.

Reference to common origins and phenotype is also common in social scientific

definitions of race and folk theories of race. In the introduction of a recent International

Studies Perspective symposium on race, Tilden LeMelle defines race as “a group of

people who are socially defined on the basis of phenotypically similar (and dissimilar)

characteristics.”145 In a survey of the race literature, Matthew Desmond and Mustafa

Emirbayer define race as a “symbolic category, based on phenotype or ancestry and

constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is misrecognized as a

natural category.”146 The emphasis on common descent and phenotype is also at the heart

of the ordinary concept of race. Phenotype in particular is central to the folk use of race:

142
Jahoda 2009.
143
McCarthy 2009, 8; Rattansi 2007, 39, fn 13.
144
Cited in King 1981, 118.
145
Le Melle 2009, 77.
146
Desmond and Emirbayer 2009, 336.
45
“The very notion of a visually indistinguishable racial group runs counter to the idea of

race.”147

In light of the historical use of race, social scientific definitions, and the ordinary

concept of race, I define racial identity as a collective identity based on beliefs of

common descent the markers of which are phenotypic (visible physical traits). I

emphasize beliefs because common descent and phenotype do not objectively delimit

racial groups. If they did, passing (being perceived as a member of one racial group is

perceived as a member of another racial group) would be impossible. There is more

variation within racial groups than across them, and racial categories vary across space

and time. While in North America racial categories have tended to be dichotomous (one

was black or white), in Latin America they have been closer to a continuum. The relative

importance of phenotype and descent in defining race also varies across time and space.

While in North America descent is more important than phenotype in defining blackness,

in Latin America phenotype is more important than descent.148 Nonetheless, beliefs of

common descent and shared phenotype tend to uphold a real and visible racial identity. 149

Visible markers of racial identity include the color of skin and eyes, the texture of hair,

the shape of nose, characteristics of the skull and so on. But what is really important

about racial identity is not physical markers, but the meanings associated with them, the

shared experiences and the social heritage they imply. Phenotype serves only as a marker

of racial identity, or, as W.E.B. Du Bois put it, a “badge” of race. 150 It does not stand for

147
Hardimon 2003, 442.
148
Wade 1997.
149
Alcoff 2006.
150
Du Bois 1940.
46
deeper, socially relevant essential features shared by the members of a racial group. As

gender cannot be reduced to biology, racial identity cannot be either. This, however, does

not mean that racial identity is an illusion. It is socially constructed but real, just as

money is.

Racial identities are constructed through a combination of three practices: 1)

racial labeling or ascription of racial identity to a group; 2) institutionalization and

enforcement of specific roles, norms, and expectations attached to racial identity; and 3)

acceptance of the racial identity ascribed to them by members of the group. 151 As a result,

“racialized” groups acquire a new status as a race. To paraphrase John Searle, “Human

groups X count as race in context Z.”152 Races are primarily social groups rather than

biological ones. All social facts are ultimately based on some brute matter, 153 and in the

case of race this tends to be phenotype. “The choice of natural kind as the criterion of

group construction and difference is inevitably a social one.” 154 Since the construction of

race on phenotype is a social choice, race can be built on various real or imagined

biological traits. The physical markers of race can vary across time and place, just as the

boundaries and content of racial identities do.

A broader, alternative approach identifies naturalization as the defining feature of

race, rather than beliefs in common descent and phenotype. Superficial biological

elements are important for race construction only because of the ideological role they

play: naturalization. Anything that can perform this function can replace biology in the

151
Sundstrom 2002, 95-104; for a similar approach see Appiah 1994, 110.
152
Searle 1995, 28.
153
Searle 1995; Wendt 1999.
154
Goldberg 1993, 75.
47
construction of racial identity. For instance, “…culture can be reified and essentialized to

the point where it becomes the functional equivalent of race.” 155 This naturalization-

based definition is embraced by supporters of the “new racism” and “racism problematic”

paradigms in the race literature.156 One may worry that by using a narrower definition of

racial identity, I truncate the import of race and racism in international politics.

Although sympathetic to this approach, for purposes of this dissertation I prefer

the narrower definition of racial identity for two reasons. First, the dissertation tries to

bring together two areas of study which are typically kept apart: great power politics and

race. To convince skeptics that race matters in this area, it makes sense to opt for this

more conventional and more demanding definition of racial identity. This narrower

definition may capture only a fraction of what race and racism do, but it also constitutes a

harder case for showing that race matters in great power politics. If the plausibility of the

relevance of racial identity is established, then one can broaden the definition of race to

pursue other promising research avenues. 157 Second, naturalization is a necessary element

of race, but I am not convinced that it is sufficient. One way to think about this is to

conceive of racialization as a continuum. Although groups can be naturalized without

reference to phenotype, they remain incompletely racialized. Complete racialization in

my view requires reference to phenotype. This is partly why the “new racism” paradigm

considers discrimination against partially racialized groups “racism without races.”158

155
Fredrickson 2002, 7.
156
Balibar 1991; Miles and Brown 2003.
157
For a similar argument see Katzenstein 1996, 10-11.
158
Balibar 1991.
48
The study of incompletely racialized groups is as important as that of the completely

racialized ones. For purposes of this study, however, I am interested in the latter.

Distinguishing Racial Identity from Adjacent Identities

Racial identity significantly overlaps with gender, class, national, and ethnic

identities. Historically whites often saw non-white races as feminine. In the wake of

World War II the “geisha” image of Japan became pervasive in the US, which facilitated

Japan’s occupation by a masculine America.159 There has also been a significant

correlation between racial hierarchy and class. In nineteenth century Europe aristocracy

was seen as a superior race, while the “laboring class” was considered an inferior and

even dangerous race.160 Moreover, the rise of capitalism and the exploitation of African

slave labor were inextricably intertwined. 161 Much interesting work examines the

interactions among these different identities. 162 But there is also value in trying to isolate

and assess their independent effect, difficult though this may be.

Although racism and sexism often appear together, gender and racial identities are

different. Gender may be based on physical markers, but it does not imply beliefs in

common descent. Despite the close historical link between race and class, they can be

distinguished. At least in its more recent use, class is more closely linked to factors of

production than to common descent and its phenotypic markers. Race cuts across class,

159
Shibusawa 2006.
160
Chevalier 1973; Pick 1989.
161
McIntyre 2011.
162
Chowdhry and Nair 2002; Short and Kambouri 2010.
49
which is why Marxists worry that race masks class inequality, weakens class

consciousness, and sustains exploitative capitalism.163

Race is more difficult to distinguish from nation and ethnicity. Nation-builders

frequently imagined the body politic in terms of race and excluded racial others from full

membership in the state.164 Race and ethnicity are even more entangled. After World War

II many advocated the replacement of race with ethnicity, further blurring the distinction

between the two. Not surprisingly, some scholars prefer concepts such as “ethno-race,”

“racial ethnicity,” or “ethnic races.” 165 Yet race cannot be reduced to nation and ethnicity.

One way in which these identities differ is that although they all share beliefs in common

descent, national and ethnic identities emphasize its cultural markers (language, dress,

and customs), while racial identity emphasizes its physical markers (phenotype). As Paul

Taylor put it, “…‘race’ points to the body, while ‘ethnicity’ points to culture.”166 This is

partly why the ascriptive element is stronger in racial than in national and ethnic

identities. Historically external imposition played a larger role in the case of racial

identity than in that of national and ethnic identities. 167 Even today, one has more choice

whether to identify with an ethnic identity than whether to embrace a racial identity.

While most Irish Americans have a choice over whether to identify with this ethnic

group, most African Americans do not have a choice over whether to identify with this

racial group.168 Other differences are that national identity is tied closer to citizenship and

163
Callinicos 1993.
164
Marx 1998.
165
Gracia 2007.
166
Taylor 2004, 54.
167
Doty 1993, 452.
168
Appiah 1990.
50
the state than racial identity is (at least formally). Racial identity is also a more

encompassing category than ethnic identity. While different ethnic groups can be of the

same race, different races are typically not of the same ethnicity.

In conclusion, I define racial identity as a form of collective identity based on

beliefs of common descent the markers of which are phenotypic. This definition is

admittedly narrow and the distinction between racial identity and adjacent identities is

imperfect. My hope is that it nonetheless can serve as a working definition to establish

the relevance of race in great power politics. Following an initial review of the threat

literature in IR, the next section provides a two-step racial theory of discord and

cooperation.

WHAT RACE DOES: RACIAL IDENTITY, THREAT PERCEPTION, AND

BEHAVIOR

Threat Perception in International Relations

In his “balance of threat” theory Stephen Walt made a cogent case that balancing

does not occur simply in response to power. Drawing on empirical evidence of Middle

Eastern diplomacy between 1955 and 1979, he found that states ally not against the

strongest, but the most threatening unit. According to Walt, threat is a function of four

factors: aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and perceived

intentions.”169 While the first three have long been part of the realist toolbox, the last has

not. Walt’s innovative theoretical move was based on the conviction that “Perceptions of

169
Walt 1985, 9; Walt 1987, 5.
51
intent are likely to play an especially crucial role in alliance choices.” 170 The more

aggressive the perceived intentions of a state, the more likely it is that others would form

a balancing coalition against it. Because power can be used either to hurt or help,

perceptions of intentions shape balancing. Others subsequently showed that not only

perceptions of intent, but also perceptions of power matter for balancing. 171

While Walt argued that threats were the primary drivers of alliances, he also

found evidence that shared ideology mattered for alliance formation when the ideology

was unifying rather than divisive, when threats were moderate, and when weak states

wanted to enhance their legitimacy. 172 Like classical realism, Walt did not exclude the

possibility that like units may cooperate against unlike units. But while classical realism

emphasized that national interests trumped unit similarity, for Walt threats trumped unit

similarity.

Walt recognized that threats could not be treated as objective and that theorizing

threats required theorizing perceptions. But he ultimately shied away from providing a

theory of threat perception. He limited his efforts in this regard to the stipulation that

“statesmen often seek shortcuts to identify friends and foes.” 173 Walt’s “balance of

threat” theory raises at least three questions: What kind of shortcuts do statesmen use

when perceiving threats? What is the precise relation between threat perception and unit

similarity? Can unit similarity serve as a shortcut through which threat is perceived?

Below I address these questions through a brief literature review of threat perception.

170
Walt 1987, 25.
171
Wohlforth 1993.
172
Walt 1987, 38.
173
Ibid., 180.
52
 Regarding the first question, psychological approaches and social identity theory

explore the nature of shortcuts which shape decision makers’ threat perception. Among

others, they discuss how social-cognitive biases can amplify the competitive

consequences of anarchy. Psychological approaches show that when actors face new

problems, the stakes are high, and structural factors are indeterminate, cognitive biases

can intensify the security dilemma, escalating arms races and pushing states towards

conflict.174 Social identity theory posits a universal need for positive self-esteem to

explain ethnocentrism. The desire to maximize self-esteem drives categorization of

individuals into different groups as well as comparisons which favor one’s in-group over

others. The upshot is a predisposition toward competition and conflict.175 Drawing in part

on these insights, neoclassical realists have recognized that misperceptions shape how

structural constraints are translated into behavior. Randall Schweller showed that the

reason the USSR bandwagoned rather than balanced against Germany on the eve of

WWII was because Stalin misperceived Europe as tripolar, when in fact it was bipolar. 176

Elsewhere Schweller provides a discussion of misperception, concluding that it can be a

function of motivated biases, wishful thinking, and various predispositions including

“emotional factors rooted in psychopathologies of hatred, guilt, or ethnic, religious, and

ideological hostilities.”177

Regarding the second question, constructivism did much to specify the

relationship between threat perceptions and unit similarity. Although unit similarity does

174
Jervis 1976, 68; Stein 2002.
175
Mercer 1995.
176
Schweller 1998, 168.
177
Schweller 2006, 43.
53
not always imply shared threat perception, the threat perceptions of similar units often

converge for at least three interrelated reasons. First, shared identity implies some degree

of mutual identification and solidarity. The trust and cooperation that results facilitate the

rise of “cooperative security systems” or “security communities,” while their absence

may give rise to “competitive security systems” or “insecurity communities”. 178 For

example, David Rousseau provided evidence that shared identity decreases threat

perception and increases chances of cooperation. 179 Second, decision makers tend to infer

defensive intentions from similar identities and offensive intentions from different

identities. At the basis of this inference is the tendency to assume that a “good” state like

one’s own is less likely to engage in aggression. For instance, in his study of the

transatlantic democratic community Thomas Risse-Kappen showed that decision makers

infer defensive intentions from the democratic regime type of their counterparts, and

externalize their domestic norms of peaceful conflict resolution to their inter-democratic

interactions. 180 Third, threat perception can also be linked to shared identity through

norms and rules. Based on the logic of appropriateness, states with shared identity are

expected to follow the same norms. 181 If a state violates a fundamental norm and flouts

the logic of appropriateness, others may interpret this as evidence that the state is “bad”

and threatening. South Africa’s apartheid system violated the global norm of racial

equality and the international community reacted by ostracizing and sanctioning the

178
Adler and Barnett 1998; Weldes 1999; Wendt 1992, 400.
179
Rousseau 2006.
180
Risse-Kappen 1996; Risse-Kappen 1995.
181
March and Olsen 1998.
54
state.182 Rule violation may also threaten others because it challenges a fundamental

value they hold or is seen as proof that the rule violator is revisionist. 183 Barbara Farnham

showed that Roosevelt perceived Hitler’s Germany as a threat to American security not

because Germany was non-democratic, but because Hitler violated norms of political

accommodation at Munich, suggesting that he was an unlimited revisionist. 184

To be sure, the logic of identity depends not only on the boundaries of collective

identities, but also their content. Shared identity alone does not guarantee cooperation

among similar units. Shared identity as criminals, for example, may increase rather than

decrease threat perceptions and may inhibit cooperation. As Walt noted, shared ideology

may result in a clash of interests if the ideology is divisive. 185 The Sino-Soviet

competition for ideological leadership during the Cold War, which led to the Sino-Soviet

rift, illustrates this phenomenon. Michael Barnett’s study on the Middle East shows that

shared pan-Arabic identity led to discord due to disagreements over what constitutes

appropriate behavior for members of the group.186 Nonetheless, even in these divisive

relations there was arguably as much cooperation as discord. After all, there was

substantial cooperation within the Communist bloc during the Cold War and there is

some cooperation among Arab states against Israel. When the content of shared identities

is unifying, rather than divisive, shared identities are more conducive to cooperation than

to discord.

182
Klotz 1995.
183
Cohen 1979.
184
Farnham 2003.
185
Walt 1985,33.
186
Barnett 1996, 409.
55
 Building on the insights of the threat perception literature discussed above, I

propose a racial theory of threat perception which addresses the third question raised in

connection to Walt: Can unit similarity serve as a shortcut through which threat is

perceived? I argue that unit similarity (shared identity) can serve as a shortcut or a lens

of perception through which threat is perceived. Despite his recognition that threat

perception lies at the heart of patterns of conflict and cooperation, Walt stopped short of

providing a theory of threat perception. 187 Ted Hopf argued that “What is missing here is

a theory of threat perception, and this is precisely what a constructivist account of

identity offers.”188 While constructivists have explored the impact of various shared

identities on threat perception, they have largely neglected racial identities. In the next

section I argue that sometimes states perceive threats based on racial prejudices

embedded in their racial identity. In such cases we can talk about the color of threat.

The Color of Threat: Racial Identity Shapes Threat Perception

I build on Ted Hopf’s social cognitive conception of identity where identities

function as lenses of perception. 189 Identities are social, because they are the result of

interactions with the social environment. At the most general level, identity refers to

actors’ self-understanding acquired through social interactions. Identities are also

cognitive heuristics which allow us, cognitive misers, to cope with the complexity of the

world. They function as lenses of perception, or what Hopf calls “axis of interpretation”

187
Gause III 2003, 273.
188
Hopf 1998, 187.
189
Hopf 2002.
56
and Linda Alcoff calls “interpretive horizons.” 190 They make “threats and opportunities,

enemies and allies, intelligible, thinkable, and possible.” 191 Identities as lenses of

perception do more than just tell us who we are. They also tell us who others are.

Identities are “mutually constructed and evolving images of self and other.”192

The insight that identities function as lenses of perception has provided a fruitful

starting point for several different theories. John Owen built his explanation of

democratic peace on the assumption that “people perceive their material environment

through ‘lenses’, formed by the ideas they hold, that give that environment meaning.” 193

Richard Herrmann and Michael Fischerkeller provided an image theory of foreign policy

where behavior is largely a function of actors’ strategic images of others. Based on

judgments about relative power, culture, and threat or opportunity, the authors identify

multiple images and strategic behaviors associated with them. 194 Although Herrmann and

Fischerkeller briefly touch on race, they limit its relevance primarily to the asymmetrical

power relations of the “colony” image. They assume that race is irrelevant in more

symmetrical power relations such as that of the “enemy” image. As discussed in Chapter

1, the dissertation extends the relevance of race to the symmetrical relations of great

power politics, including the “enemy” image.

My contribution lies in applying the insight that identities function as lenses of

threat perception to racial identities. Racial identities, like any identity, vary along two

190
Alcoff 2006; Hopf 2002,.5.
191
Cronin 1999,18; Hopf 2002, 16.
192
Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein 1996, 59.
193
Owen 1997, 18.
194
Herrmann and Fischerkeller 1995.
57
main dimensions: content and contestation. 195 Since, as explained in the introductory

chapter, I use race as a cause rather than as an effect, I bracket contestation and focus on

content. Racial identity shapes threat perception through the prejudices it contains. The

visibility of racial identity facilitates the development of prejudices. Based on our limited

experiences we form categories of others, attach various attributes to them, and then

over-generalize these attributes to all members of the category. 196 Prejudices are

primarily the consequence of our being cognitive misers, but they may also be reinforced

by other needs and interests. They may satisfy humans’ need for positive self-esteem and

may contribute in subtle but powerful ways to the maintenance of existing power

relations. 197 Although their strength varies across levels of education, geographic

location, age, gender, or level of income, prejudices are surprisingly widespread and

resilient.

One concern in the race literature regarding racial theorizing that relies on

prejudices is that it reduces racism to individual idiosyncrasy and misses its broader

structural aspects.198 Indeed, a significant portion of the prejudice literature tends to

embrace methodological and ontological individualism. Theodor Adorno’s classic study

located prejudice in the “authoritarian personality,” and more recent cognitive-behavioral

approaches locate it in the individual mind. 199 Nonetheless, there is no good reason to

assume that prejudices are necessarily individual, rather than structural. The assumption

195
Abdelal et al. 2009.
196
Allport 1958 [1954],147.
197
Maykovich 1971, 448; Mercer 1995.
198
Bourne 2001; Silliman 2003; Wight 2003.
199
Adorno 1950; Corlett 2003; Levine and Pataki 2004.
58
that prejudices are individualist has recently come under attack in social psychology. 200

As mentioned earlier, social identity theory revealed the social origins of prejudices. In

the same vein, I conceive of prejudices embedded in racial identities as the micro-

structures which help uphold larger material, institutional and legal macro-structures.

They are embedded in the larger social structure, are relational, and are transmitted

socially, which makes them as social as they are cognitive. By embedding them in racial

identities, I hope to avoid the reductionist trap associated with theories of racial

prejudices.

Prejudices help racial identity shape threat perception in two ways. First, racial

prejudices facilitate the activation of racial identities by providing the cognitive

associations on which activation depends. Because agents have multiple identities, the

activation of racial identities is necessary in order to perceive others through a racial lens.

Activation is a cognitive process which can occur automatically, but can also be

facilitated by a wide range of cues provided by the media and politicians. It depends on

the prior existence of conscious or unconscious cognitive associations between racial

others and particular characteristics, events, or policies. Such close associations usually

take the form of prejudices. The literature on racial cues and on playing the “race card”

provides strong evidence in this regard.201 For example, the close connection in the

American mind between crime and African Americans can activate racial perception if

one is exposed to images or statements about crime, even if no direct reference to race is

200
Dixon and Levine 2012, 6-10.
201
Gilens 1996; Mendelberg 2001; White, 2007.
59
made. 202 This implicit activation is the more powerful because it can circumvent norms

prohibiting racism by avoiding explicit reference to race. Similar activation of racial

identities as a lens of perception can occur towards racial groups inhabiting other states if

one is exposed to images or statements which focus on characteristics closely associated

with that racial group. Although much of this literature in American politics emphasizes

the instrumental role of manipulative elites and the media in activating racial prejudices,

there is nothing in the logic of activation that requires instrumentalism. In practice it is

often the manipulative elite and the media that provide racial cues, but sometimes they

provide racial cues automatically, without being motivated by some self-interest.

Second, racial prejudices provide the specific content of racial identities,

decisively influencing the impact of racial identities on threat perception. Racial

prejudices relevant to threat perception can be grouped into four categories: related to the

body, related to reason, related to intentions, and related to morality. These four aspects

have been central to the modern conception of self and other.203 In addition to

fundamental biological difference, the racial self is imputed rationality, defensive

intentions, and morality; while racial others are imputed fundamental biological

similarity, irrationality, offensive intentions, and immorality. Similar prejudices have also

been applied to gender, class, ethnic, and religious identities, but I am interested in how

these prejudices link racial identity to threat perception.

Threat perception is the intervening variable between racial identity and behavior.

I define threat perception broadly, as the anticipated outcome of A’s (intended future)

202
Valentino, Hutchings, and White 2002, 76.
203
Goldberg 1993, 23; Stoddard 1920, 165.
60
activities as perceived by B through its racial lens of perception, which would result in

B’s loss of something valuable. 204 Threats are intersubjective, which makes them

dependent on collective perceptions and intentions, rather than on material capabilities

alone. 205 As opposed to “Rubicon theories,” where prejudices influence international

politics after decisions are made and agents switch from a deliberative to an implemental

mind-set,206 I show that racial prejudices can have an impact before decisions are made as

well, constraining not only action but also deliberation. Below I discuss how each of the

four categories of racial prejudices can shape threat perception.

The first category of racial prejudices is related, but not reducible to, the body. At

the heart of this prejudice is the belief that racial others are fundamentally different

biologically. This contributes to naturalizing racial identities and fixing racial boundaries.

Phenotypic markers create the illusion that racial identity is natural (biological) and fixed,

rather than social and changeable: “race gives to social relations the veneer of fixedness,

of long duration, and invokes, even silently, the tendency to characterize assent relations

in the language of descent.”207 Individuals are believed to enter their racial group through

birth and exit it through death. Those who share the agent’s racial identity are seen as

biologically fundamentally similar. At the same time, other racial groups are perceived as

fundamentally different, even inferior, and are perceived as threatening to one’s ‘natural’

racial identity. The proximity of racial difference is perceived as threatening because it

heralds transgression of fixed racial boundaries with allegedly disastrous consequences.

204
Baldwin 1971, 72; Knorr 1976, 78.
205
Owen 1997, 18.
206
Johnson and Tierney 2011.
207
Goldberg 1999, 374.
61
The assimilation of racial others is seen as either impossible because the difference is too

great or undesirable because it threatens the superiority, purity and the cohesion of one’s

own racial group. Thus, even in the absence of offensive intentions and capabilities,

racial others can pose a threat. Although the degree to which this hypothesis inflates

threat perception may depend on the social distance between the racial groups involved, it

holds as a general rule of thumb. 208 Bodily prejudices are upheld by what Gordon Allport

in Chapter 8 of his classic study on prejudice called “sensory aversion.” He observed that

often people express distaste for others by referring to bodily characteristics. 209

Racial prejudices related to the body inflated threat perceptions of racially

different groups and justified anti-miscegenation norms, segregation measures, and

eugenic policies far into the twentieth century. Extreme domestic examples include South

Africa’s apartheid system (1948-1994), Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic legislation in the

1930s, America’s Jim Crow laws, and European interwar sterilization laws. 210 For

instance, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor prohibited sexual

relations between Jews and ‘Aryans,’ while the Law for the Protection of the Hereditary

Health of the German People excluded “alien races” from the national community. 211 In

the US interracial marriages were prohibited until 1967. International racial others are

typically kept out through restrictive immigration legislation. Latin American countries

like Brazil introduced immigration restrictions to exclude Jews and Japanese, who were

208
Bogardus 1925; Karakayali 2009.
209
Allport 1958 [1954].
210
Burleigh and Wippermann 1991; Guelke 2005; Mottier and Gerodetti 2007; Rook 2004.
211
Burleigh and Wippermann 1991, 45, 49.
62
considered non-assimilable. 212 The pervasive belief was that “The yellow and white races

are immiscible as oil and water.”213 British Dominions restricted Oriental immigration

through “education tests” (Australia) or diplomatic agreements with Japan (Canada). 214 In

the US the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act

were partly the result of racial fears based on prejudice related to the body. Racial fears

of fundamental biological difference underpinned the emergence of demographic studies

on differential fertility during the early twentieth century. Interwar contributions in the

American Journal of Sociology conceived of demographic issues as a dimension of

“interracial struggle”. The relative decline of whites versus non-whites (especially

Asians) was seen as “race suicide” and justified immigration control. 215

In the past the threat posed by racially different groups was seen as primarily

biological, but over time it became cultural. According to past versions races had

biological inherited essences, which determined the nature of their institutions, laws, and

civilizations. Joseph De Gobineau argued that the decay of civilizations was due to the

pollution of the racial essence of superior races by inferior races. 216 Over time, the

biological foundation of this threat perception receded in the background and the

emphasis shifted to culture. Yet racial prejudices often still lurk beneath the surface. An

April 18, 2000 article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that “The yellow-faced billion

assimilate villages [in the Russian Far East] which are close to the Chinese border

212
Stepan 1991.
213
McLaughlin cited in Steiner 1917, 97
214
Doc 218 [F 1144/223/23], 11841/52, Colonial Office, Memorandum respecting Australian and Canadian
Legislation restricting the Immigration of Japanese (rec’d March 31)
215
Furedi 1998, 69-71, 73, 76, 78.
216
De Gobineau 1915 [1853-5].
63
excessively quickly.” At a conference the same year, Russian President Vladimir Putin

warned: “I do not want to dramatize the situation, but if we do not make every effort,

even the indigenous Russian population will soon speak mostly Japanese, Chinese and

Korean.”217 Based on the discussion above, we can identify the first hypothesis through

which racial prejudices shape threat perception:

Hypothesis 1: The proximity of agents with different racial identities is

perceived as threatening because they are considered fundamentally different and
non-assimilable. The proximity of agents with shared racial identity is perceived as
non-threatening, because they are considered fundamentally similar and assimilable
without major difficulties.

The second category of racial prejudices refers to intentions. Racial others may be

perceived as threatening not because of their proximity, but because of prejudices about

their intentions. Agents habitually impute aggressive intentions to racial others and they

impute peaceful ones to those with similar racial identities. 218 An example of a prejudice

related to offensive intentions is that African Americans (especially men) are violent and

crime-prone. John Dollard’s fascinating ethnographic study drew attention to the

tendency of whites to impute aggressive intentions to African Americans, which then

inflated whites’ threat perception. According to Dollard, “It is astonishing, when any

little incident occurs, how unerringly aggressive intent on the part of the negro is

assumed.”219 An oft-cited experiment found that whites interpreted the same ambiguous

217
Cited in Lukin 2002, 101, 103.
218
Brewer 1999, 438.
219
Dollard 1957 [1949], 288.
64
shove as violent when performed by blacks and friendly when performed by whites. 220

Under conditions of uncertainty about threats prejudices pertaining to offensive intentions

can strongly color threat perceptions. Although one may think these prejudices belong to

the past, that is sadly not the case. The 1992 American National Election Studies (ANES)

found that 50.5 percent of respondents thought that blacks were violent.221 A 1998 study

estimated that from a third to half of whites view blacks as “lazy” and “violent,” and the

actual numbers were probably higher given that the norm against racism inhibits the

explicit expression of such beliefs. 222

To inflate threat perceptions, prejudices related to aggressive intentions interact in

interesting ways with material capabilities. Due to the aggressive intentions imputed to

racial others even their harmless or defensive capabilities may be misperceived as

threatening. Studies in experimental psychology marshal robust evidence that racial

prejudice leads to misperceptions of others’ capabilities. For instance, white subjects are

more likely to misperceive harmless objects as weapons when they are held by African

Americans than when they are held by whites. 223 At the same time, imputed aggressive

intentions will inflate threat perceptions the most when racial others have enough

material capability to pose a credible threat.

Hypothesis 2: Difference in racial identity inflates threat perceptions,

because agents impute aggressive intentions to racial others. Imputed aggressive
intentions inflate threat perceptions most when racial others are strong enough to
pose a credible threat. Shared racial identities deflate threat perception because
220
Duncan 1976.
221
Peffley and Hurwitz 1998, 62.
222
Ibid., 90.
223
Correll et al., 2007; Greenwald, Oakes, and Hoffman 2003.
65
agents impute benign intentions to those with similar identities, and perceive their
material capabilities as non-threatening.

The third category of racial prejudices which shapes threat perceptions pertains to

racial prejudices related to rationality. Reason has been at the center of the modern self’s

identity. Liberalism’s universal principles and its ideal of progress presuppose a human

nature based on rationality. Liberals unsurprisingly based their exclusion and oppression

of racial others on imputed irrationality. Much of the literature discusses how Westerners

habitually imputed irrationality to “uncivilized” racial others, making them less than fully

human. This justified Western imperialism, exclusion, and oppression. 224

But there is another aspect of imputed irrationality which is more relevant to

threat perception. This implies fanaticism and disregard for human life. Racial others are

seen as ruled by emotion rather than reason, which predisposes them towards irrational

action and fanaticism. This strand of the prejudice was supported by two sets of claims.

On the one hand, it was argued that non-white societies placed the community above the

individual. In practice this meant that individual lives were devalued for the sake of the

community’s well-being. 225 On the other hand, the devaluation of human life was linked

to the relatively large number of individuals which made up non-white groups. In the

“human sea” of non-white populations individual human life was so abundant that it was

worth little. This latter argument was typically made with the Chinese in mind.

Several examples illustrate prejudices regarding the lack of reason. Sidney L.

Gulick, a Japanophile American missionary, who argued that racial differences are social

224
Goldberg 1993, 32, 118; Mill 1974 [1859]. On liberalism and empire see Mehta 1999; Pitts 2005.
225
Gulick 1903, 258.
66
rather than biological, could nonetheless write: “The strength of the emotional element

tends to make the Japanese extremists.”226 Although he cautioned that this tendency

should not be exaggerated, he went on to discuss how emotions determined the mental

activities of the Japanese and gave examples of “waves of feeling” sweeping across

Japan. Gustav Le Bon’s classic study of mass psychology emphasized the importance of

inherited racial features. He argued that while all masses tended to be driven by emotion,

rather than reason, masses comprised of inferior races were more emotional than those of

superior races.227 Edward Said noted that irrationality is a fundamental element of

“Orientalism” that has contributed to the image of the bloodthirsty Arab and shaped

Western perceptions and actions towards the Middle East in general. 228

In the absence of imputed aggressive intentions such irrationality would not

necessarily be threatening, but in its presence it is frightening. Because other racial

groups are understood to value their own life less, these racial groups cannot be deterred

from carrying out aggressive intentions. Furthermore, because they value others’ lives

less too, they are likely to pose a threat to others’ survival.

Hypothesis 3: Agents with different racial identities are perceived as

threatening because of imputed irrationality. This irrationality, along with
aggressive intentions, produces an image of fanatic racial others, which are
impossible to deter. In contrast, agents with shared racial identity are rational and
can be deterred even when they are hostile.

226
Ibid., 83.
227
Le Bon 2002 [1895], 13.
228
Said 1994 [1978], 40, 286-287.
67
 The fourth category of racial prejudices pertains to morality. The prejudice that

racial others are immoral and devious is facilitated by differences in religious and moral

traditions. Judging based on one’s own moral code, racial others more often than not

appear immoral. This tendency in the West was amplified by the long history in

Christianity of associating dark skin with evil. 229 This prejudice of immorality underlies

the image of black sexual immorality and pathological sexuality, which scientific racism

explained with reference to black men’s large penis and black women’s protruding

buttocks.230 The racial prejudice of immorality also supported the image of the ‘scheming

Jew’, who murdered Christ, engaged in avaricious money-lending, and was disloyal to

the European nation-state.231 Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda resonated so much with the

masses because it appealed to these prejudices. The 1894 conviction in France of the

Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus on false charges of espionage was an expression of

this prejudice. Imputed immorality is conducive to distrust and inflated fears, as racial

others are perceived as devious and disloyal. In addition, a strong emotional component,

a dislike of racial others makes conflict easy and cooperation difficult.

Prejudices of the “heathen” Chinese, based on selective evidence regarding

opium-smoking, gambling, lawlessness, and prostitution were widespread in the West. As

a consequence, Chinatown came to be seen as the symbol of immorality, a den of vice

and sin. 232 Another example illustrating the prejudice that racial others are more devious

and therefore more dangerous is related to the WWII internment of Japanese Americans.

229
Bastide 1967.
230
Rattansi 2007, 28, 33.
231
Ibid., 5, 36, 57-8.
232
Anderson 1987.
68
While all ‘Japs’ were enemies, only the ‘Nazis’ (rather than all Germans) were perceived

to be enemies. The assumption was that Japanese Americans would be disloyal to the US

due to their stable racial traits. In his report on the internment of Japanese Americans,

General J. L. Dewitt made the point that “Racial affinities are not severed by migration.

The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese

born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become

‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.”233 In 1942, based on President Franklin

Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, the United States interned about 120,000 Japanese

and Japanese-Americans into ‘War Relocation Camps’.234 Canada also interned about

22,000 Japanese and Japanese-Canadians. No similar measures were taken against

Germans and German-Americans. Although racial prejudice alone cannot account for this

outcome, it was a contributing cause. 235

Hypothesis 4: Due to imputed immorality, agents with racially different

identities are perceived as devious and thus threatening. Agents with shared racial
identity are seen as moral and less threatening.

233
Kim 1999, 116.
234
Robinson 2009.
235
The larger number of German-Americans compared to Japanese-Americans, their earlier immigration to
the US, and their membership in the American ruling elite were some other reasons for their differential
treatment. Although German-Americans were subject to disparaging epithets (“heinies,” “Huns,” “Jerrys,”
or “Krauts”), these were milder and more sparingly used than those applied to Japanese-Americans (Dower
1986, 81-82).
69
Hypothesis 1: Racial prejudices related to the body make agents with different racial
identities appear threatening, because they are perceived as
fundamentally different and non-assimilable. In contrast, agents with
shared identities are perceived as fundamentally similar and
assimilable.
Hypothesis 2: Racial prejudices related to intentions make agents with different racial
identities appear threatening, because they are perceived as having
offensive intentions. In contrast, agents with shared identities are
perceived as having benign intentions.
Hypothesis 3: Racial prejudices related to rationality make agents with different racial
identities appear threatening, because they are perceived as irrational.
In contrast, agents with shared identities are perceived as rational.
Hypothesis 4: Racial prejudices related to morality make agents with different racial
identities appear threatening, because they are perceived as immoral. In
contrast, agents with shared identities are perceived as moral.
Table 2.2 Hypotheses linking Racial Identity to Threat Perception

The relationship between the four hypotheses varies across cases. They may work

together in sequential or simultaneous fashion, but they may also work independently.

None of the hypotheses is necessary to shape threat perception, but they are all

independently or jointly sufficient. They might appear in combinations which can

amplify their effect on threat perception. For example, as mentioned above, the

prejudices of aggressive intentions and irrationality can together inflate threat perceptions

by creating an image of a fanatic, undeterrable racial other. Prejudices pertaining to

morality and fundamental biological difference can also jointly inflate threat perceptions.

The French decision to occupy the Rhineland after WWI partly with black troops from

African colonies caused outrage in Germany and parts of Europe. The response was a

campaign against the “black horror on the Rhine.” The inflated threat perception behind
70
the campaign was related to fears of sexually immoral and biologically different African

soldiers raping German women and ‘polluting’ the German race. Adolf Hitler alluded to

fears of biological difference and deviousness, but he blamed, as usual, Jewish

“deceitfulness”: “the main artery of the German people flows through the playground of

black African hordes…It was and is the Jew who brings the Negro to the Rhine, always

with the same concealed thought and the clear goal of destroying by the bastardization

which would necessarily set in, the white race they hate.”236

The four hypotheses might also work at cross-purposes in some cases. Prejudices

regarding biological difference may mitigate fears of aggressive intentions when

biological prejudices point to inferiority. The British Naval Attaché in Tokyo informed

the Admiralty in 1935 that the Japanese ‘have peculiarly slow brains’ and the

Commander in Chief in China dismissed Chinese and Japanese in 1937 as ‘inferior

yellow races’.237 ‘Scientific’ theories suggested that the bone structure of Japanese inner

ear made them unfit for flying airplanes. As a result some British policymakers

underestimated the Japanese threat and were underprepared for Japanese aerial attack. 238

While the argument above focuses on how identities influence threat perception,

threat perception also influences identity. 239 Group position theory provides useful

insights into how racial identities and prejudices are influenced by perceived threats to

the position of dominant racial groups by subordinate ones. 240 Similarly, group threat

theory analyzes how (perceived or real) threats by subordinate groups to dominant

236
Cited in Nelson 1970, 626.
237
Thorne 1978, 4.
238
Dower 1986, 102.
239
Campbell 1998.
240
Blumer 1958; Bobo 1999.
71
groups’ material resources (realistic threat) or values (symbolic threat) cause racial

prejudices. 241 In a powerful criticism to democratic peace, Ido Oren showed that

collective identity boundaries may be redrawn in response to threats.242 His point is valid

regarding racial identities as well. When Germany threatened England and the US on the

eve of WWI, the latter countries moved from a Teutonic racial identity they shared with

Germany to an Anglo-Saxon racial identity that excluded Germany.

The causal arrow between identity and threat perception runs both ways, but my

contribution lies in the less studied aspect of this relationship: the impact of racial

identities on threat perception. Biased threat perceptions can have numerous pernicious

effects. They can distort national priorities, lead to the misallocation of scarce resources,

and produce an incoherent and “episodic” foreign policy which stumbles from one crisis

into another.243 The next section discusses how racially shaped threat perceptions

generate behavioral dispositions towards discord and cooperation.

Racial Threat Perceptions Shape Discord and Cooperation

Identity influences foreign policy behavior in several ways. It may serve as an

ideological device to justify self-interested policies, it may influence the cost of policy

options, it may restrict the menu of possible foreign policies, or it may provide foreign

241
Realistic threat is based on Realistic Group Conflict Theory, where out-group prejudices are the effect
of inter-group competition for scarce resources. Symbolic threat theories treat prejudices as effects of
conflicting values and beliefs. Corenblum and Stephan 2001; Quillian 1995; Riek, Mania, and Gaertner
2006; Stephan and Stephan 1996.
242
Oren 1995.
243
Johnson 1985-86, 68.
72
policy preferences.244 My approach is closest to the latter two. Identities influence action

by narrowing the menu of foreign policy options and by giving actors “primary reasons

for action” or providing them with “motivational and behavioral dispositions.”245

I link racial identities to behavior through a relaxed version of the “logic of

habit.”246 Once activated, racial prejudices embedded in racial identities shape threat

perceptions and create behavioral dispositions habitually and relatively automatically. All

else equal, racial identity shapes patterns of discord and cooperation as follows. Through

the lens of their racial identity agents perceive racial others as more threatening, which

facilitates discord and impedes cooperation. In turn, agents perceive those with shared

racial identity as less threatening, which facilitates cooperation and impedes discord. In

this view, “structures of identity that yield systematically biased perceptions” sustain

enduring patterns of conflict and cooperation. 247 The endurance of these behavioral

patterns is supported by the self-fulfilling nature of prejudices. The perceiver acts

unconsciously on prejudices, which elicits prejudice-consistent behavior from target

agents, validating prejudices and reinforcing their impact on the behavior of the

prejudiced agent.248

Although a relaxed logic of habit does not obviate the role of agency, rationality,

and uncertainty, it reduces their significance. Agents may refuse to act on a particular

prejudice if they recognize it as such, but since most of the time prejudices work

unconsciously or are not recognized as prejudices, agents tend to act on them. States may

244
Barnett 1999; Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Telhami and Barnett 2002, 7.
245
Reus-Smit 1999, 29; Wendt 1999, 224.
246
Hopf 2011.
247
Ibid., 549.
248
Chen and Bargh 1997; Hopf 2011:542-43; Snyder and Swann 1978; Wegner and Bargh 1998:475.
73
still rationally calculate what their best options are. However, their agency will be

constrained and rationality “bounded” as states will consider and act on a menu of foreign

policy options limited by racial prejudices. This relaxed logic of habit does not exclude

the logic of consequences where actors are driven by cost-benefit calculations, but it sets

the parameters within which this latter can operate. Uncertainty plays a role in initial

stages of threat assessment, but once racial prejudices are activated, they dissipate

uncertainty by imposing a false certainty on threats. The process through which

difference in racial identity predisposes agents towards discord is similar to that through

which “misplaced certainty” facilitates conflict. 249 In the absence of significant threats

decision makers may nonetheless be certain that they perceive threats. This can give rise

to a series of escalatory actions and reactions which can facilitate conflict.

I define discord and cooperation as follows. Discord characterizes relations

between two actors if A pursues policies which B perceives as threatening to something

its values. The policies of A may undermine the security, the well being, or some

symbolic value of B, and A does little to change course. I adopt Robert Keohane’s

conventional definition of cooperation: “Cooperation occurs when actors adjust their

behavior to the actual or anticipated preferences of others, through a process of policy

coordination.”250 In general, such cooperation requires negotiation and bargaining.

Although for Keohane cooperation and discord are sequential because cooperation is a

reaction to discord, this need not be the case. I use discord and cooperation not

sequentially, but simultaneously. Cooperation may be the result of shared threat

249
Mitzen and Schweller 2011.
250
Keohane 1984, 51.
74
perceptions, as much of the alliance literature argues. 251 When the relationships between

A on the one hand and B and C on the other are characterized by discord, B and C may

engage in cooperation against the perceived threat posed by A. Of course, B and C may

also cooperate with A to mitigate discord. I am however, most interested in discord and

cooperation caused by threat perception. Discord and cooperation are not mutually

exhaustive and most bilateral relations most of the time are characterized by a mix of the

two. However, one tends to dominate specific issue areas at specific times.

Racial identities influence foreign policy through the state. I adopt a widely used

conception of the state where the state represents and acts on the preferences of dominant

domestic groups.252 I assume that states will act on the racial identities and prejudices of

their dominant racial groups. Of course, in practice this assumption is not always valid.

Sometimes racial minorities may be able to shape a state’s foreign policy in accordance

with their racial identities and prejudices. If decision makers of minority racial groups are

in power, they may act in conformity with their racial prejudices. If majority racial group

have no strong and well defined preferences, racial minorities can shape state action,

provided that their preferences are strong and well defined enough to overcome collective

action problems. Nonetheless, for the sake of simplicity, here I assume that the racial

identity of states is that of their dominant racial group. All else equal, dominant racial

groups are likely to have more impact on a state’s policies than racial minorities.

Minorities sometimes also share the prejudices of racial majorities against a third racial

251
Walt 1987. For definitions of competition and cooperation in the security realm see Glaser 2010, 51.
252
Gilpin 1981, 19; Moravcsik 1997, 518.
75
group inhabiting another state, hence this assumption should not be particularly

problematic.

Racial identities can influence international patterns of discord and cooperation by

shaping decision makers’ threat perceptions and/or that of the public. Although theories

of international politics often assume that decision makers are exempt from the prejudices

of the larger public, this is not necessarily the case. They are often as socialized into

racial prejudices embedded in racial identities as the general public is. 253 By coloring the

perceptions of decision makers, racial identities can exert a direct influence on

international politics. Sometimes, however, decision makers are less subject to prejudices

for a host of reasons. Prejudices may be less pervasive in their immediate social

environment and their higher level of education may help them shed some prejudices.

Even when they are as much subject to racial prejudices as the general public, they may

be less willing to act on them for strategic reasons. In these cases racial identity can shape

patterns of international discord and cooperation indirectly, by shaping the threat

perceptions of domestic racial groups. Such domestic racial groups then pressure decision

makers to act in conformity with their fears. Domestic institutions undoubtedly influence

which groups are represented how much in foreign policy. However, my focus is not on

how the threat perceptions of various racial groups are selected and aggregated up to the

state level by these institutions, but on how they shape foreign policy after selection and

aggregation are complete.

253
Hopf 2002.
76
 Race does not always shape international discord and cooperation. The argument I

propose is not deterministic, but probabilistic. Identifying the scope conditions of the

theory is crucial. Many of these are commonsensical, but stating them explicitly may

nonetheless be useful. First, prejudices embedded in racial identities shape discord and

cooperation if they are activated. Activation is an important antecedent condition for the

theory to have explanatory power. If racial identities are not activated, other identities

will serve as lenses of perception and will provide states with a different set of actions.

Second, racial identities are most likely to shape discord and cooperation through threat

perception if agents hold racial prejudices which associate racial others with danger and

are not strongly contradicted by other prejudices. Individuals may hold incoherent and

even contradictory prejudices, which may mitigate the extent to which any one prejudice

can shape threat perceptions. Negative prejudices of the irrational “Oriental” may be

mitigated by positive prejudices regarding highly intelligent Asians. Negative prejudices

of violent African Americans may be counterbalanced by positive prejudices regarding

their gregarious and friendly nature. If actors do not hold threat-relevant prejudices or

they hold other prejudices which trump those associated with danger, racial difference

may not inflate threat perception. Third, racial prejudices will shape threat perceptions

when there is uncertainty about threats,254 when it is not certain that others will carry out

a potential threat. Although prejudices are quite resistant to falsifying evidence,

ultimately they may be overcome by such evidence. If agents with shared racial identities

pose unambiguous threats, then racial identity can do little to deflate threat perceptions. If

254
Haas 2005, 29.
77
a racially different actor poses no threat because it does not have sufficient capabilities,

the ability of racial prejudices to inflate threats will be limited. Racial prejudices can

shape threat perceptions most when there is some uncertainty about threats, in which case

they can impose false certainty on these threats. Finally, if the state does not have a

dominant racial group, the theory’s utility may be limited. Racial identities and prejudices

may still influence the state’s foreign policies, but a more nuanced racial theory is

necessary to account for such dynamics, which can specify which racial group’s identities

will drive the state’s behavior under what conditions.

Racial Threat
Behavior
Identity Perception

Activation

Figure 2.1: The Causal Chain

In sum, the chapter provided a racial theory of discord and cooperation. The

figure above summarizes the causal chain of the theory. In the first step, racial identities

are activated and serve as lenses of perception through which agents perceive threats.

Racial prejudices pertaining to the body, to offensive intentions, to irrationality, and

immorality “color” threat perceptions. As a result, agents perceive those with shared

78
racial identity as less threatening, while they perceive agents with different racial

identities as more threatening. In the second step, inflated threat perceptions predispose

agents towards discord, while deflated threat perceptions predispose them towards

cooperation. Racial identities generate behavioral dispositions through the logic of habit.

Finally, while the logic of habit takes us from racial identity to behavior, it does

not determine outcomes. As with most theories of international politics, this racial theory

remains indeterminate regarding specific policy choices and outcomes. Getting from

more general behavioral dispositions to specific outcomes requires the incorporation of

additional factors, such as strategic calculations, political ideologies, and domestic

politics. Because the specific combination of racial fears and these additional factors is

historically contingent, theorizing it a priori is not possible. Since the interaction between

race and other factors provides a good opportunity to show how race can complement

established explanatory factors to explain international outcomes, inspired by Yuen

Khong, in each empirical chapter I discuss how specific international outcomes result

through interactions between race and additional factors.255

Research Design

The next three empirical chapters assess the causal chain of the racial theory

derived from our earlier discussion. Before I turn to them, however, I discuss indicators

of inflated threat perception, methodological issues pertaining to case selection, and

alternative explanations.

255
Khong 1992.
79
Indicators of Inflated Threat Perception

Above I discussed in detail the cause or “independent variable” of the

dissertation, racial identity. I also defined the “dependent variables,” discord and

cooperation. Here I briefly operationalize the “intervening variable,” threat perception.

Assessing whether threat perception is racially inflated is challenging. There is no

objective baseline or clear measurement we can use to establish whether threat perception

is inflated or not. I employ four indicators to operationalize inflated threat perception.

Although separately they may not be sufficient to indicate racially inflated threat

perception, together they are.

First, I look at the relationship between levels of threat perception of decision

makers and the public on the one hand, and facts on the other. By looking at the archives

and various secondary sources I try to reconstruct the level of threat perception of

decision makers. I look at public opinion data to assess public threat perceptions. If threat

perception is inflated, the gap between the level of threat perceptions and the facts should

be large. For example, if I find that the American public and decision makers are

extremely worried about Japanese foreign direct investment even though this constitutes

a very small proportion of the American economy, it is reasonable to suggest that threat

perceptions are inflated. Second, I compare levels of threat perception in similar cases

involving different racial identities. Suppose that states A and B are similar except for

their racial identity, and state C shares racial identity with A but not with B. If C

perceives B as more threatening than it perceives A, we have reasons to suspect that

racial identity shapes C’s threat perceptions. Third, I look at whether informed observers

80
at the time or in retrospect saw threat perception as inflated. If there is agreement across

observers of various political persuasions that threat perceptions of a state were inflated,

we have good reasons to believe them. Finally, since race is not the only cause of inflated

threat perception, we need to make sure that threat perception is inflated due to racial

difference, not some alternative factor. If race played a role in inflating threat

perceptions, I expect to see evidence of this in the form of racial rhetoric. This racial

rhetoric may become more subtle over time as the normative prohibition against racism

strengthens, but it should nonetheless be observable. Together these indicators should

provide a satisfactory indicator that threat perception was racially inflated.

Case Studies and Case Selection

The dissertation relies on three diachronic or “across time” case studies to

evaluate the racial theory of this chapter. Such case studies are appropriate for evaluating

the relevance of race in international politics. The detailed study of a small number of

cases allows a high degree of conceptual validity and a close look at hypothesized causal

hypotheses. Yet there are also costs involved. In particular, one may worry about biased

case selection and omitted variables. 256 The advantages of case studies can be maximized

and their disadvantages minimized through case and method selections. I tried to do so by

selecting cases which offer significant within-case and cross-case variation on all the

variables. In addition, the use of controlled comparisons and process tracing can increase

the accuracy of the findings. It is also important that the cases satisfy the scope conditions

256
For advantages and disadvantages of case studies see Bennett 2004, 19, 22, 34. On selections problems
see Geddes 1990; King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 129.
81
regarding activation, threat-relevant prejudices, uncertainty, and the existence of

dominant racial groups within states. Below I briefly discuss my rationale for case and

method selection.

Since the dissertation’s aim is to extend the relevance of race to great power

politics, and the only non-white great powers in the international system have been

Asian, it was necessary to select cases involving Asian great powers. I focus on Japan

and China because they are the two Asian powers whose relations with the West

oscillated widely over time between amity and enmity. They were also able to better

resist Western imperialism than most and remained formally sovereign, although they did

have to accept unequal treaties. I did not select India because the second scope condition

is largely missing insofar as Western prejudices regarding danger were rarely held in

connection to Indians. The case of India is interesting and it should be explored in future

work as it may reveal some limits of this racial theory. The fact that India was part of the

British Empire may have made it into an honorary ‘white’ state, whose actions were less

likely to be perceived as threatening by Western states than those of Japan or China. Of

the ‘white’ powers, I focus primarily on the United States. The reason is not that the US

is more racist than any other state, but because of its intrinsic importance as the leading

great power of the twentieth century. I also focus on Britain and the Soviet Union, which

provides useful variation in regime type. If racial cooperation occurs not only between

the US and the UK, but also between the US and the USSR, then the predictions of this

racial theory can be distinguished from liberal theories of international politics.

82
 To assess the different predictions of the racial theory and conventional wisdom, I

needed to select cases from the period before, during, and after decolonization. While I

expect that race would matter in all three cases, albeit in increasingly subtle ways, the

post-racial conventional wisdom would expect that after decolonization race did not

matter. To evaluate whether the relevance of race in great power politics is limited to

certain issue areas, I also wanted to select three different substantive issue areas for the

three cases. In addition, I tried to select cases which were intrinsically important, had

some current relevance, and offered divergent predictions for at least some competing

theories. 257

Based on these criteria, I selected the following three cases: the demise of the

Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1922), the negotiation and signing of Limited Test Ban

Treaty (1961-1963), and Japanese foreign direct investment in the United States (1980-

1990). In all these cases, the theory’s scope conditions were satisfied: US racial identities

and prejudices were activated; there was uncertainty about threats; Americans held

threat-relevant prejudices of “Orientals;” and dominant racial groups existed in the states

involved. Because of language constraints, the dissertation explores how difference in

racial identity shaped the threat perception of Western states and influenced their

behavior. Hence, all three empirical cases have at their center the “Yellow Peril,” the

racially inflated threat perception of Western great powers.

The first case evaluates the first two hypotheses. It shows that racial prejudices

about the body and aggressive intentions inflated US threat perceptions of Japan and

257
Van Evera 1997, 77.
83
resulted in Japanese-American discord. The UK cooperated with the US to end its

alliance with Japan. The second case evaluates the second and third hypotheses. It shows

that racial prejudices about aggressive intentions and irrationality inflated US threat

perceptions of Chinese nuclear proliferation and amplified Sino-American discord. The

USSR cooperated with the US in an attempt to inhibit the Chinese bomb through the

Limited Test Ban Treaty. The third case tests the second and the fourth hypotheses.

Racial prejudices about aggressive intentions and deviousness inflated US threat

perceptions of Japanese foreign investment, caused Japanese-American discord, and

resulted in restrictive American legislation regarding foreign investment. This last

chapter probes the limits of the theory. Although the European Union shared American

inflated threat perceptions of Japanese foreign investment, transatlantic cooperation

against Japanese remained minimal. The chapter discusses why the theory’s expectations

were partially unfulfilled.

In terms of methods, I used a loose version of controlled comparisons and process

tracing. For controlled comparisons I rely on John Stuart Mill’s methods of agreement

and difference. 258 According to the method of agreement, selected cases should be similar

in all respects, except the value on the independent variable. If the cases also show

variation on the dependent variable, there may be a causal relation. For example, if states

A and B were similar in all respects but had different racial identities, yet state C

perceived A more threatening than B, we can suspect that C’s threat perceptions are

shaped by racial identity. According to the method of difference, selected cases should be

258
For a good discussion see George and Bennett 2004, 81-82, 153-160.
84
different in all respects, except the value on the independent variable. If the cases had the

same value on the dependent variable, there are reasons to suspect that there may be a

causal relation. If states A and B differed in all respects but shared racial identities, yet

state C perceived A and B as posing similar levels of threat, we can suspect that racial

identity shapes and threat perception. To ensure that the relationship discovered is not

spurious or limited to correlation, I employ process tracing (see more on this below).

Controlled comparisons are particularly useful for the purposes of this study for at

least two reasons. First, as discussed earlier, assessing threat perceptions is challenging.

Controlled comparisons can provide a useful, if partial, baseline since in similar cases we

expect similar levels of threat perceptions and in different cases we expect different

levels of threat perceptions. Deviations from this baseline may indicate inflated or

deflated threat perceptions. Second, because of normative prohibitions against racism,

sometimes explicit or direct evidence that racial difference shaped threat perceptions is

scarce. In such cases it is useful to rely on controlled comparisons. If the main difference

between A and B is racial identity, and C perceives one of them as more threatening, it is

plausible that C is not colorblind and race shapes its threat perception.

Despite their advantages, controlled comparisons alone are of limited utility.

Mill’s requirements are too demanding to be satisfied in international politics. Two cases

are never similar or different in all respects but one. Even if they were, we could not be

sure that the relationship between independent and dependent variables amounted to

causation, rather than correlation. Moreover, Mill’s methods work best when applied to

deterministic causal relations, where the independent variable is either necessary or

85
sufficient. Many if not most causes in international politics do not fall in this category.

Race is neither necessary nor sufficient cause of international discord and cooperation in

general, even if it is necessary or sufficient in specific cases of discord and cooperation.

Racial identity perhaps is best conceived of as “contributing” or “permissive” cause,

which facilitates certain outcomes but does not determine them. 259 For all these reasons, I

combine controlled comparisons with process tracing to make a better case for race.

Process tracing allows us to shed light on the specific nature of the causal

mechanism. By employing it we can be more certain that racial identity is not spurious

and that the empirical phenomena we try to explain follow the causal pathway elaborated

by the theory. There are three main stages of process tracing in each empirical chapter.

First, I trace when and how racial identities and prejudices are activated. Second, I look at

how racial identities and prejudices inflate threat perceptions of racially different actors,

but not of racially similar actors. Third, I explore how inflated threat perceptions lead to

discord among racially different actors and to cooperation among racially similar actors.

Good process tracing depends on good sources. The next section discusses the types of

sources I used and then addresses alternative explanations.

Sources and Alternative Explanations

The dissertation relies on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources. The

primary documents include official speeches, congressional debates, telegrams, and

various declassified documents. I conducted archival research at the Kennedy Library in

259
George and Bennett, 2004, 27.
86
Boston and the National Archives in Washington, DC. I consulted numerous primary

documents held at The Ohio State University and Princeton University, as well as various

on-line archives (including the British National Archives) and databases. I supplemented

primary sources with a wide variety of secondary ones. I looked at the most relevant

scholarly books and journals, and I read widely newspaper and magazine accounts

relevant for all three cases. In order to get a good sense of public threat perceptions I also

went beyond conventional scholarly sources and read fiction bestsellers and watched

popular movies. One potential limitation is that I relied less on systematic text selection

than one might like. Instead, I tried to read as much as I possibly could from as many

relevant sources as possible. For methodological guidance I relied on Marc

Trachtenberg’s advice on historical research for international relations.260 I hope that by

reading widely and broadly, I compensated for the lack of systematic text selection and

avoided significant biases that might have resulted from it. I also tried to mitigate this

shortcoming by performing classical content analysis on more systematically sampled

texts in Chapters 3 and 4.

Focusing on alternative explanations helps sharpen one’s own explanation and

identify its value added. I tried to select cases where competing theories offered different

predictions. While realism expects discord and cooperation to be primarily a function of

power, and liberalism expects it to be a function of regime type, this racial theory expects

it to be a function of racial identities and prejudices. If this theory is right, we should see

recurring patterns of discord and cooperation along the color line, despite changes in

260
Trachtenberg 2006.
87
polarity and regime type. However, in some cases I found that there were other

explanations which made similar predictions. When the causal chain is largely consistent

with multiple explanations it is particularly important to explicitly discuss alternative

explanations. This may mitigate the confirmation bias, the tendency of scholars to

emphasize evidence that supports their own explanations.

For example, an instrumental model of threat inflation could be largely consistent

with the causal chain of this racial theory. According to this model threat inflation is a

result of elite efforts to facilitate foreign interventions, maximize parochial interests

through expansion, act free of legal constraints, or to mobilize the public against threats

to national security. 261 Although different in many respects, these approaches assume that

elite threat perception is relatively unproblematic, and conceive of threat inflation as an

instrument employed by elites under conditions of anarchy and information asymmetry.

For example, certain US industries may be threatened by Japanese foreign direct

investment and they may manipulate the public and lobby Congress to restrict Japanese

investment. One should note that this explanation is not necessarily devoid of racial

prejudice. The public may be manipulable in the first place because it harbors racial

prejudices. The main difference between this model and my racial theory is that elite

perceptions are assumed to be free of racial prejudices and elites are assumed to act on

the logic of consequences, rather than that of habit. At the end of each chapter I will

evaluate my racial theory against this and other alternative explanations.

261
Buzan and Waever 2003; Christensen 1996; Kaufmann 2004; Snyder 1991.
88
Conclusions

While realist and liberal theories expect states to be colorblind, I argue that these

expectations are not always valid. Under certain conditions patterns of discord and

cooperation follow the color line. To return to the introductory metaphor, birds of a

feather may flock together against birds of different feathers. The two-step racial theory

developed in this chapter suggests that difference in racial identity inflates threat

perceptions and facilitates discord, while shared racial identity deflates threat perceptions

and facilitates cooperation. When threats are uncertain, states have dominant racial

groups, which hold salient threat-relevant prejudices, racially similar states will cooperate

against racially different states.

The next three empirical chapters assess the theory’s strength and probe its limits.

Chapter 3 shows how racial prejudices regarding fundamental difference and aggressive

intentions inflate American threat perceptions of Japan and, with British cooperation,

lead to the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923). Chapter 4 traces how

racial prejudices regarding aggressive intentions and irrationality inflated American

threat perceptions of Chinese nuclear proliferation and, with Soviet cooperation, resulted

in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Chapter 5 illustrates how racial prejudices of

immorality and aggressive intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japanese

foreign direct investment in the 1980s and led to the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment. The

concluding chapter summarizes the main findings of the dissertation, identifies its

contributions and limitations, and highlights future avenues of research. The dissertation

ends with thoughts on race, legitimacy, and the future of the liberal international system

89
in the context of the shift from a “unicolor” to a “multicolor” system, brought about by

the rise of the developing world.

90
 Chapter Three: Race and the Demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1923

For two decades the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923) was a crucial aspect of

Far Eastern international politics. Its termination opened the way for Anglo-Saxon—

Japanese alienation and German-Japanese rapprochement, arguably making World War II

possible. In Winston Churchill’s words, “The annulment caused a profound impression in

Japan, and was viewed as the spurning of an Asiatic power by the Western world...Thus,

both in Europe and in Asia, conditions were swiftly created by the victorious Allies

which, in the name of peace, cleared the way for the renewal of war.” 262

There is widespread agreement that a necessary cause for terminating the alliance

was American opposition to it. Ian Nish, the most prominent historian of the alliance,

speaks for most scholars when he argues that Britain and Japan would have renewed the

allies in the absence of US opposition to it.263 Scholars and policy makers alike concur

that it was due to American fears of the alliance that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was

abrogated at the Washington Conference in 1921. 264

While there is agreement that American opposition was necessary for the demise

of the alliance, there is considerable disagreement about the causes of this opposition.

262
Churchill 1948, 13.
263
Nish 1972, 395; see also Buckley 1970, 185.
264
Kennedy 1969, 52; Sir Robert Vansittart, the British Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in
the 1930s, that Britain terminated the alliance “to please America” (Louis 1971, 2-3); see also O'Brien
2004, 268; Turner 1971, 61-62.
91
Indeed, a closer look reveals its puzzling nature. The alliance treaty included Article IV,

which in effect stipulated that Britain would not assist Japan in the event of a Japanese-

American war. The parties repeatedly reassured the US that the alliance was not aimed at

her. As British Foreign Secretary Lord George Curzon of Keddleston told American

Ambassador George Brinton McClellan Harvey, “at no stage had it ever been

contemplated by us, even as a remote possibility, that the agreement could be used

against America, or that we should find ourselves committed to an attitude that was even

indirectly inconsistent with a fundamental principle of British policy, namely, a good

understanding and the closest co-operation with the United States in re-establishing the

peace of the world.”265 Similarly, the Japanese Ambassador in America, Baron Kijūrō

Shidehara,266 noted that “By no stretch of the imagination can it be honestly stated that

the alliance was ever designed or remotely intended as an instrument of hostility or even

of defence against the United States.”267

Why did the U.S. contribute decisively to the demise of the Anglo-Japanese

Alliance, even though it represented no significant danger to her? Current explanations

are insightful, but incomplete. A realist explanation is that American fears of and

opposition to the alliance were the result of leaders’ worst-case assumptions. For states

seeking survival under anarchy and uncertainty it is more prudent to be prepared for

imagined threats than to be surprised by real ones. However, this explanation has

difficulties explaining variation in threat inflation as both anarchy and uncertainty are

265
Doc. 17 [F 2461/63/23] 12008/15, Curzon to Geddes, Foreign Office, July 5, 1921
266
As opposed to the standard Japanese usage, for simplicity’s sake I use Japanese family names last.
267
Doc 15 [F 2445/63/23] , 12008/13, Geddes to Curzon, Washington, undated 1921 (rec’d July5)
92
constant.268 Why did leaders make worst-case assumptions about Japan but not about

many other potential threats? An instrumentalist explanation could be that threat inflation

was the function of manipulative elites maximizing interests under conditions of

information asymmetry. Undoubtedly, some newspapers eager to increase their

subscription rates, politicians looking for more votes, and labor unions concerned about

competition by Japanese immigrants inflated the Japan threat instrumentally for self-

interested reasons. Although very powerful, this explanation underestimates the elite’s

vulnerability to misperception and is insufficient to explain why threat inflationary

arguments based on race resonated so well with the larger public. Given that the US

government did more to deflate than to inflate the threat, concerned about a premature

conflict with Japan, it is unclear why threat inflationary arguments trumped threat

deflationary arguments. A liberal explanation might explain the demise of the alliance

based on the incompatibility between the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the League of

Nations Covenant. However, both Britain and Japan considered that the incompatibility

could be remedied by modifying the alliance.

This chapter provides evidence that racial prejudices embedded in American

racial identity inflated US threat perceptions of Japanese immigrants and Japan,

transforming the latter into a “Yellow Peril”. Racially inflated threat perceptions

eventually led to the American misperception of the alliance as highly threatening. In the

first step, Japanese immigration and Japanese victory in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War

activated American racial prejudices regarding Japanese biological difference and

268
Some realists allow such variation by incorporating costly signaling, information about type, and
offense-defense variables (Glaser 2010).
93
aggressive intentions. Through the lens of these prejudices Japanese immigration was

perceived as an existential threat to the white race, and the resulting frictions with an

allegedly aggressive Japan was thought to inevitably lead to a Japanese-American war. In

conformity with Hypotheses 1 and 2, racial prejudices pertaining to the body and

intentions inflated American threat perceptions of Japanese immigration and Japan, and

eventually the US came to misperceive the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as a potentially

dangerous instrument at Japan’s disposal. In the words of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,

“the Anglo-Japanese alliance was the most dangerous element in our relationship with the

Far East and with the Pacific.” 269 In turn, through the lens of its racial identity Americans

perceived the stronger Britain as a non-threatening racial kin, which was fundamentally

similar and had benign intentions. In the second step, racially inflated American threat

perceptions of Japan motivated US opposition to the alliance. Partly due to Anglo-Saxon

racial solidarity and partly due to strategic calculations, Britain cooperated with the US to

bring about the demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance at the 1922 Washington

Conference. Japan had no choice but to accept the end of the alliance. The absence of the

alliance made Anglo-Saxon—Japanese alienation and German-Japanese rapprochement

easier, preparing the way for WWII. The “Yellow Peril” became self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is important to make clear what the chapter does not argue. The argument does

not imply that race is the only or even the most important explanation for the demise of

the alliance. It only argues that it was a necessary cause, without which explanations of

the demise of the alliance remain incomplete. The argument does not imply that Japan

269
Lodge at Congressional Record 62 Cong. Rec. (1922), Congressional Record-Senate, Wednesday,
March 8, 1922 (Legislative day of Tuesday, March 7, 1922), p. 3552.
94
harbored no racial prejudices. Nor does the chapter argue that Japanese behavior gave no

reasons whatsoever for American concerns. The point is that racial difference inflated

threat perceptions beyond what the evidence can reasonably support. Race did not create

the Japan threat, but it significantly inflated it.

The chapter consists of three main sections. The first section discusses how racial

difference inflated American threat perceptions of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The

second section traces how, motivated by racially inflated perceptions of threat, the US

contributed to the demise of the alliance. The chapter closes with a test of the theory

based on classical content analysis and a discussion of alternative explanations.

RACE INFLATES US THREAT PERCEPTIONS OF THE ANGLO-JAPANESE

ALLIANCE

The Activation of Racial Prejudices

Japanese immigration and the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War

activated American racial prejudices regarding Japanese biological difference and

aggressive intentions. Initially anti-Asian racial prejudices in the US developed in

response to Chinese immigration, which started with the 1849 California gold rush. The

emergence of anti-Chinese racial prejudices was facilitated by, but was not reducible to,

the anti-Chinese rhetoric of labor unions, the media, and politicians. Labor unions felt

threatened by cheap Chinese labor, especially after the depression of the 1870s.

95
Newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle hoped to increase their subscription rates

by engaging in anti-Chinese tirades. Politicians catered to anti-Chinese prejudices to

maximize their share of votes.270 Anti-Orientalism became a national issue when the

evenly matched Democrats and Republicans appealed to racial prejudices to gain control

of the crucial swing state of California, which was vital for winning national elections. 271

Although instrumental threat inflation played an important role in activating racial

prejudices, once activated, their threat inflationary impact went beyond instrumentalism.

When the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, made permanent in 1902, slowed Chinese

immigration, these prejudices were transferred to the Japanese. Japanese immigration was

increasing rapidly, albeit from a low base, in response to labor shortages in California,

the 1885 Japanese legalization of emigration, and the promise of higher wages (see Table

3.1).272 Of the various anti-Japanese racial prejudices, here I am interested in those

pertaining to the body (Hypothesis 1) and intentions (Hypothesis 2).

270
Thompson 1978, 10-12.
271
Thompson 1978, 12.
272
Buell 1922.
96
Census Japanese in Increase of Percentage Percentage
Continental Japanese of Increase of Japanese
US in California
of total in US
1880 148 58,1%
1890 2,039 1,891 1,277% 56,2%
1900 24,326 22,287 1,093% 41,7%
1910 72,157 47,831 196,6% 57,3%
1920 119,207 47,050 65,2% 58,8%
Table 3.1: Japanese in the United States, 1880-1920273

Prejudices pertaining to the body were activated primarily by rising Japanese

immigration. Its core component was the conviction that the yellow race was biologically

different from the white race and it was impossible to assimilate. Racial traits were fixed

and could not be altered by the American social, political, and geographic environment.

In this view, “the Oriental always remained an Oriental” 274 because “You cannot make

bad stock into good by changing its meridian, any more than you can turn a cart-horse

into a hunter by putting it into a fine stable, or make a mongrel into a fine dog by

teaching it tricks.”275

The immigration of biologically different Japanese was perceived as an existential

threat to the white race. As the “teeming millions of Orient” immigrated to the West,

their “rising tide of color” would “drown” the white race.276 Immigration restriction was

allegedly necessary for racial self-preservation, and its absence meant racial suicide.

273
Iyenaga and Sato 1921, 94.
274
Thompson 1978, 224.
275
Pearson 1894; Stoddard 1920, 258.
276
Stoddard 1920.
97
While immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was resented for the social and

political problems it caused, it did not lead to the high levels of threat perception caused

by Japanese immigration, because it was not seen as an existential threat. In the words of

a contemporary, “White immigrants created social and political problems, but the

Oriental created a biological problem.” 277 “The menace of an Asiatic influx is 100 times

greater than the menace of the black race, and God knows that is bad enough,” stated

C.O. Young, special representative of American Federation of Labor.278 His concerns

about Japanese immigration probably went beyond race, but contributed to the activation

of anti-Japanese prejudices all the same.

While Japanese immigration activated prejudices related to the body, Japan’s

victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 activated prejudices related to aggressive

intentions. If before the war American perceptions of Japan were generally positive, after

the war they gradually became negative. 279 Initially the US was more concerned about the

Russian dominance of Manchuria. On the eve of the Russo-Japanese War some

Americans even argued that modernizing Japan better represented Western civilization

than despotic Russia. Theodore Roosevelt himself on July 26, 1904 wrote to Secretary of

State John Milton Hay that “The Japs have played our game because they have played the

game of civilized mankind…” 280 But the “yellowing” of Russia and the “whitening” of

Japan ultimately remained unsuccessful. 281 Some of Roosevelt’s early letters already

277
Stoddard 1920, 79.
278
Daniels 1977, 16.
279
Reischauer 1951, 20; Friedman and Lebard 1991, 44; Treat 1938, 270; Neu 1967, 20. See Thorson 1948
for a skeptical position.
280
Esthus 1966, 43.
281
Henning 2007.
98
show signs of racial concerns about Japan’s rising power. Hay reports that Roosevelt was

worried about “Japanese hostility to the white race in general and especially to

Americans,” widely reported on by newspapers and military attachés. 282 Three days later,

in a letter to his friend, British diplomat Cecil Spring Rice, Roosevelt wrote:

“The Japanese, as a government, treated us well and what they contended

for was what all civilized powers in the East were contending. But I wish I were
certain that the Japanese down at bottom did not lump Russians, English,
Americans, Germans, all of us, simply as white devils inferior to themselves not
only in what they regard as the essentials of civilization, but in courage and
forethought, and to be treated politely only so long as would enable the Japanese to
take advantage of our various national jealousies, and beat us in turn.” 283

Roosevelt secretly hoped that Japan and Russia would exhaust each other in the

war, so that “peace will come on terms which will not mean the creation of either a

yellow peril or a Slav peril.” 284 When the “Yellow Peril” trumped the “Slav peril,”

Americans started to worry about potentially aggressive Japanese intentions. Memories

of late nineteenth century Japanese-American frictions over the annexation of Hawaii and

the Philippines resurfaced. Japan’s performance at the Portsmouth Peace Conference

contributed to these concerns. The American public assumed that Japan was fighting a

defensive war. Japan’s desire to strengthen its control over Southern Manchuria and

Korea raised worries of a “Japanese peril.” 285 Anti-American riots in Tokyo caused by

Japanese dissatisfaction with the peace treaty further facilitated the activation of

American prejudices regarding Japanese aggressive intentions.

282
Hay diary, December 24, 1904, Hay papers.
283
Cited in Esthus 1966, 54-5, Roosevelt to Spring Rice, Dec 27, 1904, Morrison, Roosevelt Letters, IV,
1084-88.
284
Cited in Esthus 1966, 37.
285
Neu 1967, 21.
99
 After the war prejudices regarding Japanese aggressiveness became widely

activated. Already before the war ended John A. Hull, chairman of the House Committee

of Military Affairs, warned that if Japan won the war with Russia, she would fight a

“bloody war with the United States over the Philippines.”286 Others saw Japanese

atrocities committed during the capture of Port Arthur as evidence for Japanese

aggressiveness. Roosevelt himself believed that Japan was “a power jealous, sensitive

and warlike…There can be none more dangerous in all the world.”287 Richmond P.

Hobson, American hero in the Spanish-American War, drew attention to Japan’s innate

“war habit.”288

Prejudices related to Japanese fundamental difference and aggressiveness were

intertwined, just as the immigration and security threats rooted in them were. Many saw

Japanese immigration as one facet of Japan’s aggressive foreign policy. 289 Japanese

immigrants also activated prejudices of aggressiveness. At least some Americans saw

them as brutal, lacking humanity, and possessing a fanatical hatred for foreigners. 290 The

prejudice that the Japanese were impossible to assimilate amplified security concerns,

because of worries that unassimilated Japanese would side with Japan in a Japanese-

American war.

Interestingly, while most white Americans’ perception of Japan worsened, those

of African Americans went in the opposite direction, shifting from negative to positive.

Although before the war African Americans saw the Japanese largely as a threat in the

286
Buell 1922, 614-5.
287
Iriye, 1972, 111.
288
Thompson 1978, 54.
289
Thompson 1978, 81.
290
Thompson 1978, 212-14.
100
labor market, after the war they saw them mainly as welcome challengers of “white

supremacy.”291 The fact that African Americans perceived the Japanese as less

threatening after the war can be interpreted as partially supporting the argument that fears

of Japan were based on racial prejudices. Although more research is needed to establish

this fact, it is reasonable to suggest that American racial minorities perceived Japan as

less threatening because they did not share the racial prejudices which were inflating the

threat perceptions of white Americans.

In sum, Japanese immigration and the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese

War activated American racial prejudices regarding Japanese fundamental difference and

aggressive intentions. Before the war racial prejudices towards Japan were mainly

paternalist, but after the war they became antagonistic. 292 As one prominent Japan scholar

put it, “The charmingly quaint and admirably quick Japanese had suddenly become for us

the sinister Yellow Peril.” 293

Racial Prejudices Inflate Threat Perceptions: Japan as a “Yellow Peril”

While the section above showed how racial prejudices pertaining to Japanese

fundamental difference and aggressive intentions were activated, this section traces how

they inflated American threat perceptions of Japan, transforming it into a “Yellow Peril”.

The mechanisms linking racial prejudices embedded in racial identities to threat

291
Shankman 1977.
292
Kowner 2000, 130.
293
Reischauer 1951, 20.
101
perception are those of hypotheses 1 and 2. According to hypothesis 1, the proximity of

agents with different racial identities is perceived as threatening because they are

considered fundamentally different and non-assimilable. The proximity of agents with

shared racial identity is perceived as non-threatening, because they are considered

fundamentally similar and assimilable without major difficulties. According to hypothesis

2, difference in racial identity inflates threat perception because agents impute aggressive

intentions to racial others. Imputed aggressive intentions inflate threat perceptions most

when racial others are strong enough to pose a credible threat. Shared racial identities

deflate threat perceptions because agents impute benign intentions to those with similar

racial identities and perceive their material capabilities as non-threatening.

Establishing the inflated nature of threat perceptions is challenging as no

objective baseline exists. Throughout the chapter I provide four indicators that American

threat perceptions were inflated. First, I compare levels of threat perception in similar

cases involving different racial identities. For example, I show that Americans welcome

British immigration but perceive the much smaller Japanese immigration as threatening.

Second, I look at the gap between levels of threat perception and facts. It shows that even

states with negligible Japanese population worried about Japanese immigration. Third, I

discuss the sheer magnitude of perceived threats, which culminated in war scares.

Finally, I show that numerous observers at the time saw American threat perception as

inflated.

The remainder of this section shows how racial prejudices sequentially inflated

threat perceptions of Japanese and Japan. In 1906, 1913, and 1920 racial prejudices

102
related to biological difference resulted in waves of fear of Japanese immigration, leading

to Japanese-American discord. Then, racial prejudices related to aggressive Japanese

intentions led to inflated fears of Japanese-American war. The upshot was the perception

of Japan as a “Yellow Peril”.

The 1906 San Francisco School Segregation Crisis

On October 11, 1906 the San Francisco Board of Education made the decision to

segregate all Japanese children to separate Oriental Public Schools. The board claimed

the segregation was justified “not only for the purpose of relieving the congestion at

present prevailing in our schools, but also for the higher end that our children should not

be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by

associations with pupils of the Mongolian [Asian] race.”294 The school segregation

decision was followed by a series of anti-Japanese riots and discriminatory measures

against Japanese businesses that lasted through the summer of 1907.

Japan protested the school segregation measure. The Japan Weekly Mail

characterized Japanese reaction as one of “profound sorrow and disappointment,” while

the American Ambassador in Japan Luke Wright reported “marked feeling of irritation”

toward the US.295 President Theodore Roosevelt grew concerned about the international

repercussions of the school segregation case. He could not hide his irritation with

California and told his cabinet that the state “was too small to become a nation, and too

294
Cited in Buell 1922, 623.
295
Neu 1967, 29.
103
large to put into a lunatic asylum.” 296 Despite his opposition to California’s actions,

Roosevelt himself shared the widespread racial prejudice that the Japanese were

biologically fundamentally different and impossible to assimilate. Secretary of State

Elihu Root warned that “This silent invasion by foreign people is as effective as that of

the Huns and Goths in the days of the Roman Empire.”297

To mitigate tensions with Japan, Roosevelt acted promptly and on October 31,

1906 dispatched Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor Victor H. Metcalf

to investigate the situation. According to Metcalf’s report, out of 25,000 school children

in San Francisco only 93 were Japanese and they were distributed among 23 schools. 298

That 0.37 percent of the pupils or an average of four students per school would

significantly contribute to crowded schools defies credibility and suggests the racial and

inflated nature of American threat perception. Roosevelt came to a similar conclusion. In

a letter to George Kennan he wrote that the issue was not really about schools, but it was

“partly labor, and partly a deep-rooted racial antipathy, the extent of which fairly

astounds me.”299

Roosevelt promised to reduce Japanese immigration and the Board of Education

ended school segregation on March 13, 1907. To address the deeper problem of Japanese

immigration, of which the school segregation was only a symptom, the two governments

296
Esthus 1966, 293.
297
Neu 1967, 185-86.
298
Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 27; Buell 1922, 625.
299
Roosevelt to Kennan, February 9, 1907, Kennan Papers, cited in Esthus 1966, 166.; See also Roosevelt
to Kermit Roosevelt, February 4, 1907: “…I have to face facts, and one is that, save as between gentlemen
of the two nationalities, there is a strong and bitter antipathy to the Japanese on the Pacific slope-the
antipathy having been primarily due to labor competition, but complicated by genuine race feeling.”
(Roosevelt Papers, cited in Esthus 1966, 149.)
104
concluded the Gentlemen’s Agreement. In return for American withdrawal of the school

segregation decision, Japan agreed to limit Japanese emigration to the US. The agreement

seemed to work. The number of Japanese immigrants between 1907 and 1910 declined

from 9,948 to 1,552 and when Roosevelt left office in March 1909 more Japanese

departed than entered the country. 300

While racial prejudice regarding Japanese biological difference inflated American

threat perceptions of Japanese immigration, racial prejudice regarding Japanese

aggressive intentions inflated threat perceptions of war with Japan. The inflated threat

perception of the 1906 crisis culminated in a war scare. American citizens saw ubiquitous

signs of a looming Japanese invasion. Ordinary Japanese from El Paso, Texas to Lamar,

Colorado were thought to be undercover soldiers or spies. The public had become

extremely preoccupied with a Japanese-American war: “From California to Delaware,

from Ohio to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Americans suggested how best to prepare for

and win the expected war.”301 Some even worried about an anti-white alliance of Japan

and African-Americans.

The press inflated and reflected fears of a ‘Yellow Peril’. The Coast Seaman’s

Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner were filled with “yellow perilist”

stories. The Santa Clara Journal, the Hanford Sentinel, San Francisco Argonaut,

Sacramento Union, Seattle Daily Times and others regularly ran headlines such as “The

Japanese Invasion, the Problem of the Hour.”302 A certain genre of Yellow Peril war

300
Esthus 1966, 228; Iyenaga and Sato 1921, 217.
301
Iriye 1994, 159.
302
Daniels 1977, 25; Tupper and McReynolds 1937.
105
literature became popular. Books like Homer Lea’s Valor of Ignorance (1907), H.G.

Wells’ War in the Air (1907), Marsden Manson’s The Yellow Peril in Action (1907)

stressed the inevitability of a racial war and depicted it in vivid terms.

The American elite were less alarmed, but they were nonetheless worried. To

reassure Americans, Secretary of State Root released an official statement that the San

Francisco school crisis would not cause war, but this only further inflated perceptions of

threat.303 In reality, Root himself was concerned. As he stated on October 27, 1906 he

believed that the Japanese were particularly sensitive about issues of racial equality and

“one-tenth of the insults which have been visited upon Chinese by the people of the

United States would lead to immediate war.”304 Roosevelt’s British friend and future

Ambassador to the US, Cecil Spring Rice, estimated that a great racial conflict in the

Pacific was imminent.305

The Cabinet met on the issue on June 7, 1907. Secretary of Interior James R.

Garfield came away with the conclusion that “the general feeling is that war with Japan is

inevitable before the Panama Canal is finished—not immediately for the Japanese are not

ready.”306 The financial crisis which brought down the Saionji cabinet in 1908 supported

this assessment. Roosevelt took the crisis seriously, but maintained his composure. In a

July 16 letter he voiced his concerns about Japan’s military power and intentions. 307 On

July 26 he wrote to Root that he did not think Japan would attack, but “there is enough

303
Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 33-4.
304
Cited in Iriye 1994, 157.
305
Neu 1967, 181.
306
Ibid., 103.
307
Roosevelt to Baron Hermann Speck von Sternberg, Germany’s Charge d'Affaires; cited in Esthus, 191.
106
uncertainty to make it evident that we should be very much on our guard and should be

ready for anything that comes.” 308

To be “on guard,” in the aftermath of the crisis Roosevelt became a staunch

advocate of naval building. He also decided to dispatch the Great White Fleet to the

Pacific at the end of the year. The official justification was that the American Navy

needed training. But in a 1916 letter to a friend, psychology professor Hugo Münsterberg,

Roosevelt wrote that the trip of the battle fleet was meant to curb Japan’s belligerence.309

The fleet was well received in Japan and by the time it left Japan’s shores on October 25,

1908 the war scare was over.

Although both governments handled the crisis well, American-Japanese relations

were not left unscarred. The crisis represented a first step towards American perceptions

of Japan as the “Yellow Peril”. The armed forces started preparing military strategy

against Japan under the 1907 Orange War Plan.310 While the Japanese army still regarded

Russia as its main enemy, the navy’s prime “enemy contemplated” became the US. 311

Carl J. Arnell, the Consul General in Mukden, Manchuria wrote: “They [the Japanese]

appreciate that the maintenance of this friendship is beset with racial and political

obstacles, and many of them sorrowfully apprehend that this friendship will some day

[sic] be broken off by inevitable causes.”312

308
ibid., 192.
309
Roosevelt to Münsterberg, February 8, 1916, Morrison, Roosevelt letters, VIII, 1018; in ibid., 184.
310
Morton 1959.
311
Nish 1972, 87.
312
Arnell to Straight, January 28, 1909, Straight Papers; cited in Esthus 1966, 299.
107
The 1913 Alien Land Law Crisis

While in 1906 inflated threat perceptions of Japanese immigration led to school

segregation, in 1913 they led to anti-Japanese land legislation. The reprieve brought by

the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement was short-lived. Although the overall number of

Japanese immigrants remained low, there had been a slight increase since 1910.313 The

main complaints against the Gentlemen’s Agreement were that it was easily sidestepped

by Japanese “picture brides,”314 it allowed too many exceptions,315 did nothing about

illegal Japanese immigration through Canada and Mexico, and gave the US no control

over Japanese immigration.

Despite their low numbers and their modest land control, Japanese immigrants

were increasingly seen as a threat to the white labor force, especially in agriculture. In

1913 of the 2,500,000 population of California 50,000 were Japanese. Of California’s 27,

931,444 acres of farmland they operated less than 200,000 acres. This means that 2

percent of California’s population operated less than 1 percent of its farmland, which

hardly seems threatening.

Nonetheless, politicians catered to anti-Japanese fears and prejudices in an

attempt to gain votes. Democrats and Republicans alike wanted to take credit for anti-

Japanese legislation. The 1912 presidential campaign was saturated with anti-Japanese

313
In 1913 1,124 (6,771 admitted and 5647 departed) more Japanese entered the US than departed Iyenaga
and Sato 1921, 217. According to more liberal estimates 2,390 more Japanese entered California than left
in 1913 (Stephens Report).
314
This refers to the practice of bringing into the US Japanese women who were married to Japanese men
working in the US through a wedding where the latter were represented at their own wedding in Japan by
their picture. The practice seemed objectionable to Americans, but entirely acceptable to Japanese.
315
For instance, relatives of Japanese immigrants were allowed to enter the US.
108
legislation promises. In May 1912 Woodrow Wilson telegraphed James D. Phelan, a

Senator from California, to reassure him that

“In the matter of Chinese and Japanese coolie immigration, I stand for the national
policy of exclusion. The whole question is one of assimilation of diverse races. We
cannot make a homogenous population of a people who do not blend with the
Caucasian race. Their lower standard of living as laborers will crowd out the white
agriculturalist and is, in other fields, a most serious industrial menace…Oriental
coolieism will give us another race problem to solve and surely we have had our
lesson.”316

Numerous anti-Japanese bills were introduced in the legislatures of California,

Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Nebraska. In the California legislature anti-

Japanese discriminatory bills were introduced during every session between 1906 and

1913.317 In 1913 alone forty anti-Japanese bills were proposed, including prohibition of

Japanese land ownership, residential and school segregation, imposition of special fees

on Japanese businesses, and prohibition of Japanese employing white women. Although

these bills were defeated by a combination of federal pressure and state legislature

strategies, it was only a matter of time before one would be passed into law.

The Webb-Heney Alien Land Act Bill, known as the 1913 Alien Land Law, was

that bill. It limited the right of “aliens ineligible for citizenship” to own agricultural land,

allowing only leaseholds of three years. Although the bill did not explicitly mention

Japanese, voter pamphlets explained that the rationale of the bill was to deprive Japanese

immigrants of farmland.318 Since the Japanese were by far the largest group of “aliens

ineligible for citizenship,” it was not difficult to see that they were the target of the bill.

316
Stoddard 1920, 286-7. Although Wilson lost California to the Progressives, he did so only by 174 votes
out of 700,000, which was the best performance of Democrats since 1882.
317
Bailey 1932, 36.
318
McClain 1994, 10.
109
The Japanese Ambassador in the United States, Sutemi Chinda, filed official protests

against the bill on numerous occasions and warned Washington that its adoption would

have a negative impact on Japanese-American relations. 319

Prompted by these protests and belligerent mass demonstrations in Tokyo,

President Woodrow Wilson decided to intervene, but could not kill the bill. 320 Because

the federal authority for effective intervention did not exist, informal measures were

necessary. Wilson sent Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to persuade

Californians to stop the bill. But this time federal pressure did not work, perhaps because

the Democratic President had less leverage over California’s Progressive Governor,

Hiram Johnson, than Roosevelt had. The anti-Japanese public sentiment in California was

based on strong racial prejudices. This was captured in a letter written by William Kent, a

member of Congress from California, to Bryan: “We merely recognize with frankness

what they [the Japanese] must recognize, although they do not wish to let the fact be

known, that there are such things as racial lines that cannot be crossed except with peril

and irritation. The Negro problem under which this country labors is a sufficient proof of

this fact’.”321

The bill passed in the California legislature by 72 to 3 and Governor Johnson

signed it into law in May 1913. In the telegram exchange that followed, Japan claimed

that the Alien Land Law not only violated the 1911 Japanese-American Treaty of

319
Curry 1957, 43.
320
Bailey 1932, 40.
321
William Kent to Bryan, April 7, 1913,Wilson Papers, II, 39; cited in Curry 1957, 49.; my emphasis.
110
Commerce and Navigation,322 but it also amounted to racial discrimination. In Chinda’s

words, because the Japanese were ineligible to US citizenship, “they are the principal

sufferers from that enactment, and that the avowed purpose of the law was to deprive my

countrymen of the right to acquire and to possess landed property in California, the

Imperial Government are unable to escape the conclusion that the measure is unfair and

intentionally racially discriminatory…” 323 What Japan objected to was not discrimination

per se, but the singling out of the Japanese based on race. Japan also discriminated

against foreigners, but she did so indiscriminately, regardless of their race and

nationality. 324

Once again, inflated threats of Japanese immigrants led to inflated threats of war

with Japan. The intensity of the war scare was captured by the Los Angeles Examiner’s

April 23, 1913 issue, which stated that “Not since the guns of Fort Sumter boomed out

over Charleston Harbor in 1861 has the nation fronted so serious a threat as it does

today.”325 The inflated threat perception was fanned by anti-Japanese propaganda such as

Shadows of the West, a movie which depicted Japanese controlling American agriculture,

spying, abducting white girls, and even fighting a race war against America.326 An APSR

article published in 1914 shows that international relations scholars were also subject to

322
Japan argued that the law violated Article 1 of the treaty: “The subjects or citizens of each of the high
contracting parties shall have liberty to enter, travel, and reside in the territories of the other, to carry on
trade, wholesale and retail, to own or lease and occupy houses, manufactories, warehouses, and shops, to
employ agents of their choice, to lease land for residential and commercial purposes, and generally to do
anything incident to or necessary for trade, upon the same terms as native citizens” Iyenaga and Sato 1921,
201-2. The US argued that the article should be interpreted more narrowly, and since it does not explicitly
mention farmland, it is not in contradiction with the 1913 Alien Land Law.
323
FRUS 1913, 633.
324
Doc 24, 12008/225(i), inclosure in Doc 23, memo, H.G.Parlett, “Memorandum respecting
Discriminatory Disabilities to which Foreigners are Subjected in Japan,” n.d
325
Buell, 1923, 64-65
326
ibid., 71.
111
racially inflated threat perception: “A nation of materialists, fired with ambition and

military ardor, are going just as far in their aggressiveness as sheer force will carry them.

That is why Japan with her present ambitions is so generally regarded as a menace to the

peace of the world.”327 Books like Sax Rohmer’s popular novels contributed to threat

inflation. Rohmer’s well-known character, Dr. Fu Manchu, was the embodiment of

‘Yellow Peril’:

“Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high shouldered, with a brow like
Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of
true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race,
accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy
government which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence.
Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the
yellow peril incarnate in one man.”328

The American military in the Philippines worried about a Japanese invasion and

kept in “constant readiness of action.” 329 In mid-May 1913, Admiral Bradley A. Fiske

told Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels that “war is not only possible but even

probable.”330 If in 1907 War Plan Orange was quite rudimentary, in 1913 it was

sophisticated enough to guide American operations in a war with Japan. But when the

Cabinet discussed the possibility of Japanese-American war, it again concluded that

Japan was financially unprepared for war.

The war scare gradually disappeared, but the crisis represented another step

towards Japanese-American discord and the consolidation of the racially inflated “Yellow

Peril” perception of Japan. It did not help that the Japanese were also subject to racially
327
Latane, 1914:583.
328
Rohmer 1961 [1913], 17 my emphasis.
329
Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 101.
330
LaFeber 1997, 105-06.
112
inflated threat perceptions. Field Marshal Prince Aritomo Yamagata, the main genrō

(personal adviser to the Emperor), grew concerned about a coming racial conflict. He

thought that after WWI “the rivalry between the white and colored peoples will intensify;

and perhaps it will be a time when the white races will all unite to oppose the colored

peoples.”331

The 1920 Alien Land Law Crisis

By 1920 dissatisfaction with the Gentlemen’s Agreement reached new heights

and the 1913 Alien Land Law was seen as inadequate. Critics claimed that the Japanese

sidestepped the law in various ways, including owning land in the name of their US-born

children and leasing land through corporations with a majority of American stockholders.

As support for a stricter alien land law was mounting, the Governor of California,

William D. Stephens, expressed his hope that Japan would “understand our attitude and

recognize that it is prompted solely by that inherent desire of every race and type of

people to preserve itself.” 332 The American Ambassador in Japan, Roland S. Morris,

warned US Secretary of State Robert Lansing on November 19, 1919 that further

discrimination against the Japanese in California “would lead to an extremely serious

crisis.”333

Congressional immigration hearings were organized in California in 1920. The

main objection to Japanese immigration, repeated in hearing after hearing, was based not

331
Cited in ibid., 102.
332
Stephens report sent to Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, June 19, 1920; FRUS 1920, 9.
333
FRUS 1919, 417.
113
on economic competition, important as that was, but on the racial prejudice of Japanese

non-assimilability due to fundamental racial differences. Senator James D. Phelan (D-

California) claimed that Japanese assimilation was biologically impossible and would

lead to “mongrelization and degeneracy.” 334 Valentine S. McClatchy, a prominent

member of the Japanese Exclusionist League of California, argued that “it would be a

national suicide to encourage or permit the Japanese to secure a foothold here.”335

Governor Stephens repeated arguments against racial mixing. California was closest to

“that great ocean the teeming millions of the Orient…But that our white race will readily

intermix with the yellow strains of Asia, and that out of this inter-relationship shall be

born a new composite human being is manifestly impossible…history does not show any

material fusion of either blood or idea between these peoples.” 336

The hearing of Chris R. Jones, president of the real estate board in Sacramento, by

Representative King Swope from Kentucky, member of the congressional hearings

committee, captures the racial aspect of fears of Japanese immigrants:

Mr. Swope: “Assuming other people of the same habits came in there, but were not
Japs, what would the answer be?
Mr. Jones: If they were assimilable white people, I mean people who would
assimilate, why, I can see no objection.
Mr. Swope: In other words, if the race feature were eliminated, you would have no
objection to the Japanese?
Mr. Jones: I would not have any objection to the Japanese if the Japanese could
assimilate with our population.”337

334
Congressional Hearings on Japanese Immigration 1921, 25.
335
Congressional Hearings on Japanese Immigration 1921, 342.
336
FRUS 1920, 6.
337
Congressional Hearings 1921, 314.
114
 Jones’ position was not different from that of the American political elite.

President Warren G. Harding in a speech at Birmingham, Alabama on October 26, 1920

stated that while “the negro was entitled to full economic and political rights as an

American citizen,” racial amalgamation “could never come in America”. 338 These racial

prejudices were reflected in governmental studies such as the Nonassimilability of

Japanese in Hawaii and the United States (Washington 1922), by the House of

Representatives’ Committee of Territories.

Books and newspapers amplified and reflected these racial fears and prejudices.

The most popular topics were Japanese breaking laws, spying, and invading US states

including Texas, Florida, Colorado and others. 339 Fears of Japan and the Japanese were

reflected in books such as Sidney Osborne’s The New Japanese Peril (1921) and Lothrop

Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color (1920). In addition to prejudices regarding Japanese

aggressiveness, social Darwinist ideas about the inevitability of racial war inflated fears

of Japanese-American conflict. Walter Pitkin’s popular Must We Fight Japan? (1921)

suggested that a war between the US and Japan was inevitable. Institutional or legal

solutions would be futile; this was a natural struggle for survival. A conflict with Japan

was only a matter of time.

Inflated perceptions of threat resulted in a new piece of anti-Japanese legislation.

The 1920 Alien Land Law was adopted in California with 668,483 votes in favor and

222,086 against on November 2, and became effective on December 10, 1920. It was

338
BDFA- Doc. 34 [A 3344/3344/45], Annual Report on the United States for the Year ending 1921
(Geddes to Curzon)
339
Among such vehicles of threat inflation were the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times, the
Albuquerque Morning Journal and many others.
115
essentially a stricter version of the 1913 Alien Land Law, prohibiting Japanese ownership

and leasing of land for agricultural purposes through their American born children and

through American companies. California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon also imposed

anti-Japanese measures. In a memo sent to Ambassador Morris on June 16, John Van A.

MacMurray, the Department of State’s Chief of Division for Far Eastern Affairs admitted

that although the measures are framed so as not to mention the Japanese explicitly and

not make it look like they constitute racial discrimination, they “are known to be directed

against the Japanese.”340

In addition to the treatment of Japanese immigrants, international events also

reflected inflated American perceptions of a Japanese threat. Japan became the America’s

“Yellow Peril”. For example, the Japanese presence in Siberia, following a joint

intervention with the US after WWI, was also perceived as threatening. Secretary of State

Lansing, recognizing the inflated nature of this threat perception, complained in a 1919

memo:

“Japanese designs as to Siberia are worrying a lot of Americans, who see in

everything that the Japanese Government does some hidden motive, some insidious
purpose…The Japanese are not fools. They know that a white race would never
submit to the domination of a yellow race. To take the sovereignty or economic
control of Eastern Siberia would mean endless trouble for Japan, as the Siberians
would never rest until they had driven the Japanese out of their country. I have little
patience with these people who are forever on the verge of hysterics about the deep
and wicked schemes of Japan. They imagine some of the most preposterous things
and report them as facts. I would think that some of these enemies of Japan were
mentally unbalanced but for their sanity on all other subjects.” 341

340
FRUS 1920, 2.
341
“Suspended Designs of the Japanese in Siberia,” July 31, 1919, Lansing Collection, ‘Private
Memoranda’; cited in Beers 1962, 121.
116
 Just like in 1906 and 1913, inflated perceptions of threat culminated in war scare.

Secretary of War John W. Weeks made speeches emphasizing the imminence of war with

Japan. During Senate debate regarding Shantung the fear of war was palpable. 342 William

C. Greene claimed that during his six years in Tokyo as British Ambassador racial

discrimination in California was the main source of irritation for Japan and that the

problem was worse than ever in 1920.343

Japanese newspapers argued that anti-Japanese inflated perceptions of threat and

discriminatory measures were rooted in “racial prejudice which is latent in the breast of

the white race, and the fears aroused by the yellow peril agitations.” 344 Former Japanese

Premier Marquis Shigenobu Okuma in an article published in Taikwan (Great Outlook),

explained Japanese-American discord with references to “racial prejudice and to the fear

of a yellow peril.” 345

Although not everyone was equally anti-Japanese in the US, racial prejudice was

sufficiently influential to facilitate Japanese-American discord and transform Japan into a

“Yellow Peril”. 346 Some churches, prominent academics, and business groups opposed

anti-Japanese measures, but the majority of Californians supported them. Moreover, the

importance of California in national elections made it difficult for national political

leaders to ignore the issue. Anti-Japanese measures were also supported by southerners

sharing racial fears. The Charleston News and Courier, the Louisville Courier-Journal,

342
Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 154.
343
In BDFA: Doc 90 [F 2116], 11691/60, Notes by Sir C. Greene on Japan’s Foreign Policy, bearing on the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and Comments on Mr. Wellesley’s Minute, Sept 11, 1920, p. 113.
344
Doc 230, 12008/191(i), inclosure in Doc 229, Extract from the ‘Japan Chronicle’ of September 2, 1921
345
Doc 229 [F 3763/2905/23], 12008/191, Eliot to Curzon, Tokyo, Sept 9, 1921 (rec’d Oct 13)
346
As discussed in Chapter 6, more research is needed to account for variation in racial prejudice across
regions and even individuals.
117
and the New Orleans Times-Democrat showed sympathy for California’s racial riots.

Southern politicians supported California in what they saw as a race struggle.

Congressman John L. Burnett of Alabama asked: “We have suffered enough already for

one race question and now will we fly to a conflict with another?” 347 The Midwest was

divided, while the East opposed California’s actions. Opposition to California’s anti-

Japanese actions does not necessarily reflect lower racial prejudice, but concerns that the

nation would be dragged by California into a premature conflict with Japan. This is

precisely the reason why Roosevelt opposed California’s action. Arthur Lee of Fareham,

the British First Lord of Admiralty reminisced that “The late President Roosevelt told me,

on more than one occasion, that nothing caused him more constant anxiety during his

Administration than the capacity (and sometimes the apparent readiness) of California to

involve the United States in a war with Japan without the Federal Government having

any say in the matter.”348

Inflated Threat Perceptions: The Gap between Threat Perception and Facts

In closing this section, it may be helpful to show that American threat perceptions

of the Japanese and Japan were inflated, by briefly drawing attention to the gap between

the high levels of threat perceptions discussed above and the facts. During the period

under study, the number of Japanese in the US peaked in 1920 at 119,207 at a time when

total US population according to the Census was 106,021,537. Hence, the Japanese

347
Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 31.
348
CAB 24/123 Memorandum 65/0065 on the AJ Alliance; former reference: CP 2957; Title: Anglo-
Japanese alliance Author: Lee of Fareham (the First Lord of the Admiralty)
118
represented only 0.11 percent of the US population, which can hardly justify cries of

Yellow Peril. Perhaps what was threatening was the high concentration of the Japanese in

California. In 1920 58.8 percent of all Japanese in the US were located in this one state.

However, the number of Japanese at its highest in 1919 was only 78,279 or 2.04 percent

of the total population of California. 349 Admittedly, these statistics do not include illegal

Japanese immigrants and unregistered Japanese births. But even if there were twice as

many Japanese as the official statistics indicate, the gap between the actual numbers and

the level of American threat perception remains wide: the ‘Yellow Peril’ had little

objective basis.

To put the numbers of Japanese immigrants in perspective, it may be helpful to

contrast them with British ones. Between 1815 and 1940 approximately 28 million

individuals left Great Britain, of which 58 percent or (16,240,000) settled in the US.

Between 1881 and 1890 the number of British immigrants to the US was 2,546,018

compared to 2,270 Japanese. Between 1901 and 1910 British immigrants to the US

numbered 2,714,188 compared to 54,838 Japanese.350 Since much higher British

immigration was not perceived as threatening, it is not unreasonable to suspect that it was

racial difference that made Japanese immigration appear so threatening.

Although one may want to argue that Japanese immigrants constituted an

economic challenge to Americans in ways that British immigrants did not, the numbers

suggest that this challenge was not even significant in California. The state’s total land

349
For useful statistics on Japanese immigration and birthrates see the Stephens report (anti-Japanese) in
Congressional Hearings on Japanese Immigration and Naturalization 1921 and Iyenaga and Sato 1921 (pro-
Japanese).
350
Turner 1971, 16.; Iyenaga and Sato 1921, 218.
119
area was 99,617,280 acres, of which 27,931,444 acres were farmland. Japanese control of

farmland reached its peak in 1920, when they owned 74,769 acres and leased another

383,287, representing 0.27% and 1.37% of the total farmlands, respectively. 351 In other

words, 2.04% of the total population of California cultivated 1.57% of the state’s

farmlands. If we take into account that 16,000,000 acres of agricultural land was left

uncultivated, the case for threat inflation regarding Japanese control of farmland is

robust.352 Admittedly, fears of Japanese immigrants were not imaginary. Some Japanese

did work for lower wages, dominated parts of the intensive agriculture, 353 and their land

holdings grew fast, albeit from a very low base.354 Nevertheless, racial prejudices inflated

threat perceptions of Japanese immigrants far beyond what the facts could support.

Concerns about Japan were similarly inflated as power indicators show (see Table

3.2). The US scored higher than Japan on all these indicators and many others. Moreover,

although Japan’s power was rising, Britain was still much more powerful. If threat

perception were only a matter of power, the US should have perceived Britain as more

threatening than Japan. Of course, threat perception is not reducible to material

capabilities. Perceptions of aggressive intentions are particularly important, and

American racial prejudices pertaining to intentions inflated the Japan threat. To be sure,

this is not to say that Japan gave no reason for concerns. Japanese imperialism in
351
Iyenaga and Sato, 136. Congressional hearing, Stephens report, p. 87.
352
Ibid.
353
Japanese dominated the production of celery, berries, asparagus, Cantaloupes, onions, and tomatoes.
However, they did not produce any of the grain and hay, and little of nuts (4%), corn and rice (10%) and
potatoes (20%). See the report of the Japanese Agricultural Association of California, Congressional
hearings 105, 216.
354
The State Board found that by 1919, the Japanese held 427,029 acres, an increase of 412,9% in the
previous ten years. During the same period the increase in the value of Japanese-grown products was
876,8% Tupper and McReynolds 1937, 173. If in 1909 market value of their crops was $6,235,856 there
was a tenfold increase to 1919 to $67,145,730 Iyenaga and Sato 1921, 122-23.
120
Manchuria and Korea was far from reassuring. However, in embracing imperialism Japan

was no substantially different than the other great powers. Race did not create the Japan

threat out of thin air, but it did inflate it.

Populat Iron/Steel
Energy Annual First-line Warship
ion Productio
Consumptio Indices of battleship Tonnage
(million n (million
n (million of Manufacturi s and (built and
s, 1920) tons, metric tons ng cruisers building in
1920) of coal Production (1921) 1919)
equivalent, (1913=100)
1920)
US 105.7 42.3 694 122.2 16 2,067,478
Britain 44.4 9.2 212 176.0 26 2,829,661
Japan 55.9 0.84 34 92.6 10 980,426
Table 3.2 Power Indicators: US, Britain, and Japan355

In sum, this section showed that inflated threat perceptions inflated by racial

prejudices resulted in Japanese-American discord and turned Japan into America’s

“Yellow Peril”. During the crises of 1906, 1913, and 1920 the mechanisms contained by

Hypotheses 1 and 2 worked both directly through decision makers’ threat perception and

indirectly through the American public’s threat perception. They also worked in a

sequential fashion to inflate American threat perceptions. Prejudices about Japanese

biological difference first inflated threat perceptions of Japanese immigration. Then,

prejudices about Japan’s aggressive intentions inflated threat perceptions of a Japanese-

American war. These perils of immigration and war constituted the “Yellow Peril” due to

355
Kennedy 1989, chs 5-6; CR 16 May 1921, p. 1742.
121
which Americans perceived Japan as threatening. The next section shows that the US also

misperceived the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as a potentially threatening instrument at

Japan’s disposal.

Inflated Threat Perceptions of Japan Lead to Misperception of the Anglo-Japanese

Alliance as Threatening

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923)

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was concluded by Britain and Japan on January 30,

1902 and it was in force until August 1923, when it was abolished by the Four-Power

Treaty of the 1921 Washington Conference. The alliance was renewed in 1905 and 1911.

The 1902 alliance, concluded for 5 years, had two main provisions. First, the signatories

promised to stay neutral if the other party was at war with one opponent, and to provide

assistance if the other party was at war with more than one opponent. Second, Britain

claimed special interests in China, while Japan claimed special interests in China and

Korea. The alliance was renewed in 1905 for 10 years with two main modifications:

mutual assistance was now required even if the other party was at war with a single

opponent; Britain also brought India under the security umbrella of the alliance and in

turn recognized more extensive Japanese influence in Korea. The alliance was renewed

for the last time in 1911 for 10 years. Again, there were two main changes: a) the

inclusion of Article IV, which exempted Britain of the obligation to assist Japan in the

122
case of a Japanese-American war; and b) the removal of Korea from the alliance as she

was already colonized by Japan.356

That Britain allied with Japan may seem problematic for the larger argument of

the dissertation that racial difference leads to discord. But Britain had no choice as she

needed an alliance and could not find an adequate “white” ally. As Britain’s relative

power declined while her interests remained global, the grand strategy of “splendid

isolation” became more isolating than splendid. Because the U.S. was not interested in

“entangling alliances,” Britain approached Germany and Russia. 357 Only when these

attempts failed did she, as The Economist put it at the time, “quit decidedly… that

unwritten alliance of all White Powers against all coloured races and through which alone

the supremacy of Europe over Asia and Africa can finally be established.”358 Japan,

isolated “in a world which was afflicted by suspicions based on fear of the Yellow Peril,”

embraced the alliance.359 To avoid wider domestic opposition to this interracial alliance,

Britain and Japan made it into a “secretariat alliance,” negotiated in secret and reinforced

by court diplomacy. 360

Throughout its lifetime, the alliance served both parties well, providing several

benefits beyond its immediate raison d’être of countering a potential Russian threat. For

Japan it was the first alliance with a European power, which lent her great power status

356
Chang 1931; Davis, 2008/09; Dennis 1934.
357
Steiner, 1959.
358
Cited in Daniels, 2003.
359
Nish, 1966:377.
360
Best, 2006; Nish, 1966:366.
123
and helped her avoid another Triple Intervention361 during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese

War. Britain got a loyal ally against Russia and Germany, and achieved “security with

economy,” keeping only a squadron of five cruisers in the Far East to protect her

immense imperial possessions.

The US supported the alliance in 1902 and 1905. However, as American racial

prejudices were activated and they inflated threat perceptions of Japan, she gradually

came to oppose the alliance. The next section argues that America’s perception of Japan

as the “Yellow Peril” led to the misperception of the alliance as threatening, even though

the alliance was not threatening to the US.

A Non-Threatening Alliance

The alliance was not threatening to the US for at least two reasons. First, for

Britain Anglo-American war was unthinkable, to a considerable extent due to shared

Anglo-Saxon racial identity. Just as difference in racial identity facilitated American-

Japanese discord, shared racial identity facilitated Anglo-American rapprochement and

cooperation.362 In a speech on May 13, 1898 in Birmingham, Colonial Secretary Joseph

Chamberlain stated: “Our first duty is to draw all parts of the empire into close unity, and

our next to maintain the bonds of permanent unity with our kinsmen across the

Atlantic.”363 James Bryce, British Ambassador in the US between 1906 and 1913,

reaffirmed that “The sympathy of race does not often affect the relations of states, but

361
In 1895 Germany, France and Russia forced Japan to forego the territorial gains she made as a result of
her victory in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese war. In 1904-05 Britain held the ring during the Russo-Japanese
war.
362
Anderson 1981; Perkins 1968; Kohn 2004; Vucetic 2011; Kupchan 2010.
363
Kramer 2002, 1334.
124
when it does it is a force of tremendous potency; for it affects not so much governments

as the people themselves, who, both in America and in England, are the ultimate

repositories of power, the ultimate controllers of policy.” 364 Gradually, following the

1895 Venezuela dispute over colonial boundaries, the idea of race patriotism took sway,

leading to increased Anglo-American cooperation.365 Britain supported the US in the

American—Spanish-Cuban war, while the US supported Britain in the Boer War. In 1905

the incoming liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman reiterated that “with

the United States we are bound by the closest ties of race, tradition and fellowship.” 366

H.G. Wells put it vividly: “But to the common British, fighting Americans would have

much the same relation to fighting other peoples that cannibalism would have to eating

meat.”367 The First Lord of Admiralty, Lee of Fareham, wrote in February 1905 that

Anglo-American war would be “the supreme limit of human folly” and it was

unthinkable for British decision makers. 368 British Dominions concurred. In the words of

Australia’s Premier William Hughes “War with America is unthinkable.” 369

Second, the alliance was not threatening to the US also because of Article IV

through which Britain made sure that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would not force her

into an Anglo-American conflict. As early as 1905 Foreign Secretary Lord of Lansdowne

Henry Petty Fitzmaurice wrote to British Ambassador to Japan Claude Maxwell

364
Anderson, 28.; Carnegie went as far as to say that racial feelings are “the strongest sentiment in man”
and “the real motive which at the crisis determines his action in international affairs” ibid., 52.
365
Clark 1957, 100. For an argument that Anglo-American rapprochement occurred by the middle of
the19th century see Fanis 2011.
366
Gelber 1938, 253.; See also Rosebery: “But whether you call it British or Anglo-Saxon, or whatever you
call it, the fact is that the race is there and the sympathy of the race is there” Allen 1959, 96.
367
Wells 1922, 83.
368
Turner 1971, 57.
369
Cited in Keith 1976, 49.
125
MacDonald that “All we desire is that we should not be compelled to go to war with the

US in the event of a violation of established Treaty rights by Japan.” 370 Similarly, the

British Ambassador to America, Sir Mortimer Durand, explained to President Roosevelt

on 3 August, 1905, that Britain would not go to war with the US.371 As Japanese-

American relations worsened, Britain wanted to make this very clear. When Japan

proposed the renewal of the alliance in 1911, Britain asked for the explicit exclusion of

the US as a target of the alliance. Japanese statesmen knew that with or without such an

amendment Britain would never go to war with the US and conceded on this point.372

However, Japan was concerned that mentioning the US explicitly would expose the

government to fierce attacks from domestic opponents for concluding a one-sided

alliance, where Japan had to guard India, but Britain had no obligation to help against the

US.373 Because in 1911 Britain and the US were close to concluding a general arbitration

treaty, Japan agreed to the inclusion of Article IV in the renewed treaty with the

following wording: “Should either High Contracting Party conclude a treaty of general

arbitration with a third Power, it is agreed that nothing in this Agreement shall entail

upon such Contracting Party an obligation to go to war with the Power with whom such

treaty of arbitration is in force.”374

370
Lansdowne to MacDonald, July 26, 1905; cited in Gooch and Temperley, eds., British Documents, vol.
VIII, p. 154.
371
Nish 1966, 329.
372
Doc 203 [52839] Memorandum of the effect of the Peace Commission Treaty with the United States on
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Foreign Office, September 21, 1914
373
Indeed, the Hochi Shimbun lamented after the modified renewal of the alliance that Japan was now
“America’s slave and India’s policeman” Dennis, 37.
374
Nish 1972.
126
 Although the arbitration treaty was signed in August 1911, it was not ratified by

Congress due to Taft’s weak position at home and some disagreements over Senate

powers.375 When the Anglo-American Peace Commission Treaty was signed three years

later, Britain communicated to Japan that she regarded it as equivalent to an arbitration

treaty. Japan accepted the equivalence claim which exempted Britain from assisting

Japan in the event of a Japanese-American war.376 Britain did not officially communicate

the equivalence to the US “as there is no reason to believe that the responsible authorities

are in any doubt as to the true position.” 377 Americans were apprised about it through

informal channels. As one American Congressman put it during the 1922 Senate debates

on the ratification of the Four-Power Treaty, “For years past we have been assured by all

the responsible statesmen of England and Japan that their alliance was not directed at us

and never could be.”378 Similarly, Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson (D-Arkansas) stated

that the purpose beyond Article IV “was to exempt the United States from the effect of

the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Everybody understood that. It was a matter of common

information.”379 Alarmed by the anti-alliance press reports in the US, the Japanese

Ambassador Baron Shidehara also evoked Article IV to mitigate fears of the Anglo-

Japanese Alliance. He stated that “it was already well understood at time of negotiating

375
Ibid., 78.
376
Doc 203 [52839] Memorandum of the effect of the Peace Commission Treaty with the United States on
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Foreign Office, September 21, 1914
377
Doc 191 [F 788/63/23] 11841/31, Question asked in the House of Commons, March 1, 1921 by
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir F. Hall from Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Mr. Kellaway.
378
Mr. Johnson cited in Congressional Record (CR) 62, Senate, March 13, 1922.
379
CR 18 March 1922, p. 4069.
127
existing agreement that the alliance should in no case be directed against the United

States.”380 The alliance was not aimed at the United States.

Inflated American Threat Perceptions of a Non-Threatening Alliance

Although the alliance was not aimed at her, the US misperceived the alliance as

threatening. Historians talk about the “neurosis towards the Anglo-Japanese alliance”

developed by the American public. 381 Part of the political elite was similarly concerned.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Senator James A. Reed (D-Missouri) claimed

that the alliance contained a secret clause against the US.382 In January 1918 British

Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour decried the “profoundly gloomy” and even

“excessive” suspicions of Japanese policy in the State Department.383 To be sure, not

everyone perceived the alliance as threatening. For instance, at least one Congressman

believed that “…the Anglo-Japanese alliance, judged by its words, judged by its text,

judged by the solemn protestations of the parties to it, is no danger whatsoever to this

country…”384 Yet many other Americans did perceive the alliance as threatening.

The British Ambassador in America, Auckland Geddes, reported that average

American’s perception of Japan was characterized by inflated threat perception, which

380
Doc 15 [F 2445/63/23] , 12008/13, Geddes to Curzon, Washington, undated 1921 (rec’d July5); a
similar position was taken by Count Uchida on February 4 th in the Japanese Diet.
381
Ibid., 281.
382
The Times, Jan 4, 1921, p. 10; cited in Spinks 1937, 326.
383
Balfour to Milner 19 January 1918; cited in ibid., 224.
384
Johnson, CR 62, 3783.
128
was also shared by the armed forces.385 Similarly, the American Ambassador to Britain

John W. Davis wrote to Lee of Fareham that

“There is more feeling on the subject of the Japanese treaty than I had
imagined, and a very general misunderstanding as to its present scope and bearing.
I was surprised the other day to find one of the most intelligent men of my
acquaintance wholly ignorant of the fact that it contained any clause which would
eliminate a quarrel between Japan and America from its provisions.” 386

Although ignorance probably contributed to threat misperception, it is not

sufficient to explain exaggerated fears of the alliance. That much of this inflated fear was

not due to simple ignorance is suggested by the fact that it proved impermeable to much

contrary evidence and that the better informed American political elite was also subject to

it. Racial prejudice inflated threat perception automatically, limiting rational deliberation,

and made inflated threat perceptions impermeable to disproving facts. American Admiral

William Sims warned that “there was no use in telling an American in the Middle West

that Article IV of the Alliance provided for Great Britain being under no obligation to go

to war in support of Japan against America.” 387 Geddes noted that “No amount of

assurance that this treaty is so drafted as not to involve any aggressive action by Great

Britain upon America appears to be able to remove the conviction in the public mind that

Great Britain is associated in a war-like alliance with America’s greatest potential

enemy.”388 Similarly, Viscount Bryce, following a trip to the US, wrote that

“It has been pointed out over and over again that there is nothing in that
treaty [Anglo-Japanese] to affect the United States. Nevertheless, nine men out of

385
BDFA Doc 20 [A 7615/7615/45] Sir A. Geddes to Curzon, No. 1260. Washington, Oct 18,1920
386
Davis to Lee of Fareham, 6 July 1921; cited in Nish 1972, 281-2. fn 14
387
Cabinet Minutes 43(21), Secret, 30 May 1921, CAB 23/25. CAB/23/25 1921.
388
BDFA Doc. 24, [A 7058/7058/45], Sir A. Geddes to the Marquess Curzon of Keddleston (rec’d Sept
27), Washington, September 15, 1921, emphasis added.
129
 ten in the United States continue to repeat that England is the ally—the exclusive
ally—of Japan, and that the effect of the treaty has been and is to make Japan think
she has a comparatively free hand and may adopt policies of aggression on which
she would otherwise fear to embark’.”389

Some recognized that racial prejudice contributed much to the ignorance

underlying the ‘Yellow Peril’ and tailored their policy recommendations accordingly. For

instance, Lee of Fareham suggested that Britain should “realise, and give full weight to,

not merely the views but the prejudices of the American people and Government with

regard to this question.”390 The next section shows that this is exactly what Britain did by

giving in to American pressure to end the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

RACIALLY INFLATED THREAT PERCEPTIONS LEAD TO THE END OF THE

ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE

The American Contribution to the Demise of the Alliance

Due to inflated perceptions of threat, the American public and the political elite

strongly favored the demise of the alliance. 391 This section traces the American

contribution to the demise of the alliance. It first shows that in the absence of American

opposition, the allies would have renewed the alliance. Next, it discusses how the

American opposition to the alliance pushed British preferences away from renewal and

closer to the accepting its termination. Finally, it reveals how US direct and indirect

389
The Times, Oct 18, 1921; cited in Tate and Foy 1959, 549, my emphasis.
390
My emphasis, CAB 24/123 Memorandum 65/0065 on the AJ Alliance; former reference: CP 2957;
Title: Anglo-Japanese alliance Author: Lee of Fareham (the First Lord of the Admiralty)
391
Nish 1972, 281; Vinson 1953, 40.
130
pressure in 1921 at the Imperial Conference and the Washington Conference contributed

to ending the alliance.

Britain and Japan Would Have Renewed the Alliance

The three main options Japan and Britain had regarding the alliance were 1)

termination, 2) renewal in a modified form, and 3) replacement with a trilateral

agreement including the US. Due to the absence of a shared threat and frictions over

commercial interests in China between Britain and Japan, the alliance had been in decline

since 1911. But the allies still deemed it useful enough to renew it in 1921, when the

alliance was due to expire. 392

Japan preferred the second option, renewal in a modified form. From her

perspective the alliance was still valuable insofar as it helped her avoid isolation and

provided her with great power status. She recognized the necessity of amending the

alliance to bring it into agreement with the League of Nations, but thought that it was

doable and desirable. Viscount Takaaki Katō, former Foreign Minister and Ambassador

to Britain, considered the demise of the alliance “extremely undesirable”. Prime Minister

Takashi Hara argued that “even if the establishment of a League of Nations has the effect

of undermining the functions of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there is no question about

the need for its continuation.” 393 Former Premier Marquis Okuma distrusted the League

and saw no reason for the termination of the alliance.394 Baron Eiichi Shibusawa, the

392
Buckley 1970, 185.
393
Hosoya 1982, 7.
394
No. 598, Mr. Alston to Earl Curzon (Rec’d Jan 1, 1920), No. 497, Tokyo, November 25, 1919
131
Japanese J.P. Morgan, supported renewal in the name of Japanese business interest.

Although there was some opposition to renewal in the armed forces, the official position

as expressed by the Minister of War Giichi Tanaka was support for renewal. 395 In May

1920 Foreign Minister Kōsai Uchida informed the British Ambassador in Japan, Charles

Eliot, that the Japanese Government is officially in favor of renewal. 396 Japan was so

eager to start negotiations that Uchida inquired about the existence of a British draft

which could be consulted by the Japanese Foreign Office. 397

Initially Britain also appeared to favor the second option, renewal in modified

form. British debates regarding the alliance were dominated by arguments in favor of

renewal. The main British reasons for renewal were the following: Japan had been a

useful ally against Russia and Germany; the alliance provided cheap security for Britain’s

Far Eastern imperial possessions, making Japan their watchdog and easing pressures of

naval building on the strained British treasury;398 the alliance was instrumental in

providing Britain with some control over a potentially dangerous ally and in “keeping the

Japs a little in hand.”399 Britain and her Dominions were not exempt from the Yellow

Peril. 400 But while the US saw the alliance as amplifying this threat, Britain thought the

395
Enclosure in No. 528, Brigadier-General Woodruff to Mr. Alston, Tokyo October 5, 1919
396
Doc 66 [F 1446/199/23], 11691/43 Sir C. Eliot to Earl Curzon, Tokyo June 7, 1920
397
Doc 150 [F 2330/2330/23], 11718, Japan: Annual Report, 1920; Sir C. Eliot to Earl Curzon, Tokyo,
May 24 1921 (rec’d June 27)
398
Memo on “The Naval Situation in the Far East,” 31 Oct 1919, CP 54, Lloyd George Papers F/143); Doc
7 [178570], 11691/5, letter, O. Murray (Admiralty), 12 Feb 1920; Doc 2 [1666706], 11691/3, letter, Hubert
Montgomery (FO), 21 Jan 1920, Foreign Office to Colonial Office
399
FO 371/3816 [177312], minute by J.A.C. Tilley, 21 February 1920
400
Victor Wellesley, the assistant secretary in the Foreign Office superintending the Far Eastern
Department, wrote: “the militarisation of China under Japanese leadership may not only lead to the ejection
of the British from Asia and Australia, but ultimately to the destruction of Europe by Asiatic invasion. It is
important, therefore, that we should take a longer view than the immediate needs of the political situation,
and consider the whole problem of the Far East as one affecting the future of civilization…Therein lies the
132
alliance would mitigate it. Finally, because the unity of the multiracial British Empire

depended on the absence of open racial conflict, the alliance was valuable in bridging the

gap between the white and yellow races.401

Although there were also powerful arguments against renewal, they seemed to be

weaker than those in favor of renewal. The main reasons against renewal were the

following: the Russian and German threats were gone; Japan violated the principle of

open door in the Far East, encroaching upon British commercial interests; 402 and there

were concerns that British Dominions would oppose the alliance given their exclusionary

anti-Japanese immigration laws. In response to these arguments Charles Eliot claimed

that although at the moment Russia and Germany were not threatening, the alliance

deterred the reemergence of a hostile Russo-German coalition and precluded Japan’s

joining of it. Next, he made the case that in the absence of the alliance, Japan would be

even more dangerous for both the security and economic interests of Britain. Finally, as

long as the issues of immigration and the alliance were kept separate, the Dominions did

not have to worry about Japan. During WWI for instance, Japan provided invaluable

danger, for she could and would implant her own aggressive policy on those millions, with the result that
one-half of the world would be placed in racial antagonism against the other.” No 97, Memorandum by Mr.
Wellesley respecting the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, FO, Sept 1, 1920 [in BDFA it has no F 2200/199/23;
conf print and piece no. 11691/58]; “Every Japanese is born and bred with ideas of aggressive patriotism,
of his superiority to foreigners, of his national call to head a revival of the neighboring brown and yellow
races”, has become the Prussia of the Far East-“fanatically patriotic, nationally aggressive, individually
truculent, fundamentally deceitful” (226) in Doc 242, 10845, Memorandum by Foreign Office, March
1917, prepared for the Imperial Conference, March 1917; title is Memorandum on Anglo-Japanese
Relations.
401
Eliot to Curzon, Tokyo, Dec 12, 1920 ([F 3205/199/23], 11691/87); HANSARD 1803-2005 British
Parliamentary Debates on AJ Alliance, HC Deb 17 June 1921 vol. 143, 788; Secretary of State for India
(Montagu)- “From the point of view of India, the Alliance constituted a wedge in the policy of ‘Asia for the
Asiatics’” Cabinet Minutes 43(21), Secret, 30 May 1921, CAB 23/25.
402
No 97, Memorandum by Mr. Wellesley respecting the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, FO, Sept 1, 1920 [in
BDFA it has no F 2200/199/23; conf print and piece no. 11691/58]
133
assistance to British dominions in the Pacific, despite their exclusion of Japanese

immigrants.403 At a subsequent Cabinet meeting Foreign Secretary Lord George Curzon

of Keddleston, made a very similar case in favor of renewal. Prime Minister Lloyd

George found the arguments for renewal “irresistible,” while A.J. Balfour, now Lord

President of the Council, considered them “very convincing”. 404

However, when American preferences for terminating the alliance are factored

into the British position, we see a shift away from renewal towards a trilateral agreement.

Eliot might have brushed aside most arguments against renewal, but he could not ignore

the most serious one, “that it might be displeasing to the United States and injuriously

affect our relations with them.” 405 The War Office and the Foreign Office both stressed

that the dominant consideration for renewal is not antagonizing the US or “embarrassing

in the smallest degree our relations with that country, whose friendship is of prime

importance for us both from the point of view of material interests and racial affinity.” 406

British eagerness to please Americans was based on racial and strategic reasons. Just as

conflict with the US was unthinkable, cooperation was seen as natural. Strategic reasons

included the desire for a naval arms limitation and hopes for a forgiveness of British war

403
No 52: [in BDFA number F 1559/199/23; confidential print and piece number 11691/45]Sir C. Eliot
(Tokyo) to Earl Curzon (Rec’d July 23), Tokyo, June 17, 1920
404
Cabinet Minutes 43(21), Secret, 30 May 1921, CAB 23/25.
405
No 52: [in BDFA is F 1559/199/23]; confidential print and piece number 11691/45]Sir C. Eliot (Tokyo)
to Earl Curzon (Rec’d July 23), Tokyo, June 17, 1920; Memorandum by Sir B. Alston respecting
suggestions for an Anglo-Saxon Policy for the Far East, FO, August 1, 1920, rec’d August 70 [in BDFA is
F 1742/199/23; conf print no. 11691/50]; See also HANSARD 1803-2005 British Parliamentary Debates
on AJ Alliance, HC Deb 17 June 1921 vol. 143.
406
Doc 12 [177312] 11691/8, Memorandum on Effect of Anglo-Japanese Alliance upon Foreign
Relationship, Foreign Office, 28 Feb 1920; Doc 8 [178925] 11691/6, War Office to Foreign Office, Feb 14,
1920, Signed B.B.Cubitt.
134
debt held by America.407 British Parliamentary debates on the alliance show the extent of

American influence on Britain’s position on the alliance. 408

At the heart of the British decision about the alliance was what may be called the

ally-friend dilemma: how to keep close a potentially dangerous ally (Japan) without

alienating a potentially unreliable friend (the US)? As a Foreign Office memorandum put

it,

“Our future course lies between our ally with whom our interests conflict,
and our friend who is united to us by race, tradition, community of interests and
ideals. It will be difficult for us to steer a straight course; both parties will no doubt
reproach us, as they have done in the past, for not giving them more whole-hearted
support against the other, but this course must be steered—our interests demand
it.”409

The optimal solution to “steering a straight course” between ally and friend, as the

British Cabinet saw it, was a trilateral agreement including both Japan and the US.

Similarly, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Committee, established under the aegis of the

Foreign Office to study the problem of renewal, in its January 1921 report called for

replacing the alliance with a tripartite agreement.410

There were two problems with this solution, however, which made many British

reluctant to embrace trilateral agreement (the third option). The first problem was that the

407
In preparation for the Imperial Conference, First Admiral Lee of Fareham argued that the main driving
force behind the American desire of naval armament is the fear of Japan and the alliance. Giving up the
alliance for a tripartite agreement would mitigate American fears and would be conducive to an
advantageous disarmament agreement with the US. CAB 24/123 Memorandum 65/0065 on the AJ
Alliance; former reference: CP 2957; Title: Anglo-Japanese alliance Author: Lee of Fareham (the First
Lord of the Admiralty), May 21, 1921. Lee of Fareham May 21,1921.; on war debt see Dayer 1976.
408
Hansard, HC Deb 17 June vol 130 cc1491-602; and HC Deb 17 June 1921 vol 143 cc 783-860.
409
Doc 12 [177312] 11691/8, Memorandum on Effect of Anglo-Japanese Alliance upon Foreign
Relationship, Foreign Office, 28 Feb 1920; See also Chamberlain at HANSARD 1803-2005 British
Parliamentary Debates on AJ Alliance, HC Deb 17 June 1921 vol. 143 cc 850.
410
Louis 1971, 43.; See Report of the Anglo-Japanese Committee, Secret, 21 January 1921 [F 1169/63/23],
FO 371/6672,cf. DBFP, XIV, No 212).
135
ratification of a trilateral agreement by the US Congress was doubtful. The second

problem was that even if Congress would ratify a trilateral agreement, it would be so

watered down as to be a poor replacement for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. For these

reasons, some still thought that renewal in a form satisfactory to the US was desirable.

When taking into account American preferences, the British shifted her position

into the grey area between renewal and trilateral agreement. They hoped that the two

options can be reconciled to keep both the US and Japan happy. However, during the

summer and autumn of 1921 Britain’s position underwent an important transformation as

the result of American pressure exerted during the 1921 Imperial Conference. 411 When

the US made clear that renewal in any form would be opposed by her and that she was

open to a trilateral agreement, Britain embraced the trilateral agreement.

Britain Embraces the Trilateral Agreement: The Imperial Conference of 1921

American direct and indirect pressure at the 1921 Imperial Conference made the

trilateral agreement Britain’s first choice. American pressure was exercised directly

through Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes’ conversations with British Ambassador to

the US Auckland Geddes. Indirectly, the American preference for termination was

represented energetically by Canadian Prime Minister Arthur Meighen. Although the US

was not present at the conference, through these direct and indirect channels she attained

an impressive degree of influence. As one historian put it, “From the opening speech of

British Prime Minister Lloyd George until the end of the Conference, it was apparent that

411
Tate and Foy 1959, 547.
136
no decision could be reached as to the policy of the Empire without reference to the

reaction of the United States government.”412

The Imperial Conference opened in London on June 20, 1921. The fate of the

Anglo-Japanese Alliance was the most important topic discussed. The opening session

stressed the importance of Anglo-American friendship. Lloyd George stated that Anglo-

American cooperation was a “cardinal principle” for Britain, “dictated by instinct quite as

much as by reason and common sense.”413 Yet this did not imply that all participants

were ready to give up the alliance.

The main voice in favor of renewal was that of Australian Prime Minister

William Hughes. Although Hughes would have preferred an alliance with the US, he was

skeptical that the US would enter such an alliance. In the context of falling commodity

prices, post-WWI exhaustion, British naval weakness in the Far East, and US

isolationism, he felt that Australia had no choice but to support renewal. Australia could

not afford to face a hostile Japan that non-renewal may create.414 Before his departure to

the Imperial Conference, William Hughes set out Australia’s position in a Parliament

speech in April 1921:

“We say to America: here we are, a young democracy with 13,000 miles of coast
line within three weeks of a thousand million Asiatics. Will you come to our
assistance if we call? America gives no answer. If Australia were asked which she
would prefer as an ally, America or Japan, she would say ‘America,’ but that
choice is not given to her. Australia will vote against renewal of the Anglo-
Japanese treaty: Provided that America gives us assurance of safety.”415

412
Galbraith 1948, 145
413
Keith 1976, 44.
414
Spinks 1937, 329; Keith 1976, 48.
415
Galbraith 1948, 147.
137
 New Zealand’s Prime Minister William Massey agreed with Hughes. In a Times

interview of May 25, 1921 he noted that as long as the alliance did not interfere with New

Zealand’s ability to exclude Asian immigration, New Zealand favored to renewal. 416

The main opponent of renewal was Canada. As early as February 15, 1921

Canadian Premier Meighen telegraphed Lloyd George that “every possible effort should

be made to find some alternative policy to that of renewal” and stressed “the importance

of promoting good relations with the United States.”417 He continued the crusade against

the alliance at the Imperial Conference. On June 29 Meighen argued eloquently against

renewal and in favor of a tripartite agreement. One by one he attacked the British

arguments for renewal: The German and Russian threats were gone and their future

possibility was too remote to justify renewal. Because she violated fundamental

principles of the alliance, Japan was not a loyal ally. The alliance was incompatible with

the principles of the League of Nations and it legitimized Japanese imperialism. Most

importantly, renewal would hurt Anglo-American relations and could even provoke a

naval arms race. Meighen was convinced that the US was open to closer Anglo-Saxon

cooperation. His recommendation was to terminate the alliance and instead conclude a

“multilateral Pacific agreements to be arrived at in international conference.” 418 At the

July 1st session Meighen restated Canada’s opposition to renewal and the desirability of

replacing the alliance at a Pacific Conference. 419

416
Tate and Foy 1959, 537.
417
No 261, Memorandum by Mr. Lampson on correspondence with the Canadian Government relating to
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, FO, April 8, 1921
418
Brebner 1966 [1945], 290.
419
ICM 12th meeting, 1 July 1921 CAB 32/2); Louis, 76.
138
 In addition to the indirect opposition to renewal exercised through Canada, the US

also pressured Britain to terminate the alliance through more direct diplomatic channels.

Geddes apprised Curzon on June 24th that the Imperial Conference triggered considerable

American opposition to renewal, fanned by an anti-alliance media campaign.420 Similar

media campaigns were initiated in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 421 Victor

Wellesley, the assistant secretary in the Foreign Office superintending the Far Eastern

Department, argued that British action on the alliance “should depend to a large extent on

the result of our conversation with the United States Government…”422 Geddes, the

British Ambassador in the US, pursued these conversations, which revealed the extent of

US opposition to renewal and her openness to a trilateral agreement. On June 23

Secretary of State Hughes told Geddes that both the American public and the government

opposed the alliance. American opposition was so determined that even if the US was

explicitly excluded as a target of the alliance, renewal would be still seen as “little less

than unfortunate” and would have “very serious effects on American opinion.” Hughes

believed that the alliance made Japan more aggressive and increased chances of

Japanese-American war.

Secretary of State Charles Hughes was strongly opposed to renewal in any form.

On June 29, the same day that Meighen made the case against renewal, Curzon informed

Geddes that everyone at the conference took into account American preferences. 423

Curzon wanted to know whether the alliance could be renewed in a form acceptable to

420
Sir A. Geddes (Washington) to Earl Curzon, Washington, June 24, 1921 (rec’d June 25)
421
Spinks 1937, 327.
422
No 97, Memorandum by Mr. Wellesley respecting the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, FO, Sept 1, 1920 [in
BDFA it has no F 2200/199/23; conf print and piece no. 11691/58]
423
Curzon to Geddes, FO, June 29, 1921 (in BDFA is [F 2367/63/23; 11841/177])
139
the US. The American Ambassador to Britain, George Harvey, reassured Curzon that the

US was open to renewal, but this turned out to be false. Geddes informed Curzon on July

2 that according to Secretary of State Hughes “the mere fact of renewal, in whatever

form, would create a very unfavourable impression on the present administration.” 424

Four days later he telegraphed Curzon again: “Mr. Hughes again told me quite plainly

that renewal of Anglo-Japanese Alliance, or establishment of any special relations

between British and Japanese, would create unfavourable impression, not only in mind of

American people, but in that of United States Government.”425 And again, on July 7

Geddes told Curzon that Harvey was given instructions to inform Britain that the US

would oppose renewal or any exclusive special relations between Britain and Japan. 426 At

the same time Secretary of State Hughes signaled that the US would be interested in

some kind of tripartite agreement.

In the face of firm American opposition to renewal and interest in trilateral

agreement, Britain gave up renewal and embraced the trilateral agreement. The change in

Britain’s position is epitomized by Geddes’ case. Initially a champion of renewal, he had

become an advocate of the trilateral agreement. At the end of 1920 he still recommended

renewal in a modified form.427 Yet strong American opposition to the alliance and US

interest in a trilateral agreement gradually changed Geddes’ position. Two weeks before

the Imperial Conference he telegraphed Curzon about “increasing popular American

424
In BDFA it is Doc 5 [F 2426/63/23], 12008/4) Geddes to Curzon, July 2, 1921
425
Doc 19 [F 2467/63/23] 12008/17, Geddes to Curzon, Washington, July 6, 1921;
426
No 326: Geddes to Curzon, July 7, 1921 (in BDFA it is [F 2485/63/23], 12008/28)
427
No 162, Sir A. Geddes (Washington) to Earl Curzon, Washington, Nov 15, 1920 (in BDFA it is [F
2338/199/23], 11691/73); No. 175, Geddes (Washington) to Curzon, Washington, December 3, 1920 (in
BDFA it is [F 3202/199/23], 11691/86)
140
suspicion of Anglo-Japanese alliance.”428 Hughes warned Geddes that renewal would be

“disastrous” and hinted at American openness to a trilateral agreement. The degree of

American opposition to the alliance, along with Geddes’ earlier belief that “there is now

for the first time since 1776 some chance of arriving at a working agreement with this

country [US] which it will observe and honour,”429 changed his position. By the summer

of 1921 Geddes shifted from supporting renewal to advocating a trilateral agreement. 430

The British political elite gradually underwent a similar transformation.

Due to direct and indirect American pressure, participants at the Imperial

Conference did not renew the alliance, became interested in a trilateral agreement, and

decided to participate in a Pacific Conference.431 Some still hoped to retain the alliance,

but their numbers were dwindling. Reiterating the advantages of the alliance, Curzon

remarked that “I regard the loss of these advantages with no small apprehension and am

not at all sure that they will be compensated for by a temporary conquest of the beaux

yeux of America.”432 But the trilateral agreement became Britain’s first choice, and the

alliance would be retained only if it could be reconciled with a trilateral agreement or

participants would fail to conclude such an agreement at the Pacific Conference. The

Japanese Ministry of War and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were still “extremely

anxious” to retain the alliance with minor modifications. 433

428
Geddes to Curzon, Washington June 6, 1921, Butler and Lambert 1966.
429
BDFA [A 7615/7615/45] Sir A. Geddes to Earl Curzon, No. 1260; Washington, Oct 18,1920:
430
CAB/23/26; former reference: Cabinet 56(21); Conclusions of a meeting of the Cabinet, 30 th June,
1921CAB/23/26 30 June, 1921
431
Curzon to Geddes , July 9 it may be Doc 17 [F 2461/63/23] 12008/15, Curzon to Geddes, Foreign
Office, July 5, 1921 (check)
432
Buckley 1970: 129.
433
Doc 182 [A 6787/18/45] Eliot to Curzon, Tokyo Aug 15, 1921
141
The Demise of the Alliance at the Washington Conference

The alliance became the casualty of American inflated threat perception at the

1921 Washington Conference. As Congressman John R. Tyson put it on the first day, the

US made clear to Britain that “The price of American friendship is the abrogation of that

alliance.”434 British statesmen were perceptive to American preferences and the alliance

was brought to an end. The three main ingredients of the demise were British desire to

cooperate with the US, America’s insistence on only one Pacific Conference, and

American preference for a Four-Power Treaty that ended the alliance.

First, in Britain the dominant theme was the desire to cooperate with the US for

racial and strategic reasons. The strategic reasons were that WWI depleted British

finances, Britain accumulated a large foreign debt (much of it held by the US), and she

could not afford a naval arms race.435 The main racial reason was shared Anglo-Saxon

racial identity with the US, which predisposed Britain to cooperation with the US. In the

words of Lloyd George in the House of Commons: “I do not know of any country in the

world with whom it is more important that we should act in concert than with the United

States of America. So much so that it is very difficult to get an Englishman to regard an

American as a foreigner. There is a different feeling; there is a sense of fraternity.” 436

434
Congressional Record 61 Cong. Rec. (1921), Appendix to the Congressional Record, “Extension of
Remarks of Hon. Percy E. Quin, of Mississippi, in the House of Representatives, Wednesday, November
23, 1921, p. 8951; Winston Churchill reiterated the same point later, and stated that “Accordingly this
alliance was brought to an end Turner 1971, 62.
435
Doc 216 [F 3012/2905/23] , 12008/178, Memorandum respecting British Neutrality in the events of a
Japanese-American War, by Ashton-Gwatkin,10 Oct 1921
436
Doc 132 [F 3162/63/23]12008/114, Extract from Statement by Prime Minister in the House of
Commons, August 18, 1921
142
Atlanticists imagined a post-World War I international system based on close Anglo-

American cooperation.437 At least some British diplomats saw international politics in the

Pacific in racial terms, arguing that it took precedence over political and economic

problems. 438 Under these conditions, cooperating with the US was desirable because it

would buttress a white supremacy challenged by Japan’s victory over Russia in 1904-05

and Europe’s decline after WWI.439 Britain was concerned that challenges to white

supremacy would also challenge the British Empire. Although she would have preferred

to keep the Anglo-Japanese Alliance alive, she deemed cooperation with America and a

disarmament agreement more important. If the alliance was the price for this, Britain was

willing to make the transaction.

Second, “a series of very regrettable misunderstandings” in July and August of

1921 ensured that the fate of the alliance would have to be discussed by the parties in a

hostile environment in Washington.440 Both Britain and the US supported the Pacific

Conference idea, but they disagreed about what it entailed. Britain preferred to have a

preliminary Pacific Conference in London first with Japan, and then a separate

disarmament conference in Washington, arguing that before any negotiations on

disarmament were possible, Pacific issues had to be settled. The US preferred one

conference in Washington which covered both issues, arguing that they were inseparable.

437
Roberts 1997.
438
No 404, General Survey of Political Situation in Pacific and Far East with reference to the forthcoming
Washington Conference, FO, October 20, 1921 (prepared by Victor Wellesley) (in BDFA it is doc 239, [F
3823/2635/10])
439
No 404, General Survey of Political Situation in Pacific and Far East with reference to the forthcoming
Washington Conference, FO, October 20, 1921 (prepared by Victor Wellesley) (in BDFA it is doc 239, [F
3823/2635/10])
440
Curzon to Eliot, FO, August 15, 1921
143
Hughes made clear that the American government was “unalterably opposed” to a

preliminary conference441 and after a long exchange of telegrams, 442 Britain reluctantly

gave in. From the empirical record it is not clear whether the misunderstanding was a

brilliant American diplomatic trick to ensure that no separate Anglo-Japanese

understanding on the alliance occurred at a preliminary conference, or it was due simply

to miscommunication, Harvey’s incompetence, or American ambition to claim sole credit

for the conference.443 Whatever the true cause, the allies had to discuss the fate of the

alliance on American terms in an environment hostile to renewal.

The Conference started on November 11, 1921. The Anglo-Japanese alliance was

not on the official agenda, but was discussed at informal meetings. The Japanese

delegation, aware of the intensity of the anti-Japanese sentiment in the US, decided to

land in Seattle instead of California to avoid complications. Negotiations were conducted

in “a climate of intense national and racial emotions.”444 The American public followed

closely the fate of the alliance and would have interpreted renewal as an “unfriendly

act”.445 Senator William Borah (D-Idaho) declared that if the alliance were renewed, it

would be hard not to conclude that it was aimed against America. 446 In addition to

providing a hostile environment for renewal, organizing only one Pacific Conference in

Washington allowed the US to link closely the fate of the alliance and a disarmament

441
Geddes to Curzon, July 29 (in BDFA is doc 99 [A 5549/18/45]):
442
No 335, Curzon to Geddes, FO, July 14, 1921; Geddes to Curzon July 30; For a good summary see No
337, Memorandum by the Marquess Curzon of Keddleston on the situation re proposed Conference at
Washington, FO July 24, 1921
443
Geddes to Curzon, July 31 (in BDFA doc 107, [A 5552/18/45]
444
Buckley 1970, 75.
445
BDFA-Doc. 34 [A 3344/3344/45], Annual Report on the United States for 1921 (Geddes to Curzon)
446
William E. Borah papers, Library of Congress, Washington, Box 630 [2]).
144
agreement. Essentially she made the demise of the alliance conditional on the successful

conclusion of a disarmament treaty. Since Britain valued such an agreement more than

the alliance, this drastically decreased chances of renewal. Under these conditions, it is

hard not to agree with Eliot who regretfully stated that the alliance “was really dead

before its termination.”447 The allies were reconciled to the demise of the alliance, and

instead of discussing how to renew it, they focused on the optimal way to terminate it.448

Balfour, as the leader of the British delegation, formulated a tripartite agreement

that would facilitate a disarmament conference by ending the alliance, without hurting the

feelings of Japan. His draft left open the possibility of resurrecting the alliance if Britain

was threatened by Germany or Russia. On November 10, Balfour consulted Secretary of

State Hughes on the alliance and handed him the draft. A few days later he discussed his

draft with the Japanese delegation. Japan would have preferred renewal, but she

recognized that “circumstances were not favorable” and some alternative had to be

considered.449

When the Japanese realized that Britain was ready to sacrifice the alliance for a

disarmament treaty and cordial Anglo-American relations, they decided to contribute to

the demise of the alliance, hoping that this would facilitate an American-Japanese

rapprochement.450 On November 25 the Japanese delegation gave the British their draft

of a tripartite agreement, prepared by Shidehara. The draft built on Balfour’s, but

introduced several changes. Most importantly, it excluded the possibility of the future

447
No. 548, Letter from Eliot to Curzon, Jan 13, 1922
448
Nish 1972, 368;
449
Doc 69 (inclosure in Doc 68 [F 4563/2905/23]), 12008/247(i):Balfour to Lloyd George, Washington
Nov 24, 1921; Doc 70 (inclosure in doc. 68) 12008/247(i), Sir M. Hankey to Mr. Balfour, 18 Nov 1921
450
Nish 1972, 381.
145
revival of the alliance and stipulated that the trilateral agreement would replace the

alliance. Not surprisingly, Hughes liked Shidehara’s draft better than that of Balfour. 451

To water down the agreement even more, Hughes insisted on the inclusion of France in

the trilateral agreement, transforming it into a quadruple or four-power one. Balfour

consulted Root and Lodge about the Japanese draft, and found that they liked it.452 On the

afternoon of November 28, Balfour also had a long conversation with Hughes in which

they both accepted the Japanese draft with some changes. Shidehara’s draft represented

the basis of the remainder of negotiations for the Four-Power Treaty.

The Four-Power Treaty was signed at the State Department at 11:00 AM on

December 13, 1921 by the US, Britain, Japan and France. Article IV stipulated that “This

treaty shall be ratified as soon as possible in accordance with the constitutional methods

of the high contracting parties, and shall take effect on the deposit of ratifications, which

shall take place at Washington, and thereupon the agreement between Great Britain and

Japan, which was concluded in London on July 13, 1911, shall terminate.”453 The treaty

was ratified in August 1923 when it replaced the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

As expected, American satisfaction was great. Already during the negotiations the

American public opinion showed excitement.454 The Literary Digest polled 803

newspapers, and it found that 723 were for ratification, while only 66 opposed it. 455 The

451
Doc 60 [F 4413/2905/23] Balfour to Curzon, Nov 29, 1921
452
Doc 108 [F 4683/2905/23] 12008/274, Balfour to Lloyd George, Washington Nov 29, 1921 (rec’d Dec
14); Doc 49 [F 4372/2905/23] Balfour to Curzon, Nov 28
453
Nish 1972, 377.
454
Doc. 29 [A 9255/18/45], conf print and piece no. 11942/278 Sir A. Geddes to the Marquess Curzon of
Keddleston, Nov 30, 1921
455
Buckley 1970, 173.
146
treaty was ratified in the Senate 67 to 27, with 2 abstentions.456 In the wake of the Four-

Power Treaty Geddes reported: “…the sentiment is so much more favourable, the

atmosphere is so much more genial that it is difficult to realise that this is the same

country as that to which I came almost two years ago. Given wise and patient handling of

our policy, I see no reason to doubt that we are at the beginning of a new and better epoch

in Anglo-American relations.”457

In hindsight, historians and policymakers alike agree that terminating the alliance

was the result of American pressure and that it was a mistake. Ten years after the

Washington Conference when frictions over Ireland, naval rivalry, and war debt

reappeared, many in Britain decried the demise of the alliance, including the British

Treasury’s permanent secretary Sir Warren Fisher and Neville Chamberlain. 458 Sir Robert

Vansittart, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the 1930s,

blamed “American fear of the ‘Yellow Peril’ for terminating the Alliance.” 459 The main

historian of the alliance, Ian Nish concluded that “Under the pretext of safeguarding her

security in the Pacific area, she [the US] presented the alliance which could in fact hurt

her very little as one which challenged her existence and transformed it.” 460

With the demise of the alliance an important international moderating factor

disappeared and frictions resulted in alienation. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act

prohibited Japanese immigration to the United States. Emperor Hirohito referred to it as

one of the original causes of the Pacific War and Kikuichi Fujita, commander of the

456
Literary Digest, “The Treaty Triumph in the Senate”, LXXIII, April 8, 1922, pp. 12-13.
457
Geddes to Curzon, 13 Jan. 1922, cited in Fry 1972, 188.
458
O'Brien 2004, 267.
459
Louis 1971, 3.
460
Nish 1972, 396.
147
Eighth Squadron at Pearl Harbor, saw it as a cause for revenge.461 After the demise of the

alliance Japan and the Anglo-Saxon states gradually drifted apart, and Japan started its

preparation for total war.462 The militarization of Japan cannot be blamed on Anglo-

Saxon anti-Japanese policies, but they did contribute to an atmosphere where Japanese

ultra-nationalists flourished and eventually attempted to replace a Pax Anglo-Americana

with a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. 463 The “Yellow Peril” became a self-

fulfilling prophecy.

Classical Content Analysis

In the case study above I proceeded like an attorney, trying to make the best

possible case for race. Here I wish to act more like an impartial arbiter. For this purpose I

employ classical content analysis on a wide range of systematically selected texts to

evaluate whether race was important in inflating the Japan threat and whether it fares

worse or better than alternative explanations. By providing word frequencies and

concordances (the immediate textual context of relevant words), classical content

analysis can give us an idea of the relative importance of different factors. 464 How often

is “threat” mentioned in American texts on Japan? Is “threat” associated more often with

racial terms or economic terms? If we find that racial words are more frequently

mentioned in connection with Japan and threat, there are reasons to suspect that race is a

stronger explanation of the Japanese threat than economic factors. Of course, word

461
Hirobe 2001, 1.
462
Barnhart 1987.
463
Iriye, 1987.
464
On content analysis see Krippendorff 2004; Neuendorf 2002.
148
frequencies are imperfect proxies for explanatory factors, but together with concordances

they may nonetheless be useful. The large-N, primarily quantitative nature of classical

content analysis complements the narrower, qualitative case study of this chapter well.

I selected 150 texts, including a broad range of newspaper articles, governmental

documents, and journal articles for the period between January 1, 1905 and December 30,

1922 (see Appendix A). To select newspaper articles, I searched in the Proquest

Historical Newspapers database using three search words: “Japan,” “threat,” and “Anglo-

Japanese Alliance.” Of the 59 search results I selected the first 50 articles. The articles

come from four historical newspapers: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times,

Washington Post, and Chicago Daily Tribune. To select journal articles, I searched the

JSTOR database using “Japan” (title) and “threat” (full text). I had to omit the third

search term (“Anglo-Japanese Alliance”) because there were no search results if I

included it. Because I initially found only 8 hits, I supplemented this search with “Japan”

(title) and “danger” (full text). This second search resulted in 69 hits, of which I selected

the first 42 to reach the limit of 50 journal articles. The selected texts come from a wide

variety disciplines. In addition to political science and international politics, they include

law, folklore, health policy, and geography. Finally, to select governmental documents I

searched the Proquest Congressional database with “Japan” (all fields except full text)

and “threat” (all fields including full text). I found 167 hits in the Congressional Record

category and I selected every fifth text to obtain 33 Congressional documents. For the

remaining 17 documents I selected the section on Japan of the Foreign Relations of the

United States (FRUS) document series for the period between 1906 and 1922. While the

149
newspaper articles were the most narrowly searched, the journal articles and

governmental documents were the most broadly selected (I could not use the “Anglo-

Japanese Alliance” search term because I found no hits if I included it). Consequently,

the newspaper articles turned out to be most relevant for the topic of this study, the

Anglo-Japanese Alliance, while several of the other texts were not very relevant.

Nonetheless, I included all 150 texts in the content analysis to mitigate concerns of

selection bias.

I analyzed these 150 texts using classical content analysis. To produce word

frequencies and concordances, one needs to operationalize the relevant terms by building

“content dictionaries,” a set of words which capture the relevant terms. I was interested in

the word frequencies of threat (the “dependent variable” for purposes of this analysis),

race and economy (the “independent variables” of this analysis). I also wanted to look at

the concordances of “threat” to verify whether “race” or “economy” is mentioned most

often in the immediate neighborhood of “threat,” to ensure that I did not omit some

important alternative explanation, and to eliminate from the frequency count cases where

the text actually refers to the lack of threat (such as “no threat”). Relying on the

Thesaurus and my prior knowledge about the discourse of this historical period, I

constructed the following content dictionaries. To capture the frequency of “threat” I

looked at how often threat, peril, danger, and menace are mentioned. For the concordance

test I looked at the 5 words on the left and 5 on the right of “threat” and its synonyms.

In addition to the frequency and concordance tests on threat, I also performed

frequency tests for “race” and “economy”. To capture the frequency of race, I constructed

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a content dictionary comprised of the following words and their variations: race, Anglo-

Saxon, Asiatic, Oriental, assimilation, civilization, color, descent, white, and yellow. A

powerful alternative explanation for inflated threat perceptions of Japan was economic.

According to the domestic strand of the economic explanation, Japanese immigrants were

perceived as threatening because they represented a fierce competition to the white

worker (especially in agriculture). According to the international strand of the economic

explanation, Japan was perceived as threatening by the US because it undermined the

open door and American commerce in China. To capture these two economic

explanations, I created the following economic content dictionary: agriculture, industry,

employment, labor, land, and wage (all domestic); commerce, trade, and open door (all

international).

The crucial assumption behind classical content analysis is that the more

important an explanation is, the higher the frequency count of its terms would be. This

may be somewhat problematic for race, but in the early twentieth century normative

prohibition against racism was not strong enough to substantially distort results. If the

racial theory was stronger in explaining American inflated threat perceptions, I would

expect to find “race” more often mentioned than “economy” in connection to threat.

There is no objective rule to construct content dictionaries and others may have

done it differently. In hindsight, I found that the importance of race was slightly

undercounted by not including in the search racial or racially charged terms such as

Caucasian, blood, and ancestry. In particular, I found that leaving out “immigration” and

“aggressiveness,” which are at the heart of Hypotheses 1 and 2, understates the

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importance of race. However, I wanted the racial theory to undergo a hard test and did

not want to risk artificially inflating the importance of race. Although intertwined with

race, immigration was not always seen as racial. Similarly, the taken-for-grantedness of

Japanese aggressiveness was striking, but it would have been hard to establish to what

extent it was seen as innate and thus racial. At the same time, by leaving out terms such

as “market,” the economic explanation was also slightly undercounted. Overall, I

consider that these content dictionaries did not favor one explanation over another and

did justice to them.

To perform the analysis I employed Yoshikoder, a content analysis software.

When the texts were not convertible to a format accessible to the software, I did the

analysis manually. This gave me a good sense of the nature of texts, mitigating

disadvantages that come from the thinness of quantitative textual analysis. For example, I

was able to minimize the counting of words when they did not capture what I intended to

capture (think of the non-racial meaning of “race” as in arms race, or the not strictly

economic use of “industry”). For all documents, except the Congressional Records, I did

the content analysis by reading the entire text. Several of the Congressional debates were

longer and less relevant to the analysis than I would have liked. For instance, the

Congressional Record of 28 June 1906 mentions Japan a few times and then only related

to tobacco duties. Counting all the relevant words in the document would have severely

distorted the findings. Therefore, I analyzed Congressional Records as follows. I looked

for “Japan” within each document. I counted the relevant words only for the pages where

the discussion was related to Japan. If Japan was not mentioned for more than one page

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and the discussion had nothing to do with Japan or a related topic (the Anglo-Japanese

Alliance, the Four Power Treaty, naval building, or disarmament), I skipped to the next

place in the document where Japan was mentioned.

The results of the classical content analysis are mixed. While economy

outperforms race in the frequency tests, race outperforms economy in the concordance

test. The aggregate frequency tests suggest that although the racial explanation of inflated

threat perception is solid, economic explanations are much stronger (see Table 3.3). Race

did respectably, being mentioned 847 times in the 150 documents, but economy far

outperformed it by being mentioned 1972 times. But the aggregate results are somewhat

misleading, because the large difference is due to the fact that a few outlier texts between

1910 and 1912 inflate the “economy” word count by 739. In particular, two articles on

village government in Japan, one published in 1910 and the other in 1911, distort the

findings. Without these outliers, economy still outperforms race in the aggregate, but the

numbers would be much closer.

Threat Race Economy frequency

Frequency frequency (International+
Domestic)
Newspapers 91 50 47 (35 + 12)
Journal 137 531 994 (356 + 638)
Articles
Government 171 266 931 (381 + 550)
Documents
Total 399 847 1972 (772+1200)
Table 3.3: Content Analysis Frequency Test

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 Disaggregated frequency test results show that racial explanations are stronger

than economic ones when looking at texts more relevant to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

For reasons explained above, for newspaper articles I used a third search term (in

addition to “Japan” and “threat”), “Anglo-Japanese Alliance”. I could not do the same for

journal articles and governmental documents, because the search results were then too

few. It is interesting that in the newspaper article category race outperforms economy,

albeit narrowly. In the other two categories of journal articles and governmental

documents economy does much better. If we separated the economic factors, the racial

theory would outperform the international strand of the economic theory, but it would

still be outperformed by the domestic economic theory. Admittedly, race does better than

the international strand partly because the latter’s content dictionary is based on only

three search words compared to race’s ten. The domestic strand’s dominance in part is

due to the frequent mention of “land” and “labor”. Of course, as I try to show in the rest

of the chapter, fears that the small number of Japanese immigrants threatened American

labor and land ownership is not independent of race.

154
 400
350
300
250
Race
200
Economy
150
Threat
100
50
0
1910

1921
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909

1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920

1922
Figure 3.1: Content Analysis Frequency Test by Year

If we disaggregate the results by year, it is clear that race and economy are closer

in terms of explanatory power than the aggregate numbers indicate, except for the outlier

period between 1910 and 1912. In 1905 and 1920 race even outperforms economy (see

Figure 3.1). The patterns of race frequency loosely follow the waves of war scares

discussed in the chapter (1906-7, 1912-3, and 1920). In addition, there is a spike in 1916,

a war scare not mentioned in the case study. The pattern of economy frequency also

largely follows this pattern, although interestingly it drops in 1907, and in 1913 is much

below the 1911 peak. “Threat” peaks in 1907, 1912, 1915-16, and then increases after

WWI. It is interesting that while all frequencies increase after WWI, “economy”

decreases significantly from 1921 to 1922. The low frequency of “threat” compared with

“race” and “economy” is not indicative of its relative importance, but it is a function of

155
the lower number of words in its content dictionary (4 compared to 10 for race and

economy). In hindsight, it was a good idea to keep “threat” narrow, not to overinflate the

numbers. However, one aspect that the count missed was the talk of an “aggressive”

Japan. The concordance test can compensate for this shortcoming.

While economy does better than race in the frequency test, race does better than

economy in the concordance test. The concordance test of “threat” gives us a good sense

of what terms were associated with threat and its synonyms most often. As mentioned

earlier, I did the concordance test by selecting the 5 words on the left and 5 words on the

right of “threat”. Then, I excluded cases which referred to the lack of threat. I excluded

prepositions, pronouns, definite and indefinite articles; I kept only verbs, nouns, and

adjectives. The five most frequently mentioned words adjacent to threat and its synonyms

were Japan (30), Anglo-Japanese Alliance (17), war (17), Yellow Peril (14), and

Germany (10). The presence of Germany may come as a surprise, but it can be explained

by American fears of Germany during WWI. Race is well represented in the concordance

test by Yellow Peril (14), civilization (5), Oriental (2), and unassimilable (1). Economy,

in contrast, was surprisingly absent. To provide a visual representation of the results, I

created a word cloud with the most frequently mentioned terms. 465 The more often a term

was mentioned in the 150 texts, the larger its size in the word cloud:

465
Danger (68), dangers (3), dangerous (4), threat (65), threatening (5), threatened (9), threatens (4),
menace (44), peace (7), peril (20), Yellow Peril (14), Anglo-Japanese Alliance (17), Japan (30), war (17),
civilization (5), Germany (10), Russia (8), Britain (4), race (3), power (6), Four-Power Treaty (3), foreign
(8), China (7), national (3), aggression (3), imminent (4), Far East (3), military (4), real (2), serious (2),
immigration (2), Oriental (2), and fear (2).

156
Figure 3.2: Word Cloud of Concordance Test

In conclusion, while economy does better than race in the frequency test, race

does better than economic explanations in the concordance test. Race may not be the

most important explanation of inflated American threat perceptions of Japan, but it is

certainly important enough to deserve attention. As the frequency test indicates,

especially regarding the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, race is closely associated with

American threat perceptions.

Alternative Explanations

A liberal explanation of the demise of the alliance could emphasize the

incompatibility between the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the League of Nations

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Covenant, rather than racially inflated threat perceptions. Indeed, one of Meighen’s

arguments against renewal, as discussed above, was precisely this incompatibility. Part of

the media subscribed to the position that “military pacts had no place in an international

order now defined by the League of Nations…” 466 Decision makers argued that although

the preamble of the alliance may be in agreement with the Covenant, some of its

operative provisions were not.467 Most importantly, the requirement of the alliance to

assist the other party in war may conflict with the collective security clause of the

Covenant that all members must go to war against an aggressor.468

Although the liberal explanation correctly identifies the tension between the

League and the Anglo-Japanese alliance, a closer look reveals that this tension was not

significant enough to preclude the renewal of the alliance. Both Britain and Japan

believed that the inconsistence between the alliance and the Covenant were only at the

level of the letter of the alliance and could be remedied relatively easily. Their joint

communication to the League on July 8, 1920 reflects this:

“The Governments of Japan and Great Britain have come to the conclusion that
the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of July 13, 1911 now existing between their two
countries though in harmony with the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nation is
not entirely consistent with the letter of that Covenant which both Governments earnestly
desire to respect. They accordingly have the honor to jointly inform the League that they
recognize the principle that if the said agreement be continued after July 1921 it must be
in a form not inconsistent with that Covenant.”469

466
Best 2006, 818.
467
Doc 322, 11580/26i, Memorandum by Mr. C. Wingfield; see also No. 522: Letter from Mr. Alston
(Tokyo) to Sir J. Tilley (Received Nov 11), sent on Oct 7, 1919;
468
No. 744: Memorandum by Mr. Malkin on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as affected by the Covenant of
the League of Nations, Foreign Office, Feb 18, 1920;
469
FRUS 1920, 686; see also No 41: Earl Curzon to Sir C. Eliot (Tokyo), FO June 3, 1920;
No. 45: Sir C. Eliot (Tokyo) to Earl Curzon (rec’d June 10), Tokyo, June 8, 1920;
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 The communication left the issue of renewal open, implying that if the parties

opted for it, renewal would not be precluded by the inconsistence with the Covenant. This

explanation then cannot account for the demise of the alliance. Interestingly enough, the

joint note did almost cause the end of the alliance, but for entirely different reasons.

Some in Britain interpreted the joint note narrowly as a notification to terminate the

alliance. 470 Only after an intense exchange of telegrams between May and July 1921, did

the allies convene that the joint communication did not represent such a notification. 471

A neorealist explanation could be that threat inflation was not the result of

misperception rooted in racial difference, but it was a rational strategy for states seeking

survival under anarchy and uncertainty. 472 Decision makers inflate threats through worst-

case assumptions because it is more prudent to be prepared for imagined threats than to

be surprised by real ones. This is why “we find that decision-makers, and especially

military leaders, worry about the most implausible threats.”473 Leaving aside that worst-

case assumptions can become self-fulfilling prophecies, the problem with this

explanation is that because both anarchy and uncertainty are constant, it has difficulties

explaining variation in threat inflation. Why do decision makers inflate some potential

threats but not others? Neorealism suggests that because intentions are unknowable and

changeable, decision makers must infer threats from capabilities. Hence, they would

470
According to article 6 of the 1911 alliance, which was concluded for 10 years, could be terminated if the
parties notified each other 12 months in advance. Milkin, the legal adviser to the FO argued that the joint
note amounted to such a notification to terminate the alliance Nish 1972, 303.
471
Curzon to Eliot FO, May 11, 1921; Eliot to Curzon, Tokyo May 20, 1921; Eliot to Curzon Tokyo May
31, 1921; Curzon to Eliot, June 7, 1921; Curzon to Japanese Ambassador, FO, July 2, 1921
472
Mearsheimer 2001, 43.
473
Jervis 1976, 62.
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inflate potential threats posed by stronger opponents. Indeed, the reason why a century

ago the U.S. perceived Japan rather than China as threatening was partly because Japan’s

superior (and rising) power. But capabilities constitute only a necessary rather than a

sufficient condition for perceived threat. Whether a state is threatening is not only a

function of material capabilities but of aggressive intentions as well. 474 Due to their

shared racial identity, Britain and the U.S. did not perceive British power as

threatening.475 The lack of mutual threat perception is the more remarkable given that

British power was superior to that of Japan and American power was growing faster than

that of Japan. As showed in Table 3.2, during this period Japan remained far below

Britain and the U.S. according to most power indicators.476 Without racial difference

Japanese power remains indeterminate. The U.S. perceived Japan as threatening to an

important extent because of the racially inflated threat perception, the “Yellow Peril”.

Instrumental models of threat inflation would explain American inflated threat

perceptions not as a result of racial difference, but as the function of manipulative elites

maximizing interests under conditions of information asymmetry. 477 The media inflated

threats to sell newspapers, politicians inflated threats to gain votes, and labor unions

inflated threats to gain protection from Japanese labor competition. This explanation is

very powerful and explains much of inflated American threat perceptions towards Japan.

Nonetheless, American inflated threat perceptions cannot be reduced to instrumentalism.

474
Walt 1987.
475
Kramer 2002; Fry 1972, 7.
476
388/BDFA/II/E/2; 213/BDFA/II/E/4; U.S. Congress, 1920); see also Table 3.2 of this chapter.
477
Christensen 1996; Kaufmann 2004; Snyder 1991.
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Instrumental threat inflation played an important role in activating racial prejudices, but

once activated, the racially inflated threat of Japan took on a life of its own.

The instrumental model is incomplete in at least two respects. First, it

overestimates the accuracy of elite threat perception and elite ability to manipulate

information. Part of the elite was subject to the “Yellow Peril,” genuinely perceived

Japan and the alliance as threatening, and “was content to be carried forward by the

popular mood.”478 Even those not subject to inflated threat perceptions were constrained

by the “Yellow Peril” rhetoric. Second, even assuming that elites used the “Yellow Peril”

purely instrumentally, it is not clear why it resonated so well with the public. This is

particularly puzzling given that a considerable part of the elite was engaged in threat

deflation, concerned about a premature conflict with Japan. Why were threat inflationary

arguments more persuasive than threat deflationary ones? Although one may want to

point to Japanese labor competition, it is hard to explain why Louisiana with 13 Japanese

residents of a population of 2,363,880 or Kansas with 10 Japanese residents of a

population of 1,801,028 were alarmed by the Yellow Peril and later introduced anti-

Japanese measures. 479 Bringing racial prejudice in makes this puzzle easier to solve.

Using the terminology of Lieutenant-Colonel F.S.G. Piggott, British Military Attaché to

Japan, it was the “latent anti-Japanese” of the majority that made the success of the small

minority of “professional anti-Japanese” possible. 480 The U.S. Ambassador to Japan,

Roland S. Morris, told Japanese Ambassador Shidehara that the 1920 Alien Land Law

478
Nish 1972, 281.
479
McGovney 1947, 18
480
Doc. 210, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. II, Series E, 5 (210/BDFA/II/E/5).
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“was not primarily economic but that it arose from the fear of the people of California

that the presence of a large body of unassimilable people would threaten them with a

serious and persistent race problem.” 481 According to the Foreign Office, “The question

can be regarded from an economic or from a political point of view, but in its essence it is

a racial one.”482 I would not want to posit the primacy of race, but it is reasonable to

suggest that it was nonetheless important.

Finally, one may argue that the U.S. opposed the alliance not because she saw it

as threatening her security, but because she believed that under its cover Japan violated

the “open door” principle according to which all powers were supposed to have equal

commercial opportunities in the Far East. The U.S. understood that Britain would not side

with Japan in a Japanese-American war, but she believed that the alliance allowed Japan

to claim zones of special interests in Southern Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia, hurting

American commercial interests.483 As Congressman John R. Tyson put it, the alliance

“enables Japan to threaten the doctrine of the open door and the principle of the integrity

of China…The domination and control desired by Japan of the Far East is the real yellow

peril.”484

As the classical content analysis above showed, this explanation is weaker than

the racial one, but it is still important. Nonetheless, it has a few shortcomings. Although

the alliance may have made Britain more accepting of Japanese economic expansion in

the Far East, it also allowed Britain to moderate Japanese economic demands. It is

481
FRUS 1920, 12.
482
Memorandum respecting Racial discrimination and immigration, FO (F. Ashton-Gwatkin), 10 October
1921; see also 12/BDFA/II/E/5; 211/BDFA/II/E/5.
483
Buckley 1970, 118; Tate and Foy 1959, 544.
484
Congressional Record, 61:8951.
162
difficult to say whether in its absence Japan would have been more imperialistic in China.

This explanation also omits that a crucial reason why Japan wanted zones of special

interest in the Far East was that Britain and the U.S. excluded her from the rest of the

world for economic and racial reasons. 485 Economic fears of Japanese expansion in

China were inextricably intertwined with racial ones in one additional way. In the minds

of many Americans (and Westerners) the “Yellow Peril” was embodied not by an

isolated Japan, but one that assumed the leadership of the Chinese masses. The concern

was that this “Oriental” alliance would lead to the exclusion of whites from Asia, and,

according to the most alarmist scenario, ultimately destroy Western civilization. 486

Conclusions

This chapter argued that race is necessary to understand the demise of the Anglo-

Japanese Alliance. Racial prejudices embedded in different racial identities inflated

American threat perceptions of Japan, facilitated Japanese-American discord, and

resulted in the misperception of the alliance as dangerous. In contrast, shared Anglo-

Saxon racial identity deflated threat perceptions and facilitated Anglo-American

cooperation. At the 1922 Washington Conference Britain, partly for racial reasons,

agreed to the demise of the alliance to satisfy American preferences. Japan accepted the

fait accompli. The absence of the alliance made Anglo-Saxon—Japanese alienation and

485
Kennedy 1969, 38; Louis 1971, 2.
486
Memorandum by Mr. Wellesley respecting the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, FO, September 1, 1920

163
German-Japanese rapprochement possible, culminating in WWII. American fears of the

“Yellow Peril” became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

164
 Chapter Four: Race and the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty

For nearly twenty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki decision makers tried to

impose political controls on nuclear weapons. Although some arms control negotiations

aimed at scoring propaganda points before the international public, many genuinely

aimed at achieving agreement. Yet, despite countless proposals and long negotiations in

various institutional environments, little was achieved. Test ban talks in particular

appeared “an exercise in exasperating futility” or “a soufflé that never rose”. 487

Nonetheless, under President John F. Kennedy the US pursued a test ban more vigorously

than ever before. These efforts paid off in 1963 when the US, the USSR, and the UK

signed the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space,

and Under Water, also known as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT). Although it fell

short of a comprehensive test ban by allowing underground testing, the LTBT

represented a significant agreement. Kennedy considered it his “proudest

achievement.”488 Chief British negotiator Lord Hailsham (Quintin Hogg) called it “the

biggest step forward in international relations since the beginning of the Cold War.” 489

The LTBT prepared the way for subsequent arms control agreements and Soviet-

American détente.

487
Mastny 2008, 5; Mandelbaum 1979, 27.
488
Rusk 1990, 259; Seaborg 282; Sorensen 2009 [1965], 26.
489
Cited in Mastny 2008, 3.
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 Why did the US push so hard for a test ban despite many years of unproductive

negotiations? Extant explanations emphasize the American public’s concerns of

radioactive fallout, the traumatic experience of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and

general fears of nuclear proliferation. As discussed in more detail later, these

explanations are insightful, but provide incomplete explanations for the LTBT. Public

fears of radioactive fallout peaked in 1959 and decreased afterwards. Although they have

facilitated the initiation of test ban talks, they mattered less in later stages. Moreover,

approval rates show that the American public followed, rather than pushed Kennedy

towards the LTBT. The Cuban Missile Crisis created a “window of opportunity” for a

test ban by driving home the importance of nuclear cooperation between the

superpowers. However, Kennedy’s rejection of Khrushchev’s test ban proposal in late

1962 and Soviet diplomats’ obstructionism in early 1963 effectively closed this window.

Without other reasons for a test ban it is unlikely that it would have been achieved. Fears

of nuclear proliferation provide the strongest explanation and can account for much of the

US push for a test ban. But with respect to the timing of the LTBT they are

indeterminate. If the US was concerned about nuclear proliferation in general, it is

unclear why it did not work harder for the LTBT earlier, before France obtained nuclear

capability.

This chapter argues that while American efforts to achieve a test ban were

motivated primarily by general fears of nuclear proliferation, more specific racial fears of

Chinese nuclear proliferation also facilitated these efforts. Difference in racial identity

contributed to American perceptions of Communist China as not only a “Red Peril,” but

166
also as a “Yellow Peril.” Thus, China was perceived as more threatening than the white

USSR, which was seen only as a “Red Peril.” American threat perceptions of China were

inflated by racial prejudices pertaining to aggressive intentions and, to a lesser extent,

irrationality. That an aggressive and even irrational China would go nuclear appeared

particularly alarming. Driven by this inflated threat perception, the Kennedy

administration pursued nuclear cooperation with the Soviets to inhibit the Chinese bomb.

Mainly for strategic reasons and to a lesser extent for racial reasons, the Soviets

responded favorably. The superpowers decided to use the LTBT against the Chinese

nuclear program, because it nicely fit with the broader “containment with isolation”

China policy of the US and was palatable to the Soviets who were reluctant to engage in

harsher measures against their ally. Ultimately the LTBT failed to inhibit Chinese nuclear

proliferation, but it did represent an important step towards arms control and détente. An

interesting aspect of the argument is that a malign cause (racism) had a benign effect (the

LTBT).

This chapter supports Hypotheses 2 and 3 of the racial theory presented in

Chapter 2. In the first step, racial prejudices are activated and then these inflate threat

perceptions. The Korean War activated American racial prejudices pertaining to

aggressive intentions and irrationality, which then served as lenses of perception through

which subsequent Chinese behavior was perceived. They inflated American threat

perceptions of a nuclear China, which was seen as a “Yellow Peril.” In the second step,

racially inflated threat perceptions interacted with other domestic (the China lobby’s

167
preference for harsher measures) and international factors (the Soviet preference for less

aggressive measures), to contribute to the achievement of the LTBT.

The LTBT case is puzzling for some strands of dominant international relations

theories. Balance of power approaches would have predicted Sino-American cooperation

against the USSR, rather than Soviet-American cooperation against China. Allying with a

stronger state against a weaker one deviates from balance of power logic. 490 Soviet-

American nuclear cooperation also runs counter to the expectations of liberal theories,

which predict interstate cooperation along ideological lines rather than across them. 491 As

discussed in Chapter 2, however, the argument is consistent with balance of threat

theory.492 By shifting the focus from material capabilities and ideology to race, we are

better equipped to explain why the US perceived a nuclear China as so threatening and

pushed for the LTBT to inhibit the Chinese bomb.

Two caveats. First, the chapter does not argue that there was no reason to be

worried about a nuclear China, but that American threat perceptions were inflated beyond

what the evidence at the time and in hindsight supported. Race inflated, not created, US

threat perceptions. Although this is hard to quantify, I would argue that while Chapter 3

focused on a case where race inflated a low threat, this chapter focuses on a case where

race inflated a medium threat. Second, since after WWII racism was increasingly

delegitimized, the chapter relies on subtler evidence than Chapter 3, which focused on the

1902-1922 period.

490
Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 2001.
491
Doyle 1986; Owen 1994; Russett 1993.
492
Walt 1987.
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 The chapter proceeds as follows. The first part shows how race inflated US threat

perceptions of a nuclear China. The second part traces how this racially inflated threat

perception led to the LTBT. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the arguments

based on classical content analysis and a discussion of alternative explanations.

RACE INFLATES US THREAT PERCEPTIONS OF A NUCLEAR CHINA

As discussed in Chapter 2, establishing that threat perception is inflated is

difficult in the absence of an objective baseline. In this chapter I argue that American

threat perceptions of China were inflated by showing that it became more threatening

than the Soviet Union; that scholarly consensus points in this direction; and that fears of a

nuclear China follow the logic of “domino theory,” whose threat inflationary nature is

widely accepted. Throughout the chapter I also provide evidence of racial rhetoric to

argue that the China threat was racially inflated.

This part starts with a brief discussion of the international and domestic racial

context after WWII and places the argument in the race literature. Next, it turns to China

and traces how the Korean War activated the racial prejudices pertaining to

aggressiveness and irrationality. The third section argues that through the lens of these

racial prejudices the US perceived Chinese nuclear efforts as a “Yellow Peril.” The last

section shows that US perceptions of a nuclear China were inflated to the point where

China was perceived as more threatening than the USSR.

169
Race after World War II

If WWI was “the graveyard of empires,” WWII was the graveyard of imperialism.

It universalized the principle of self-determination by delegitimizing the racial ideologies

underpinning formal colonial empires. 493 The prohibition of racial discrimination was

enshrined in the United Nations Charter. During the first two decades of the Cold War,

newly decolonized states and civil rights movements challenged racism at the

international and the domestic levels. Race became an important aspect of Cold War

international politics. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk put it, “Race relations within the

United States during the sixties had a profound impact on the world’s view of the United

States and, therefore, on our foreign relations.” 494

US policymakers quickly realized that domestic racial discrimination against

African Americans hindered US foreign relations with decolonized African states and

hurt the US in the competition with the USSR for Third World allies. 495 For this reason,

the State Department supported formal racial equality and the recruitment of African

American diplomats. If initially uninterested in the civil rights agenda, Kennedy later

embraced it and took important steps against racial discrimination regarding voting

rights, housing, employment and education. 496 Lyndon B. Johnson’s voting record on

civil rights may have been “conventionally southern” until 1957, but as President he took

unprecedented measures to extend full citizenship to African Americans. 497

493
Furedi 1998; Brattain 2007.
494
Rusk 1990, 586.
495
Borstelmann 2001; Dudziak 2011 [2000].
496
Dudziak 2011 [2000], ch. 5.
497
Rostow 1972, 52, 337.
170
 The importance of black-white race relations and their impact on US foreign

policy should not be underestimated, but the influence of race on international politics

cannot be reduced to them. Black-white relations and the progress made towards

addressing racial discrimination against African Americans are widely discussed in the

literature.498 Yet racial discrimination was endemic not only towards Africans and

African-Americans, but also towards Asians and Asian-Americans.499 Race influenced

US foreign policy not only, as Rusk put it, by shaping the world’s view of the US, but

also by shaping the US’s view of the world. This is the focus of the rest of the chapter.

The Korean War Activates Racial Prejudices of Aggressiveness and Irrationality

Sino-American relations during the Cold War are typically understood in

ideological terms, rather than in racial ones. After Mao Zedong defeated Chiang Kai-shek

in the Chinese Civil War, China became an ideological threat to the US. But this widely

acknowledged ideological threat was paralleled by an often neglected racial threat. To

many, Communist China’s “Chineseness” loomed larger than its Communism. 500

In sharp contrast with Japanese-American relations, early Sino-American

relations are remembered for their benign, if paternalistic, nature. 501 It is often forgotten

that before Japan’s rise at the end of the 19th century, it was China that represented the

“Yellow Peril.” As Japan suffered a dramatic defeat in WWII and became America’s

Cold War ally, it temporarily ceased to be perceived as threatening. It was time for the

498
Layton 2000; Plummer 1996; Von Eschen 1997.
499
Daniels 1988; Takaki 1989; Wu 2002.
500
Thomson 1972, 221; Rusk 1990, 288. The US was not the only country that perceived China as a
Yellow Peril in the 1950s and early 1960s. For similar developments in Australia see Strachan 1996.
501
Hunt 1985; Goh 2005, 17; Jones 2010, 128-9.
171
pendulum to swing back to China. The Chinese Civil War turned China into a “Red

Peril,” but the Korean War turned it into the new “Yellow Peril” by activating racial

prejudices of aggressive intentions and irrationality (in the sense of fanaticism or

indifference towards death).

On 25 June 1950 North Korean forces invaded South Korea with the blessing of

Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Joint UN-US troops intervened and pushed the North

Koreans back across the 38th parallel toward the Yalu River. China feared that if the US

defeated North Korea, it would attack China. 502 It warned the US not to cross the 38th

parallel, but these warnings were ignored.503 In what it saw as self-defense, China joined

North Korea and pushed the UN-US troops back across the 38th parallel. 504 In the fight

that followed the US lost 14,000 soldiers and suffered the longest retreat in American

military history.505

The determined fighting of the large Chinese army in the Korean War helped

activate American prejudices of “Oriental” aggressiveness and irrationality, which

underpinned the “Yellow Peril.” General Douglas MacArthur concluded that “Orientals”

have a different attitude toward death: “We hate to die; only face danger out of a sense of

duty and through moral issues; whereas with Orientals, life begins with death. They die

quietly, ‘folding their arms as a dove, folding his wings, relaxing, and dying’.” 506 Colonel

Robert B. Rigg’s report Red China’s Fighting Hordes talked of “a sadism and brutality

502
Christensen 1996, 158.
503
Whiting 2001, 106.
504
Gaddis 2005, 107.
505
Goh 2005, 23, fn 21.
506
Harriman, Memorandum of a Conversation with General MacArthur, June 8, 1951; cited in Peck 2006,
110.
172
inherent in many Asiatics.” Colonel Samuel Marshall described how American soldiers

were “swamped by a yellow tide which moved upon it from all sides…it was like dealing

with mass lunacy.” General Mark Clark characterized the Chinese army’s tactic in terms

of a “human sea,” where “the enemy hurled overwhelming numbers of men at us,

apparently heedless of how many he lost.”507 A Life magazine headline of 20 November

1950 warned that Aggressive China Becomes a Menace.508 A year later a Foreign Affairs

article warned that if China modernized with Soviet assistance, it could become a

“Yellow Peril.”509

Before the Korean War the Truman administration and the American public

perceived China as weak and representing a threat only as a Soviet puppet. After the war

they perceived China as aggressive, insensitive to human losses, and dangerous in its own

right. George F. Kennan’s early warnings that the Soviets would find it impossible to

control the ‘inscrutable Orientals’ gained credibility: “The men in Kremlin would

suddenly discover that this fluid and subtle oriental movement which they thought they

held in the palm of their hand had quietly oozed away between their fingers and that there

was nothing left there but a ceremonious Chinese bow and a polite and inscrutable

Chinese giggle’.”510 America’s benign paternalism toward China gave way to a

relationship based on fear. The “Yellow Peril” image of China remained influential in

507
Rigg, Marshall, and Clark are cited in Scott 2007, 29.
508
Cited in Scott 2007, 27.
509
Baldwin 1951.
510
Naval College War lecture, October 11, 1948, Kennan Papers, Box 17; cited in Gaddis 2005, 42.
173
American political culture during the 1950s and 1960s, 511 supported by and facilitating

regular Sino-American crises.

Although public rhetoric shifted towards racial equality, racist statements

implying the presence of racial prejudices were not absent. In his inaugural address of

January 20, 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower took a strong stance in support of

racial equality. 512 Later, reflecting on the 1954-55 Taiwan Straits Crisis, he stated that

“the Red Chinese appear to be completely reckless, arrogant, possibly overconfident, and

completely indifferent to human losses.” 513 In contrast, the Russians “were human beings,

and they wanted to remain alive.” 514 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill thought

that the China threat was inflated just like the “Yellow Peril” of his youth was, but

Eisenhower disagreed. 515

Similarly, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles thought the Russians were

“calculating,” while the Chinese were characterized by “aggressive fanaticism”. 516 The

Soviets shared to some extent the view that China was inherently aggressive. When US

Under-Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith complained to the Soviet Minister of

511
Ryan 1989, 186.
512
Gaddis 2005, 127.
513
Eisenhower 1963, 478, cited in Kochavi 2002, 12; Diary Entry by the President, March 26, 1955,
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1955-57, 2:405.
514
Cited in Chang 1990, 170.
515
Cited in Jones 2010, 233; Churchill to Eisenhower, 7 December 1954, PREM 11/898, The National
Archives; Eisenhower to Churchill, 15 Dec 1954, PREM 11/898, The National Archives. Churchill himself
harbored racial prejudices towards the Chinese, but these associated China with inherent weakness and
inferiority, which is why he did not see China as a threat.
516
Cited in Gaddis 2005, 141; Dulles remarks at Advertising Club of New York, March 21, 1955,
Department of State Bulletin, XXXII, April 4, 1955, 551-52; Chang 1990, 173.
174
Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav M. Molotov about China’s recklessness, the latter retorted

that “China is always going to be China, she is never going to be European.”517

Fears of China were amplified on the eve of the 1955 Bandung Conference. Many

in the US were concerned, without much justification as it turned out, that this first big

conference of African and Asian states would result in pan-Asianism under Communist

Chinese leadership. Memories of Japanese efforts during WWII championing “Asia for

the Asians” against white imperialism were fresh.518 The China threat was also reinforced

by China’s attack against India in 1962. India’s provocations were downplayed and the

restrained nature of the Chinese offensive was explained in situational rather than

dispositional terms. 519

The racial prejudices at the heart of American threat perceptions were not simply

the effect of Sino-American ideological differences and geopolitical tensions. Americans

applied them to Chinese Nationalists as well, although this tendency was moderated by

shared interests, alliance ties, and the ROC’s relative weakness. During the 1955 Straits

Crisis Eisenhower warned the National Security Council regarding Chiang Kai-shek that

“We are always wrong when we believe that Orientals think logically as we do.”520 He

also compared Chiang to a “mule who walked into the brick wall” to emphasize his

517
Cited in Foot 1995, 123; Dulles-Herter files, box 2, 23 May 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
(DDEL)
518
Jones 2010, 4, 128.
519
Kochavi 2002, 121; Schaller 2002, 155. One reason was that liberals, who were usually more skeptical
of the ‘Yellow Peril’ sympathized with India due to its democratic regime. However, it is also the case that
racial prejudices related to danger are much less often applied to India. This variation constitutes an
interesting phenomenon. Perhaps due to its membership in the British Commonwealth and its democratic
political system, India was perceived as an “honorary white” country. The long tradition of nonviolence
embraced by India also made it harder to perceive it as dangerous. As discussed in Chapter 2, India’s
“exceptionalism” is a topic worthy of further study.
520
Cited in Peck 2006, 5-6; Memorandum of Discussion of the 237th Meeting of the National Security
Council, February 17, 1955 FRUS, China, 1955-57, 2:285.
175
intransigence and Oriental irrationality. 521 Secretary of State Dean Rusk believed that

Chiang was prone to “wholly irrational” thinking. 522 Dulles told Wellington Koo, the

Republic of China’s (ROC) Ambassador to the US, that the ‘Oriental’ mind “was always

more devious” than the Occidental. 523

In sum, the Korean War activated prejudices of Chinese aggressiveness and

irrationality which underpinned the inflated threat perception of China as a “Yellow

Peril”. But American perceptions of China cannot be reduced to this image. In addition to

the “Yellow Peril,” other images of China in the US were “Red Menace,” “Revolutionary

Rival,” “Troubled Modernizer,” and “Resurgent Power.”524 At the domestic level people

imputed to Chinese Americans not only negative traits underpinning the “Yellow Peril,”

but also positive traits underpinning the “Model Minority” image. For instance, Rusk

perceived the Chinese not only as expansionist and hostile, but also as resilient and hard

working.525 A study based on 181 interviews with the American elite found that the

Chinese were perceived not only as shrewd, opportunistic, inscrutable, cruel, devious, or

dishonest; but also as intelligent, industrious, and stoic. 526 But during military

competitions, economic crises, or other alarming events, positive traits tend to give way

to negative ones, some of which are racial. While other images may be useful in

explaining other aspects of Sino-American relations, the “Yellow Peril” image based on

racial prejudices of aggressiveness and, to a lesser extent irrationality, is useful in

521
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 8.
522
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 33.
523
Cited in Chang 1990, 172.
524
Goh 2005.
525
Kochavi 2002, 38.
526
Isaacs 1958, 63, 73.
176
explaining inflated US fears of a nuclear China. The next section traces how racial

prejudices inflated American perceptions of a Chinese bomb.

Racial Prejudices Inflate Fears of a Nuclear China: The Nuclear “Yellow Peril”

US Fears of a Nuclear China

China’s nuclear program was extremely alarming to the US as it was perceived

through the ‘Yellow Peril’. The danger of a nuclear holocaust already loomed large in

American imagination, as shown by the popularity of fiction bestsellers and movies such

as On the Beach (1959), Cat’s Cradle (1963), Fail-Safe (1964) and Dr. Strangelove

(1964).527 Civil defense initiatives became daily ingredients of Americans’ lives. 528 The

threat of a nuclear China rapidly overshadowed more established nuclear fears.

Mao decided to acquire nuclear weapons in the wake of the 1954-55 Taiwan

Straits crisis. 529 During the 1950s, the US threatened the People’s Republic of China

(PRC) repeatedly with nuclear attack.530 Despite his “paper tiger” rhetoric regarding

nuclear weapons, Mao recognized their power. As he put it, “If we are not to be bullied in

the present-day world, we cannot do without the [atomic] bomb.” 531 The 1958 Taiwan

Straits crisis reinforced the Chinese determination to get the bomb. In the same year

China established the Beijing Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, the Tongxian

527
For a good overview see Weart 1988.
528
Boyer 1984, 822.
529
Lewis and Xue 1988, 35.
530
Foot 1995, 167; for US atomic diplomacy towards China see also Foot 1988-89 and Dingman 1988-89.
531
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 214.
177
Uranium Mining and Hydrometallurgy Institute, and started the construction of the

Baotou Nuclear Fuel Component Plant and the Lanzhou Gaseous Diffusion Plant. 532

Inflated US threat perceptions of Chinese nuclear proliferation were part of a

larger fear of non-white nuclear proliferation. At the time the atomic bomb was still the

“white man’s weapon.”533 The US, the USSR, the UK and France were sober and

responsible nuclear powers. They were white, rational, and valued human life, all of

which increased the reliability of nuclear deterrence. Although there is an established

tradition of representing Russia as semi-Oriental, I found that at least in the early 1960s

the image of a rational and calculated Russia was dominant.534 The racially inflated fear

at the time was that the reliability of nuclear deterrence would be undermined if a non-

white state acquired the bomb, because such a state would be aggressive and perhaps

irrational. 535 This is why, as nuclear strategist Herman Kahn put it, Washington’s main

concern was that “a Hottentot” would get the bomb. 536 National Intelligence Estimates

(NIEs) mentioned this concern several times. 537

532
Burr and Richelson 2000, 58.
533
Jones 2010, 288.
534
The official documents cited in this chapter provide ample evidence of this. I also skimmed important
secondary works such as Kissinger’s Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1969), Maxwell Taylor’s
Swords and Plowshares (1990), and Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War (1978), but I found no strong
evidence to the contrary. This, however, does not mean that Russia’s racialization was inexistent. It
occasionally resurfaced, and some would argue that Richard Pipes’ work in the 1970s and 1980s racializes
Russia and Russians.
535
Gusterson 1999.
536
Maddock 2010, 7.
537
Document 3a, National Intelligence Estimate 100-2-58, “Development of Nuclear Capabilities by Fourth
Countries: Likelihood and Consequences,” July 1, 1958, in The National Security Archive’s (NSA)
National Intelligence Estimates of the Nuclear Proliferation Problem 1957-67 collection; Document 5, NIE
100-4-60, “Likelihood and Consequences of the Development of Nuclear Capabilities by Additional
Countries,” 9 September 1960, NSA National Intelligence Estimates of the Nuclear Proliferation Problem
1957-67 collection.
178
 As China made progress towards the bomb, this broad racial fear became specific.

Various documents, such as a 1962 State Department memorandum, made it clear that

Washington’s main proliferation fears focused on China. 538 While nuclear weapons

undermined Western conceptions of war and inhibited the use of force, they allegedly

supported the “Oriental” conception of war and encouraged the use of force. In the

Western conception of war dominated by Clausewitz’s logic, military force is employed

in pursuit of political goals, where the enemy is compelled to do one’s will. 539 In contrast,

“Asiatic hordes” employed war not to shape the enemy’s behavior, but to destroy the

enemy. 540 Since nuclear weapons are better at fate-control (the ability to determine what

happens to others) than behavior-control (the ability to control the behavior of others),541

‘Orientals’ would be more likely to initiate nuclear war. China scholar Robert S. Elegant

gave voice to this concern when he warned of “Chinese incineration of a good part of the

world.”542 Even if China was not irrational, its “arrogant self-confidence, revolutionary

fervor, and distorted view of the world” made it likely that it would miscalculate. 543

Fears of a nuclear China were significant in the Kennedy administration. The

President frequently expressed concern of a nuclear holocaust brought about “for

irrational reasons by a fanatic or a demagogue.”544 He repeatedly explained that he was

538
“Effects of the Chinese Bomb on Nuclear Spread,” November 2, 1962, memo, Dept of State,
Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS).
539
Clausewitz 1968.
540
Gaddis 2005:77-8; Kennan memorandum, “The International Control of Atomic Energy,” January 20,
1950, FRUS: 1950, Vol. I: 39.
541
Jervis 1989, 3.
542
Elegant 1964.
543
National Intelligence Estimate, 6 December 1960, FRUS, 1958–60: China, Vol. XIX: 740–741.
544
Cited in Maddock 2010:145. Kennedy also expressed his concerns of an irresponsible nuclear power in
a 26 July 1963 address, see in Public Papers of the President of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963,
p. 604.
179
most concerned about a nuclear China. According to Deputy National Security Advisor

Walt W. Rostow, Kennedy believed that a Chinese nuclear detonation would be “the

most significant and worst event of the 1960s.”545 Although Kennedy also opposed the

earlier French nuclear program, except a few outlandish suggestions for more “vigorous

measures against French testing,” 546 the official US policy was that of minimal assistance

and “dragging of feet,”547 rather than the fierce opposition we see in the China case. 548

The US did not fear the French bomb per se, but was concerned that this would unleash

nuclear proliferation. 549

Various US agencies’ threat perception of China was inflated, but more nuanced

than is sometimes recognized in the literature. Official documents reveal three main

aspects of a nuclear China threat: psychological, political, and military. 550 While some

believed that these threats were complementary, others saw them as contradictory. While

some saw them as synchronic, most believed they were diachronic.

In Phase I, representing the short term (approximately 1962-1965), China’s

rudimentary nuclear arsenal and delivery system would pose a psychological threat with

545
Cited in Nash 1999, 135.
546
Gavin 2004-5, 110; Roger Fisher, “Memo on Possible Action: Action Directed against Further French
Atmospheric Tests,” December 19, 1964, PPRG, box 10, John F. Kennedy Library (JFKL).
547
“‘Dragging Feet’ on French Request for Nuclear Aid,” Memorandum of Conversation, 23 March 1957,
in NSA The Nuclear Vault: Key Documents on Nuclear Policy issues. While under Kennedy and Johnson
US nuclear assistance to France was limited, under Nixon it was considerable (Ullman 1989).
548
Since France was an ally, a democracy, and a white state, we cannot know how much shared racial
identity mattered as opposed to other factors. But the fact that, as discussed below, the immense Soviet
nuclear arsenal was less threatening than the Chinese bomb implies the racially inflated nature of the
nuclear China threat.
549
The Kennedy administration tried to prevent European proliferation through Multilateral Force (MLF).
The idea was to create a nuclear-armed NATO fleet under US control, which would reassure Europeans of
the US nuclear umbrella, mitigating their desire for an independent nuclear capability.
550
For a discussion of these phases see Document 00003, 8 February 1961, John K. Gerhart, “Long-Range
Threat of Communist China,” Department of the Air Force, Digital National Security Archive (DNSA),
collection title China and the US: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998. Source: Library of Congress,
Thomas White Papers, box 44, Air Staff Actions.
180
political implications. Relying on logic similar to domino theory, it was estimated that

nuclear weapons would increase China’s prestige in Asia. 551 Its Asian neighbors would

see China as too powerful to resist, would bandwagon with it, which would lead to the

spread of Chinese influence in the region at the expense of the US. Communist China

would attain great power status and would be recognized as “the sole voice of China in

world affairs,”552 marginalizing the ROC.

In Phase II, representing the medium term (1965-1970), China would pose a

political threat with military implications. It would have an established nuclear arsenal

and delivery capability, possibly including medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs).

China could attack Asian states and US bases in the region, but not the US itself. Early

National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) predicted that although nuclear weapons may

make China more intransigent,553 American nuclear superiority would deter China from

initiating a nuclear war and from behaving recklessly. 554 However, China was expected to

551
Document 00006, 13 September 1961, to the Secretary from George C. McGhee, “Anticipatory Action
Pending Chinese Communist Demonstration of a Nuclear Capability,” DNSA, China and the US: From
Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998.
552
Document 6, General Curtis E. LeMay, Acting Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Secretary of Defense,
“Study of Chinese Communist Vulnerability,” 29 April 1963, with report on “Chinese Communist
Vulnerability” attached, NSA Test Ban Challenge, Source: RG 59, Records of Bureau of Far Eastern
Affairs, Office of the Country Director for the Republic of China, Top Secret Files Relating to the Republic
of China, 1954-65, box 4, 1963 Top Secret Nuclear Capability Briefing Book on US-Soviet Non-Diffusion
Agreement for Discussion at Moscow Meeting.
553
Document 5, NIE 100-4-60, “Likelihood and Consequences of the Development of Nuclear Capabilities
by Additional Countries,” 9 September 1960; NSA NIEs of the Nuclear Proliferation Problem 1957-67
collection.
554
Document 2, NIE 100-6-57, “Nuclear Weapons Production in Fourth Countries - Likelihood and
Consequences,” June 18, 1957, NSA NIEs of the Nuclear Proliferation Problem 1957-67; Robert Johnson,
“A Chinese Communist Nuclear Detonation and Nuclear Capability: Major Conclusions and Key Issues,”
15 October 1963, S/P Papers, box 275, records of the PPC, 1963-4, RG 59, NARA (cited in Johnson 2010);
see also similar assessments as late as 1969 in Document 00067, 1969/03/06, SNIE 13-69, Communist
China and Asia, DNSA, China and the US: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998; Document 00245,
1972/03/00, Soviet and Peoples Republic of China Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy and Strategy,
Part II, DNSA, China and the US: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998), p. 9.
181
become politically more aggressive, betting that the US would be more reluctant to

intervene.555 NIEs in 1963 and later highlighted the military dangers of Chinese political

aggressiveness. China was perceived as inherently more risk-prone than the Soviets

regarding the promotion of “wars of national liberation.”556 This would result in more

aggressive foreign policy, which would increase chances of miscalculation and

escalation, eventually leading to military conflict. 557 Conventional military conflict with

China was most likely over the Offshore Islands, North Vietnam, North Korea and

Laos.558 Although China may be rational enough to be deterred from fighting a nuclear

war, US officials were less confident that it was rational enough to be deterred from

fighting conventional wars. The main concern was that China would subvert non-

Communist Asian governments and would obtain regional hegemony at the expense of

the US.

555
SNIE 13-2-63, “Communist China’s Advanced Weapons Program,” 24 July 1963, FRUS 1961-1963,
VIII: National Security Policy, Microfiche Supplement; Basic National Security Policy, S/P Draft March
26, 1962, Dept. of State.
556
Document 1, “Implications of a Chinese Communist Nuclear Capability,” by Robert H. Johnson, State
Department Policy Planning Staff, with forwarding memorandum to President Johnson by Policy Planning
Council director Walt W. Rostow, 17 April 1964, NSA collection “US, China, and the Bomb,” Source:
U.S. National Archives, Record Group 59, Dept of State Records, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1964-1966,
file DEF 12-1 Chicom.
557
Document 00017, 1964/04/17, Memo for the president, “Implications of a Chinese Communist Nuclear
Capability,” DNSA, China and the US; “A Way of Thinking about Nuclear Proliferation,” WW Rostow,
Nov 19, 1964, DNSA collection US Nonproliferation; Document 8, NIE 4-63, “Likelihood and
Consequences of a Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Systems,” June 28, 1963, NSA collection NIEs of the
Nuclear Proliferation Problem; Document 8, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, “Summary and
Appraisal of Latest Evidence on Chinese Communist Advanced Weapon Capabilities,” 10 July 1963, NSA
collection The Test Ban Challenge, Source: RG 59, Executive Secretariat Country Files 1963-66, box 2,
Communist China.
558
Document 114, “Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Harriman)
to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (McGhee),” Washington, May 29, 1962, FRUS 61-3,
Vol XXII, China, p. 107; NIE 13-4-62, May 2, 1962, “Prospects for Communist China”, FRUS 61-3, Vol.
XXII, China; Paragraphs 26-35, p. 223; Document 00015, 1963/07/24, NIE 13-2-63, “Communist China’s
Advanced Weapons Program”, DNSA, China and the US collection.
182
 Finally, during Phase III, representing the long term (1970-1980), Chinese nuclear

weapons would pose a military threat and may also change the balance of power. 559

China would obtain intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and could initiate a

nuclear attack against the US.560 By 1975 Chinese ICBMs would be able to destroy San

Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Washington. In another five years China would

develop the capability to “destroy much of the United States” and kill 100 million

Americans.561 In contrast with the Soviets who were perceived as “particularly conscious

of the hazards of nuclear war,”562 China was seen as less aware of the dangers of a

nuclear war and more risk-prone regarding a general war,563 which made nuclear

deterrence unreliable. This is partly why, although the US would have second-strike

capability against the Soviets and first strike capability against the Chinese, many

Americans saw Chinese nuclear weapons as the more threatening. Not even

overwhelming US nuclear superiority could deter China. Policymakers believed that if

the Cuban Missile Crisis involved China rather than the USSR, the outcome would have

been tragic.

While the psychological and political China threats implied Chinese

aggressiveness, but not necessarily irrationality, the military China threat implied both.

Hence, it is easier to see that the Phase III military threat perception was inflated as it
559
Outline for Secretary’s Briefing Book, Memo for the Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense,
October 27, 1964 (DDRS).
560
“Communist China: intelligence handbook,” Office of Central Intelligence, CIA, OCINo. 0942/66, Jan
1, 1966 (DDRS).
561
Document 00020, 1964/10/07, “China as a Nuclear Power (Some Thoughts Prior to the Chinese Test),”
DNSA, China and the US collection.
562
NIE 11-4-60, 1 December 1960, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. V, Soviet Union, p. 2.
563
Document 00007, 1961/11/30, NIE 13-3-61, “Chinese Communist Capabilities and Intentions in the Far
East”, DNSA, China and the US; NIE 4-2-61, “Attitudes of Key World Powers on Disarmament Issues,”
April 6, 1961, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. VII, Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 37.
183
portrayed the Chinese as aggressive and irrational, willing to engage in a suicidal nuclear

attack on the US. The inflated nature of the Phase I psychological threat and the Phase II

political threat is more subtle.

One way to support the argument that the psychological and political threats were

also inflated is through what I call the “nuclear domino theory.” At the heart of domino

theory was the fear that unless the US intervened, Southeast Asian states would fall like

dominoes in the face of an aggressive and expansionist Communist China. There is

widespread consensus today that the domino theory was based on inflated threat

perceptions of China. 564 Chinese subversion in Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, and

even in Indonesia remained modest and the dominoes did not fall even after US

withdrawal from Vietnam.

The “nuclear domino theory” follows the logic of domino theory, but the

exaggerated fears at its core are further inflated by China’s nuclear capability. In the face

of an aggressive and expansionist nuclear China, the fall of the dominoes would be

faster, wider, and more certain.565 The US could not stop a nuclear China from taking

over Asia, except if it inhibited Chinese efforts to get the bomb. This view was expressed

by Kennedy in an October 1961 interview with Arthur Krock of the New York Times. 566

Like domino theory, “nuclear domino theory” was based on inflated psychological and

political-military threats. In the end, China went nuclear, but the dominoes did not fall. In

564
McMahon 1999, xi, 46-48, 220; Jervis and Snyder 1991; Slater 1993; Ninkovich 1994.
565
Although here I focus on the racially inflated threat perception of China behind domino theory, it is
interesting to note that these fears were also amplified by racial prejudices emphasizing the racial
inferiority of Southeast Asians. For example, the racial prejudices towards Vietnamese as ‘primitive,’
‘lazy,’ ‘cowardly,’ ‘vain,’ ‘dishonest,’ ‘unclean,’ and ‘somnolent’, reinforced the fact that it could not
withstand Chinese military or political pressures (Bradley 2000).
566
Cited in Jones 2010, 407-8.
184
fact, nuclear weapons made Chinese behavior not more, but less aggressive. While they

were nuanced, the fears of these US agencies were nonetheless exaggerated. Admittedly,

this is easier to discern in hindsight, but it supports our theoretical expectations no less.

Soviet Fears of a Nuclear China

The Soviets shared American concerns of a nuclear China, albeit for somewhat

different reasons and to a lesser extent. Initially the USSR provided China with nuclear

assistance, probably to increase its influence over its ally. Between 1955 and 1958 the

two states signed six agreements on nuclear cooperation. The 1957 Sino-Soviet New

Defense Technical Accord, for instance, stipulated that the USSR would provide wide

ranging nuclear assistance to China, including a prototype atomic bomb. 567 The Soviet

desire to maintain control over the eventual Chinese bomb568 and the deepening Sino-

Soviet split led to the collapse of nuclear cooperation. Although the USSR did supply

China with a research reactor, cyclotron, technical assistance and training, it withheld

about 40 percent of the promised assistance and the prototype atomic bomb. 569 By August

1960 the Soviets withdrew their nuclear advisers and equipment, and justified their action

based on the Geneva test ban talks.570

Soviet fears of a nuclear China were primarily strategic, related to the Sino-Soviet

spit, but racial difference also played a role, albeit a smaller one. The split was caused

567
Foot 1995, 118-9; Bundy 1988, 527.
568
Document 00003, 8 February 1961, John K. Gerhart, “Long-Range Threat of Communist China,” Dept
of the Air Force, DNSA, China and the US.
569
NIE 13-2-60 “The Chinese Communist Atomic Energy Program,” submitted by the Director of Central
Intelligence, DNSA collection US Nonproliferation Policy; Lewis and Xue 1988,72.
570
Foot 1995, 128; Lewis and Xue 1988, 64-5.
185
primarily by ideological disputes and competition for Communist leadership, but it also

had a racial aspect.571 US Ambassador Marshall Green drew attention to the “Russian

fear of ‘the yellow peril’”.572 In his memoirs Khrushchev wrote that Mao “has played

politics with Asiatic cunning, following his own rules of cajolery, treachery, savage

vengeance, and deceit.”573 Despite shared ideology, in a way China posed a bigger threat

to the USSR than the US did. If the US won the Cold War, Russia would only have to

change its political color, but if China won a Sino-Soviet war, Russia itself would

disappear, ‘swamped’ by a sea of Chinese. 574

The Soviets, like the Americans, also perceived China as aggressive and

disregarding human life, which amplified their fears of a nuclear China. 575 As

Khrushchev explained in an address to socialist leaders, unlike the Soviets, the Chinese

did not understand that the socialist revolution could not be pursued through violence as

it may result in a nuclear war that would “set humanity back by centuries.” 576 There is no

doubt that the Soviets had an interest in portraying the Chinese as aggressive and

irrational since they were engaged in a competition with them for international

Communist leadership. Nonetheless, US diplomat and Soviet expert Charles E. Bohlen’s

571
For an explanation of the split as a function of ideological dispute see Lüthi 2008; for the racial aspect
see Radchenko 2009 and Parente 1974; for the identity aspect see Hopf 2009.
572
Cited in Scott 2007.
573
Khrushchev 1970, 461-2.
574
Radchenko 2009, 197; A poll of Radio Free Europe of 4000 subjects in Poland, Hungary and Romania
between June 1963 and August 1964 found that they shared these fears and supported the Soviets because
“they are Europeans, Chinese hate Russians and all whites: Chinese are a danger to the white race” (Parente
1974:5).
575
Document 00031, 1966/04/22, CIA Intelligence Handbook, “The Deterioration of Sino-Soviet
Relations: 1956-1966,” DNSA, China and the US collection; Chang 1990, 259.
576
Cited in Foot 1995, 179; Ann Whitman File, NSC series, 464th meeting of the NSC, Box 13, 20 October
1960, DDEL.
186
conviction that the Soviets were genuinely more concerned about the Chinese bomb than

about the immense American nuclear stockpile is plausible. 577

The “Yellow Peril” Trumps the “Red Peril”: China as the Greatest Threat to the US

One indicator that American threat perceptions of a nuclear China were inflated is

that both the public and decision makers perceived China as the greatest threat to the

US.578 While in March 1961 almost half of the American public saw the USSR as the

greatest threat and a third perceived China as the greatest threat, two years later the

situation was completely reversed (see Figure 4.1 below). After China went nuclear in

October 1964 almost 60% of Americans perceived China as the most threatening,

compared with 20% of those who saw the USSR as the most threatening. 579 This inflated

threat perception was not simply a function of domestic political ideology as it did not

follow party lines.580 It also cannot be explained by the fear of nuclear weapons alone as

there was no similar reaction to the French bomb in 1960.

577
Cited in Chang 1988, 1289, fn 4.
578
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 203; Kusnitz 1984, 106, 111; “Study of Public Awareness,” Benetton and
Bowles Survey, n.d., f. “National Security Council, 5/62,” White House Files—Subject file 1961-1964, box
16, Schlesinger Papers, JFKL.
579
Cited in Kusnitz 1984, 112; see poll numbers in Special Report on American Opinion, “US China policy
1964”, 14 Dec 1964, Forrester Papers, Box 33.
580
Kochavi 2002, 43.
187
 70

60

% Public Greatest Threat to US 50

40
USSR
30
China
20

10

Mar-64
Mar-61

Mar-62

Mar-63

Mar-65

Mar-66

Mar-67
Jul-61

Jul-62

Jul-63

Jul-64

Jul-65

Jul-66
Nov-63
Nov-61

Nov-62

Nov-64

Nov-65

Nov-66
Figure 4.1: Rising ‘Yellow Peril’ and Falling ‘Red Peril’ 581

Not all of those who saw China as the greatest threat did so for racial reasons and

not all of those who did would say so publicly, but some did. A Samuel Lubell poll found

that in 1961 5 percent of the public interpreted the Chinese threat in racial terms publicly,

but by 1963 the number quadrupled to about 20 percent. While China was seen as

controlled by “irrational, Oriental” leaders, Russia was perceived as embodying the

values of Western civilization. Perhaps not surprisingly, the poll showed close correlation

in the South between attitudes towards China and attitudes towards civil rights. The poll

581
Source: Kusnitz 1984, 112, Opinion Index, No. 76, October 1971, Gallup polls, various years.
188
concluded that deep in the public mind is “the dread that Red China is moving inexorably

towards a nuclear, racial war…” 582

That no more than a quarter of the electorate publicly interpreted the China threat

in racial terms may seem low, but given the delegitimization of racism, it is considerable.

Moreover, the actual numbers were probably higher. One indirect way of getting to

covert racial prejudices is to look at what percentage of Americans attributed positive

traits to the Chinese. Not attributing positive characteristics to racial others makes one

less vulnerable to the charge of racism than attributing negative characteristics to them.

For instance, a 1966 Gallup poll found that 20% of Americans saw the Chinese as “sly”

and 19% saw them as “treacherous”. One would then expect that even if not the rest of

80%, but at least some of the respondents would see the Chinese as “honest”. In fact, 0%

did,583 which suggests that the percentage of Americans who saw the Chinese as “sly” or

“treacherous” was in reality higher. Racial prejudice was underreported, as it is today.584

Prominent members of the Kennedy administration shared the public’s perception

that China was more threatening than the USSR. According to Atomic Energy

Commission Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg, Kennedy held this view “perhaps to excess.”585

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told Congress in 1964 that although the

Soviets possessed the superior military capability, China was “the more reckless and

582
“Report on Changes in Public Attitudes toward Communist China by Samuel Lubell Associates,” and
covering note from Forrestal to Bundy, 7 February 1964, Thomson Papers, Box 16, General folder, 1/64-
3/64, “Report on Changes in Public Attitudes toward Communist China by Samuel Lubell Associates”.
583
Cited in Scott 2007, 54-5.
584
Quillian 2006, 303.
585
Seaborg 1981, 217; Tucker 1990-92, 83.
189
belligerent of the two.”586 Secretary of State Dean Rusk thought that, as opposed to the

Soviets, the Chinese would push for a socialist revolution even with the risk of a nuclear

war. Although Deputy National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow and Under-Secretary

of State W. Averell Harriman held more nuanced views of the China threat, they tended

to concur. Even Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger Hilsman, who

supported less hostile China policies, warned that Communist China disregarded human

life and may engage in reckless actions.587

US Ambassador to India and Under-Secretary of State Chester B. Bowles, and US

Ambassador to the UN Adlai E. Stevenson initially were less alarmed by the threat of a

nuclear China, but later they grew more concerned. Bowles came to think that China

wanted a Lebensraum in Southeast Asia, while Stevenson saw China as pushing harder

than the Soviets for the “triumph of their fanatical dream.” 588 Others such as George F.

Kennan, Charles E. Bohlen, Paul H. Nitze, or Llewellyn Thompson also agreed that

China was more threatening and favored cooperation with the Soviets against it. 589

Interestingly, in a 1963 New York Times article the famous British historian Arnold J.

Toynbee discussed the chances of a “race war” being initiated by China, and argued that

unless the Soviets and the Americans figured out a way to cooperate, China may come to

dominate the world.590

Part of the inflated US threat perceptions may be explained by the China lobby’s

efforts to manipulate the China threat, but the China threat cannot be reduced to their

586
Cited in Peck 2006, 211.
587
Kochavi 2002, 225.
588
Kochavi 2002, 29-30.
589
Goh 2005, 36; Kochavi 2002, 70, 71, 191; Schaller 2002, 153.
590
Toynbee 1963.
190
actions. Under-Secretary of State Bowles warned that China was “far more dangerous, in

many ways, than even the [pro-Nationalist Chinese] Committee of One Million would

have us think.”591 The China lobby’s threat inflationary success depended primarily on

American anti-Communism. The fact that more than 28 percent of the American public

did not know that mainland China was ruled by a Communist government suggests that

Communist ideology contributed to the China threat less than what is often believed. 592

Inflated threat perceptions of China went far beyond the China lobby’s efforts. Moreover,

as mentioned below, these high levels of threat perception existed despite the US

government’s efforts to deflate the China threat, concerned that China would derive some

prestige from it.

The China Threat Was Plausible, but Exaggerated

Although there were reasons to be more concerned about China than the Soviet

Union, the differences tend to be exaggerated. The image of the Chinese as the “bad”

Communists and that of the Soviets as the “good” Communists masked similarities in

their behavior and facilitated the exaggeration of Chinese aggressiveness. The potential

threat posed by China justified medium rather than high levels of threat perceptions.

Chinese rhetoric and behavior were more threatening than those of the Soviet

Union. While both China and the USSR embraced Communism, China embraced a more

militant strand of the ideology. After the twentieth congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev

591
Chang 1988, 1288.
592
“The American Public’s View of US Policy toward China,” A Report prepared for the Council of
Foreign Relations by the Survey Research Center University of Michigan; for release on Tuesday Dec 15,
1964, Papers of James C. Thomson, Box 16, Far East, 1961-66, Communist China, General 1/64-3/64—
General 1/66-2/66, JFKL.
191
talked about de-Stalinization at home, peaceful transition to socialism abroad, and

peaceful coexistence with the West. In turn, Mao remained faithful to Stalinism,

emphasized the importance of armed struggle to promote socialism abroad, and attacked

peaceful coexistence as an impediment to national liberation movements.593 China was

indeed more supportive of revolutionary wars in Laos and South Vietnam. 594 After 1964

the Soviets matched their support, to a large extent because they did not want to be

outdone by the Chinese. At home, based on his more militant ideological strand, in 1958

Mao launched a disastrous domestic socioeconomic developmental project, the Great

Leap Forward, which constituted an aggression against Chinese citizens. According to

conservative estimates, it caused 18.5 to 20 million famine deaths between 1959 and

1961.595 Chinese rhetoric was more aggressive than Soviet rhetoric as well. Kennedy

complained to Khrushchev that Chinese verbal attacks were “going on like a

drumbeat.”596 Perhaps most alarming was that Mao called the atomic bomb a “paper

tiger” and reportedly told Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that “even if one half

of the world’s population were destroyed, there would still be the other half left. The

imperialists would be wiped out and the whole world would become Socialist. After so

many years, there will again be a world population of 2 billion, 700 million, and certainly

593
See the Chinese Communists’ 1964 June 14 letter to the Soviets, cited in has Document 00457,
1965/01/00 Statement of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara before a Joint Session of the Senate
Armed Services Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Department of Defense Appropriations on the
Fiscal Year 1966-70 Defense Program and 1966 Defense Budget, DNSA US Nuclear History Collection, p.
11; For Sino-Soviet difference in rhetoric also see Rusk, 1990:289.
594
Christensen 2011, ch. 5.
595
Luthi 2008, 158.
596
Document 85. “Memorandum of Conversation,” Vienna, June 3, 1961, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. V. Soviet
Union, p. 192.
192
more.”597 This statement suggested that due to China’s large population and insensitivity

to human losses, Mao was not afraid of nuclear war. The American media accordingly

depicted Mao as a psychotic calling for “worldwide racial war.” 598

Based on China’s more militant ideology, disastrous domestic policies, and

aggressive rhetoric, it is easy to exaggerate Sino-Soviet differences regarding threat. In

this oversimplified view, the Soviets preferred the peaceful promotion of socialism, were

very concerned about a nuclear war, and opposed national liberation struggles out of fear

that they might escalate into nuclear war between the superpowers. In contrast, the

Chinese were portrayed as thinking that war with the “imperialists” was inevitable, being

less concerned about a nuclear war, and being more supportive of national liberation

struggles.599 While the Soviets thought that nuclear wars ended the era where war could

be an instrument deployed in pursuit of political goals, the Chinese that past era.600

Undoubtedly, there was some truth to this view, but the extent to which the Chinese were

more threatening than the Soviets was overstated.

The empirical record indicates that there were important parallels and similarities

between Chinese and Soviet rhetoric and behavior. Soviet rhetoric was not exclusively

peaceful. Khrushchev in his January 6, 1961 speech also promised support to national

liberation struggles, and his ultimatums over Berlin were far from reassuring. At the same

597
National Security Files, for Sino-Soviet conflict cite Box 21 A, China General, CIAA Sino-Soviet Task
Force, “The Sino-Soviet Dispute and Its Significance,” 1 April 1961, JFKL; see also Document 00380,
1975/11/00, “Mao Tse-tung’s Personal Style and Political Views,” DNSA, China and the US.
598
Kusnitz 1984, 107 cites the Christian Century 80, 11 September 1963: 1091.
599
“The Sino-Soviet Dispute and Its Significance,” 1 April 1961, NSF, Box 21 A, China General, CIA
Sino-Soviet Task Force, JFKL
600
“Dispute between Chinese and Soviet Theoreticians over War as an Instrument of Policy,” Foreign
Broadcast Information Service, Current Development Series, 9 October 1963, NSF, Box 24, Country Files,
China General, 9/63-10/63, Radio Propaganda Report.
193
time, Chinese aggressive rhetoric, especially regarding nuclear weapons, signaled not

Chinese aggressiveness and disregard for the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, but

constituted an instance of the “rationality of the irrational.” 601 Given the precedent of

multiple US nuclear threats and that China did not have nuclear weapons, cultivating an

image of indifference to nuclear war was a strategy to deter US nuclear threats and keep

Chinese domestic morale intact.602 A few analysts, like George C. Denney, Jr. of the

Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), recognized this, but most did not. 603 On a few

occasions the Chinese even made clear that they were aware of the destructiveness of

nuclear weapons, and while they would defend against a nuclear attack, they would never

initiate one.604

Similarly, Sino-Soviet behavioral differences were smaller than many think.

While China invaded Tibet, the USSR invaded Hungary. While China provoked multiple

crises over Taiwan, the USSR provoked multiple crises over Berlin. While China waged

war against India, the USSR provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis. Admittedly,

Khrushchev’s backing down during the Cuban missile crisis and fierce Chinese criticisms

of this “capitulationism” correctly strengthened the view that China was more aggressive

than the Soviet Union. At the same time, it is often omitted that the Chinese leadership

601
Schelling 1960.
602
Ryan 1989:181-186; “Chinese Communist Military Doctrine,” Office of Current Intelligence, Special
Report, SC No. 00602/64A., January 17, 1964, DDRS.
603
INR RFE-64, Denney to Rusk, “Is Peiping Trying to Trigger World War III?” 22 July 1963, f. “China
General 7/63-8/63,” NSF: CO, box 24, JFKL; see also Lewis and Xue 1988, 6.
604
See for instance Ambassador Cabot’s report on meeting with Wang, Department of State, August 8,
1963, DDRS; Document 183., “Telegram From the Embassy in Poland to the Department of State,” FRUS
1961-63, Vol. XII, China.
194
criticized not only the Soviet “capitulationism,” but also Soviet “adventurism,” the Soviet

attempt to smuggle nuclear missiles into Cuba as well. 605

In sum, the degree to which China was more threatening than the Soviet Union

should be acknowledged, but not overstated. Their behavior was more similar than many

think, and Soviet overwhelming material capability was at least as threatening as

aggressive Chinese rhetoric. American China specialists later came to the consensus that

the China of the 1950s and 1960s was not aggressive and expansionist, but cautious and

defensive. 606 The large gap between the Soviet threat and the China threat in the

American mind overstated the extent to which the threat posed by these Communist

giants differed.

RACIALLY INFLATED THREAT PERCEPTIONS LEAD TO THE LTBT

The first part of the chapter showed how race inflated US threat perceptions of a

nuclear China. This second part traces how racially inflated threat perceptions resulted in

the LTBT. The first section discusses the various options the US considered against the

nuclear China threat and then argues that domestic and international constraints made the

LTBT the instrument of choice. The second and third sections trace the negotiations

leading up to and the signing of the LTBT. The last section briefly discusses two

significant issues after the LTBT was signed: the possibility of preventive strikes against

China and the Sino-American rapprochement.

605
Luthi 2008, 227.
606
Schaller 2002, 159; Barnett 1970, 437-438; See also Alice Langley Hsieh and A. Doak Barnett at the
Hearings before the Subcommittee on Arms Control, 91st Congress, second session, 1970.
195
Choosing the LTBT to Inhibit the Chinese Bomb

Actions Considered against the ‘Nuclear Yellow Peril’

Recall that US threat perceptions of a nuclear China included psychological,

political, and military threats. The actions considered in response by US policy makers

paralleled these threats.607 The psychological threat could be countered using threat

deflating propaganda. Although such propaganda was meant for both domestic and

international consumption, here I focus more on the latter. The Kennedy administration

was very concerned about a nuclear China,608 but it realized that expressing these fears

publicly would only make things worse. As a set of guidelines for public statements on

China put it later, it was not in US interest to make the Chinese “seem ten feet tall.” 609

While Asian countries were concerned about the Chinese bomb, US decision makers

overestimated the extent of these concerns and decided to engage in threat deflation to

lower them. 610 In October 1961 the Policy Planning Council suggested a covert

propaganda campaign in Asia to mitigate the anticipated psychological impact of a

607
“Aborting the ChiCom Nuclear Capability,” Dept of State memo, June 12, 1963; Document 6, General
Curtis E. LeMay, Acting Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Secretary of Defense, “Study of Chinese
Communist Vulnerability,” 29 April 1963, with report on “Chinese Communist Vulnerability” attached,
NSA The Test Ban Challenge, Source: RG 59, Records of Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, Office of the
Country Director for the Republic of China, Top Secret Files Relating to the Republic of China, 1954-65,
box 4, 1963 Top Secret Nuclear Capability Briefing Book on US-Soviet Non-Diffusion Agreement for
Discussion at Moscow Meeting. Economic sanctions were also mentioned as a possible option against the
Chinese bomb.
608
Kochavi 2002, 216; Foot 1995, 178.
609
Peck 2006:249; “US Posture towards Communist China: Guidelines for Public Statements,” 1965, DDC,
1988, 2032, pp.4-5.
610
Document 157, “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council, Washington,” November 30, 1962,
FRUS 1961-63, Vol. XXII, China.
196
Chinese detonation.611 An overt propaganda campaign by the State Department was

initiated to emphasize the superiority of US (nuclear) power, while the CIA was to

engage in covert media propaganda against the impending Chinese nuclear bomb.612

The political threat could be addressed using political means such as a test ban.

That a test ban could inhibit nuclear proliferation was recognized early. According to an

Office of Intelligence Research paper, “…it appears that cessation of tests under a system

of inspection and control offers a contribution towards an increase in the US security

position, primarily because of the hesitancy of potential fourth countries to develop

weapons programs clandestinely.” 613 While developing nuclear weapons without testing

was possible, it was more difficult, and the reliability of one’s arsenal would be

uncertain. The US anticipated that the USSR would welcome such a test ban because it

was relatively cheap and helped the Soviets to justify the discontinuance of their nuclear

assistance to China. 614 Few believed that a test ban was sufficient to stop proliferation,

but most saw it as necessary. Official estimates in 1962 and 1963 anticipated that without

a test ban, between 8 and 16 countries could acquire nuclear weapons in a decade, while

with a test ban (especially a comprehensive one) this number could be kept substantially

611
Jones 2010, 408; “US policy toward China,” draft paper of the Policy Planning Council, 26 October
1961, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXII China, p. 165.
612
Jones 2010, 409-10.
613
Document 1, “The Test Ban and the ‘Fourth Country’ Problem,” George Jaeger, Office of Intelligence
Research, US State Department, to Mr. Terrill et al., “Draft Background Paper on Nuclear Testing and the
‘Fourth Country’ Problem,” 16 May 1957, enclosing paper on same subject from the President’s Special
Committee on Disarmament Problems,” NSA The Test Ban Challenge.
614
Document 2, “A ‘Cheap Way’ to Inhibit Proliferation,” Philip J. Farley, Special Assistant to the
Secretary for Atomic Energy, to Joseph Wolf, Director, Office of Political Affairs, USRO [U.S. Mission to
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Regional Organizations], 28 March 1958, NSA The
Test Ban Challenge, Source: National Archives, Department of State Records, RG 59, Records of the
Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy and Outer Space. Records Relating to Atomic
Energy Matters, 1944-1963, box 349, 18.14 Weapons Test Moratorium f. Unilateral Suspension by the
USSR, 1958.
197
lower.615 In addition, the US could use some “carrots” to cajole China into joining a test

ban agreement. Positive incentives mentioned included the removal of nuclear weapons

from the Far East, the removal of travel restrictions, the alleviation of Chinese food

shortages, the creation of an international airline, increased Japanese trade with China,

assistance to establish diplomatic relations between China and other states, and even the

possibility of Chinese UN membership.

The military threat posed by a nuclear China could be addressed by military

action against Chinese nuclear facilities. Small scale conventional air attacks or tactical

nuclear attacks on selected targets were considered, but were deemed politically too

costly. Political costs could be mitigated if such actions were taken in response to

Chinese aggression, were covert, or were performed by Chinese Nationalists. But even

then, the problem of feasibility remained. Despite aerial reconnaissance flights there was

no guarantee that all Chinese facilities were identified. Moreover, preventive strikes

would only delay a Chinese bomb by a few years.

Domestic and International Constraints Push towards the LTBT

615
Document 3A, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to President Kennedy, “The Diffusion of
Nuclear Weapons With or Without a Test Ban Agreement,” n.d. [circa 26 July 1962], NSA The Test Ban
Challenge, Source: LBJL, Vice President's Security File, box 7, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Document
3B, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to President Kennedy, “The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons
With or Without a Test Ban Agreement,” 16 February 1963, Secret, NSA Test Ban Challenge, National
Archives, RG 359, White House Office of Science and Technology, box 215, Disarmament-Nuclear Test
Ban-1963; Memorandum for the President, “The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons with and without a Test
Ban Agreement,” 12 Feb 1963, DNSA, US Nonproliferation Policy.
198
 The LTBT became the instrument of choice against the Chinese bomb largely

because it fit domestic and international constraints. The international constraint was

represented by Soviet preference for less aggressive measures. Soviet cooperation was

desirable because each of the three measures discussed above was seen as more effective

if implemented jointly. Since precluding Chinese nuclear proliferation was the most

immediate shared interest of the superpowers, hopes of Soviet-American cooperation

were realistic.616 The Soviets were also concerned about a West German bomb, which

provided additional incentives to cooperate with the US to inhibit nuclear proliferation. 617

The US initiated Soviet-American cooperation with a series of unilateral gestures, which

were then reciprocated by the Soviets, led to a reduction of tensions, and facilitated

cooperation.618 But despite their concerns of a nuclear China, the Soviets wanted to

maintain a public stance of reconciliation as they hoped that the Sino-Soviet split could

be healed. Harsher Soviet measures against China would have also been condemned by

others in the “Socialist camp.” Hence, the USSR was more receptive towards less

aggressive actions (psychological and political measures) and less receptive towards

more aggressive actions (military measures). 619

The domestic constraint was represented by the China lobby in the US, which

preferred more aggressive measures. Although weakening, it still constituted a force to

reckon with. Moreover, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s (R-Wisconsin) purges left few of

616
Cited in Peck 2006, 209, CIA, “Implications of the Sino-Soviet Rupture for the United States,” July 18,
1963, DDC, 1985.
617
Document 350. Memorandum of Conversation, August 26, 1963, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. V. Soviet Union,
p. 754.
618
Etzioni 1967.
619
Outline for Secretary’s Briefing Book, Memo for the Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense, Oct
27, 1964 (DDRS).
199
those favoring a softer China policy in positions of power.620 The Far East Bureau of

State was dominated by hardliners, while the Foreign Service lost more than twenty

China specialists.621 Even if Kennedy wanted to pursue a more flexible China policy, 622

his small electoral margin would have made him reluctant to engage in such a political

battle. 623 And the Democrats were particularly vulnerable to charges of not being tough

enough on Communism after allegedly “losing China”.

The upshot was hawkish China policy. Psychological measures were deemed

useful, but insufficient. They focused on mitigating fears of Chinese nuclear weapons,

rather than actually doing something to stop Chinese nuclear proliferation. Moreover, if

deflating the China threat was too successful, it would make it more difficult to justify

harsher US actions against the Chinese bomb later.624 Though military action may have

been preferable, the Soviets would not have cooperated. Political measures were the

harshest form of action that could be undertaken jointly with the Soviets. The test ban

was favored because it fit nicely with the broader and hawkish “containment with

isolation” China policy. It tried to contain the Chinese bomb and if China did not join the

test ban, such an agreement would further isolate China and would facilitate harsher

620
Hilsman 1967, 295; Foot 1995, 16-7.
621
Hilsman 1967, 297; Thomson 1972, 222.
622
Kennedy 1957.
623
Kochavi 2002, 55; Martin interview with Sorensen, 11 October 1966, “Notes on Interviews: Sorensen,
Theodore,” box 2, John Bartlow Martin Files on Adlai E. Stevenson, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
624
“Action against the Chinese Nuclear Program,” Walt W. Rostow, Chairman, Policy Planning Council,
to McGeorge Bundy, “The Bases for Direct Action Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities,” 22 April 1964,
attached to Policy Planning Council study, “An Exploration of the Possible Bases for Action Against the
Chinese Communist Nuclear Facilities,” by Robert Johnson, 14 April 1964, NSA Nukevault Key
Documents collection, Source: LBJL, National Security Files, box 237, China Memos Vol. I 12/63-9/64;
see also Document 4, Memorandum From Komer to Bundy, February 26, 1964, FRUS 64-8, XXX, China.
200
measures against it. In contrast, the “carrots” aspect of the political action did not fit the

hawkish China policy and consequently was dropped.

The test ban represented a middle ground between these international and

domestic constraints. It was harsher than psychological measures (which were also

employed),625 but soft enough that it could be implemented jointly with the Soviets. Test

ban talks also had the advantage that they were already under way. The next two sections

trace how the LTBT was negotiated and signed.

The Road to the LTBT

Test Ban Talks

The idea of a test ban originated with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and

was introduced into American politics by Democratic presidential candidate Adlai E.

Stevenson during the 1956 campaign. 626 When Stevenson lost the election, the re-elected

Eisenhower picked up the idea. Nonetheless, defense and deterrence remained more

important in his national security policy than arms control. 627 Moreover, many in his

administration, like Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, opposed a test

ban because they saw testing as necessary for maintaining US nuclear superiority over

the USSR. Eisenhower’s consensus-seeking leadership and deep suspicion of the USSR

provided additional impediments to the achievement of a test ban. 628

625
Kochavi 2002, 216.
626
Bundy 1988, 329.
627
Maddock 2010, 82.
628
Greene 2007.
201
 Although in 1960 the superpowers came close to an agreement, when an

American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace in May, test ban talks

collapsed. The 1958 Soviet-American moratorium on testing remained the greatest arms

control accomplishment of his administration. Eisenhower later acknowledged that the

inability to achieve a test ban was “his greatest regret about his presidency.” 629 But his

efforts were not entirely in vain. In addition to the moratorium, Kennedy inherited a

legacy of separation of test ban talks from the more elusive problem of general

disarmament; a commitment to a test ban by a Republican war hero; and a well

established diplomatic process to pursue it. 630

Arms control is rarely a primary goal of a President, but for Kennedy this was the

case. He was the driving force behind the US pursuit and eventual achievement of the

LTBT.631 At the time of Kennedy’s inauguration test ban negotiations were deadlocked.

He appointed Arthur Dean as the head of the US delegation at the Geneva test ban talks

and made John McCloy his Special Adviser on Disarmament. Both were centrist

Republicans, who enjoyed bipartisan respect. Kennedy also asked for the postponement

of the Geneva talks from February 7 to March 21 1961 and charged McCloy with a

detailed review of US arms control policy. 632

By the time the Conference on Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests

resumed in March, Kennedy did his homework. While Eisenhower tabled no full draft

treaty in Geneva, Kennedy did so less than three months after taking office. The US

629
Seaborg 1981, 10.
630
Firestone 1999, 69; Bundy 1988, 333.
631
Seaborg 1981, xiii-xiv; Wenger and Gerber 1999.
632
Kaysen 1999, 101.
202
proposal in April contained several new elements, including increased duration for a

moratorium on underground testing below the 4.75 seismic magnitude from two to three

years; acceptance of a total test ban in space; reduction of control posts in the USSR from

twenty-one to nineteen; and acceptance of the Soviet request for equal annual quota of

twenty inspections for each original party to the treaty. In the meantime, McCloy carried

on bilateral talks until September with Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian Zorin.

Kennedy also met with Khrushchev at the Vienna summit of June 3-4, 1961 where he

personally raised the test ban issue and the China threat.

But these initial efforts were no more fruitful than those under Eisenhower. In

Vienna, Khrushchev remained unresponsive to Kennedy’s concerns that China military

development would upset the balance of power. Moreover, he suggested that test ban

talks be merged again with the elusive disarmament talks, which would have made it

harder to reach a test ban agreement. Kennedy concluded that, probably due to Chinese

pressure, the Soviets lost interest in a test ban. 633 The Soviets also rejected the April US

proposal and held on to their position of an underground testing moratorium of 4-5 years,

15 control posts, and 3 annual on-site inspections.634 While the US and the UK saw

international inspection and verification as crucial for a test ban, the Soviets considered

them “legalized espionage” and opposed them. Bilateral talks between McCloy and Zorin

did not bring much progress either.

633
Document 91, “Memorandum of Conversation with the President and the Congressional Leadership,”
June 6, 1961, FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. V. Soviet Union, pp. 233-234; Document 86. “Memorandum of
Conversation, Vienna,” June 3, 1961, FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. V. Soviet Union, p. 199; Document 85,
“Memorandum of Conversation,” June 3, 1961, FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. V. Soviet Union.
634
They also wanted control commissions to be supervised by a troika which gave equal say and veto
power to Western, Communist, and neutral interests. Firestone 1999, 71,77; Kaysen 1999, 101.
203
 In spite of this rocky start, Kennedy made clear that he was motivated to pursue

these “perhaps uselessly prolonged efforts by the intense desire to do everything possible

to assure that Communist China won’t have a bomb.” 635 But his resolve was to be

severely tested. On September 1 the Soviets decided to resume atmospheric testing. Not

only that progress was not made, but even the moratorium inherited from Eisenhower

came to an end. Kennedy was angry with the Soviets. Nonetheless, on September 3 he

jointly submitted an atmospheric test ban proposal to Khrushchev with British Premier

Harold Macmillan. The Soviets rejected it on September 9 and the US resumed

underground testing six days later.

Test ban negotiations reconvened in Geneva on November 28, 1961 with a Soviet

proposal that insisted on provisions that the Soviets knew the West found unacceptable.

The Soviets were interested in scoring propaganda points and improving their image after

the resumption of tests.636 Next spring Kennedy was pressured into atmospheric testing

by the Pentagon and nuclear weapons laboratories, concerned that the US would fall

behind in the nuclear race. Talks in the Conference on Discontinuance of Nuclear

Weapons Tests collapsed.

Test ban talks continued in March 1962 in the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament

Committee (ENDC) under UN auspices. At the August 27 session the US and the UK

jointly tabled two test ban treaty drafts, one comprehensive and one limited. 637 Although

they proposed a lower inspection quota than before (8-10), the Soviets rejected both

635
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 71-2.
636
Document 136, “Current Intelligence Weekly Review,” December 1, 1961, CIA, FRUS 1961-1963, Vol.
V: 336.
637
Seaborg 1981, 168.
204
proposals. However, Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily V. Kuznetsov proposed a

moratorium on testing from January 1, 1963 and Kennedy supported it. Rusk saw this as

a sign that Soviet positions on China were shifting and that Moscow may be more open to

a test ban despite fierce criticisms from Beijing. 638

In October the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the superpowers to the nuclear brink.

The peaceful resolution of the crisis and Chinese criticism of Khrushchev’s backing

down, which they called a ‘Soviet Munich,’ reinforced Kennedy’s belief that China was

more threatening:

“We would be far worse off—the world would be—if the Chinese dominated the
Communist movement, because they believe in war as the means of bringing about
the Communist world. Mr. Khrushchev’s means are destruction, but he believes
that peaceful coexistence and support of these wars of liberation…will bring about
our defeat. The Chinese Communists believe that by constantly hitting, and if war
comes, a nuclear third world war, they can survive it anyway with 750 million
people. So we are better off with the Khrushchev view than we are with the
Chinese Communist view, quite obviously.” 639

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy confided to John McCone, the head

of the CIA, that Kennedy saw a nuclear China as the biggest problem facing the world

which “would so upset the world political scene it would be intolerable to the United

States and the West…”640 Bundy shared Kennedy’s fears of a nuclear China.641

638
Burr and Richelson 2000, 68.
639
Kochavi 2002, 202; Public Papers of President Kennedy, 17 December 1962, p. 900.
640
Memorandum for the record by McCone, 11 January 1963; see editorial note, FRUS, 1961-1963, XXII,
p. 339.
641
Document 243, Memorandum from Bundy to Kennedy, November 8, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol.
VII, Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 598; Oliver 1998, 150.
205
 Meanwhile, intelligence reports estimated that the first Chinese nuclear detonation

would occur sometime in the next two years. 642 Together with the traumatic experience of

the Cuban Missile Crisis, this gave the threat of a nuclear China unprecedented urgency.

That time was running out became frequent in Kennedy’s speeches and played an

important role in his determined quest for a test ban. 643 Hoping to convince France to join

a test ban, in January 1963 Kennedy told Andre Malraux, the French Minister of Culture,

that a nuclear China would be a “great menace in the future to humanity, the free world,

and freedom on earth,” because “the Chinese would be perfectly prepared to sacrifice

hundreds of millions of their own lives if it were necessary in order to carry out their

aggressive and militant policies.”644

There is no doubt that the main motivation behind pursuing a test ban was the

hope that it would inhibit Chinese nuclear efforts. Both Bundy and Rusk saw the test ban

as important to counter this threat.645 At a January 22, 1963 National Security Council

meeting Kennedy reiterated that the main purpose of a test ban from the American

perspective was to stop or at least delay the Chinese bomb. 646 The next day Harriman

wrote a letter to Kennedy agreeing with his position. He also suggested that Moscow

shared Kennedy’s perspective on the test ban and that Washington and Moscow “could

compel China to stop nuclear development, threatening to take out the facilities if

642
NIE 13-2-60, “The Chinese Communist Atomic Energy Program,” DNSA US Nonproliferation Policy;
NIE 100-4-60, “Likelihood and Consequences of the Development of Nuclear Capabilities by Additional
Countries,” 9 September 1960, NSA NIEs of the Nuclear Proliferation Problem collection.
643
Seaborg 1981, 171.
644
Cited in Oliver 1998, 150-51; Chang 1988, 1293; Goh 2005, 27-28; Chang 1990, 236.
645
Maddock 2010, 198; FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. VII: 597-8, 618-9.
646
“Remarks of President Kennedy to the National Security Council Meeting of January 22, 1963,” January
22, 1963, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. VIII, p. 462.
206
necessary.”647 Kennedy was open to using military measures if the test ban failed to

work.

A few days later Rusk on Meet the Press confirmed that a nuclear China “is one

of the reasons why we are very much interested in such a thing as a nuclear test ban...”648

At a February 8, 1963 White House meeting, Kennedy reiterated that the test ban was

important for its effect on nonproliferation, particularly that of China and “If it weren’t

for this possible gain, it wouldn’t be worth the internal disruption, fighting with

Congress, and so forth.”649 He was even willing to risk some Soviet cheating for the test

ban. 650 The Chinese had no doubt that the test ban was directed against their nuclear

efforts and bitterly criticized it.651

Yet in early 1963 a test ban still seemed remote. Khrushchev was bitter about a

previous event. On December 19, 1962 he proposed a test ban to Kennedy, which

allowed for an annual quota of 2-3 onsite inspections, a move that Khrushchev saw as a

Soviet compromise. Kennedy knew that a proposal based on so few inspections would be

rejected by Congress and on December 28 rejected the offer. Khrushchev was angry

because he apparently thought that his offer was based on Arthur Dean’s and Science

Advisor Jerome Wiesner’s hints in conversations with the Soviets earlier that year. It

appears that, whether intentionally or not, the Soviets misinterpreted these

647
Harriman to Kennedy, 23 January, 1963, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXII, 341; also see Deputy Assistant
Director for National Estimates (CIA) Chester Cooper to Mose Harvey, PPC, “Discussion of the
Implications of the Sino-Soviet Dispute for U.S. Policy,” March 16, 1962, RG 59, Office of Soviet Union
Affairs, Subject File 1957-63, box 6, 22.1 Soviet-Chicom Relations; and Harriman to Kennedy, January 23,
1963, Library of Congress, W. Averell Harriman Papers, John Kennedy General, 1963.
648
Cited in Jones 2010, 418.
649
FRUS 1961-63, 7:645; 1961-63, 8:462; also Seaborg 1981, 188.
650
Kochavi 2002, 219.
651
Lewis and Xue 1988, 193.
207
conversations.652 Additional impediments to a test ban were created by Soviet diplomats.

On January 21 Semyon Tsarapkin told Dean that the Soviets insisted on nationally

operated control posts, and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko stated publicly that a test

ban was impossible without the adherence of France. 653 March 1963 brought another

deadlock at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference.

At this point Kennedy became pessimistic regarding the chances of a test ban. But

due to the urgency of stopping the Chinese bomb, he tried again. In April he used

Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins’ visit to the Kremlin to explain to Khrushchev

their previous misunderstanding. 654 On April 15, Kennedy also sent Khrushchev a joint

letter with Macmillan, proposing to move forward with test ban talks at a high level

tripartite conference in Moscow. Khrushchev reluctantly agreed to Kennedy’s proposal

on May 8. July 15, 1963 was agreed on as the starting date for the Moscow talks. On June

6 Beijing warned Moscow “against any agreement with the United States that would

amount to depriving China of the right to equip itself with nuclear weapons.” 655 The

Soviets did not retract their conference invitation, but arranged for parallel Sino-Soviet

talks.

To prepare the American public, on June 10 Kennedy gave an important speech at

American University. Enmity does not last forever, he said, and no government was as

652
Dean 1966, 42; Wenger and Gerber 1999, 470-71; Seaborg 1981, 178-81; Firestone 1999, 80; see
Editorial Note, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. VII, pp. 623-25. Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President
Kennedy, December 19, 1962, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. VI, pp. 234-37; Message from President Kennedy to
Chairman Khrushchev, December 28, 1962, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. VI, pp. 238-40.
653
Document 284, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, January 25, 1963, CIA, FRUS 1961-63, Vol. V.,
p. 615.
654
Wenger and Gerber 1999, 472.
655
Mandelbaum 1979, 174.
208
evil to lack all virtue. The US fought no wars against the USSR and they even fought

together during WWII. They shared interests, especially regarding arms control, where a

fresh start was badly needed. Hence, the US would participate in test ban talks in

Moscow.656 The speech increased public support for a test ban and was well received in

the Kremlin. On July 2 Khrushchev signaled a new flexibility in the Soviet position. In an

East Berlin speech he stated that the USSR preferred a comprehensive test ban treaty, but

because the West would not agree to one without inspections, he was also open to a

limited test ban treaty.657

Signing the LTBT

Under-Secretary of State Averell W. Harriman and British Minister of Science

Lord Hailsham (Quintin Hogg) started test ban negotiations with Soviet Foreign Minister

Andrei Gromyko on July 15. Khrushchev participated as well. The parties stated that they

would have preferred a comprehensive test ban, but due to irreconcilable differences over

inspection, they settled for the LTBT. The US was aware that this would have a weaker

effect on Chinese proliferation, but it was better than no agreement. At the first meeting,

Khrushchev tabled a limited test ban treaty draft and a nonaggression pact between

NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Harriman tabled the limited test ban treaty draft that the US

and the UK proposed in Geneva in August 1962. The next ten days of negotiations

hammered out the LTBT, which was very similar to the Western draft.658

656
Document 50, Commencement Address by President John F. Kennedy at American University in
Washington, DC, 10 June 1963, Public Papers of President Kennedy, pp. 459-464.
657
FRUS 1961-63, Vol. VII, Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 762.
658
Dean 1966, 98.
209
 Khrushchev showed considerable flexibility by agreeing not to make the non-

aggression pact and France’s adherence to the treaty conditions for the signing of the

LTBT. But when Harriman brought up the issue of China, Khrushchev, in line with the

established Soviet position,659 did not voice much concern. 660 In response, Kennedy

continued to express concern and sent a telegram to Harriman to explore other, possibly

more aggressive actions against China, in case these become necessary:

“I remain convinced that Chinese problem is more serious than Khrushchev

comments in first meeting suggest, and believe you should press question in private
meeting with him. I agree that large stockpiles are characteristic of US and USSR
only, but consider that relatively small forces in hands of people like ChiComs
could be very dangerous to us all. Further believe even limited test ban can and
should be means to limit diffusion. You should try to elicit Khrushchev’s view of
means of limiting or preventing Chinese nuclear development and his willingness
either to take Soviet action or to accept US action aimed in this direction.” 661

Harriman was convinced that Khrushchev, like Kennedy, was interested in a test

ban because of China. Since the Soviets were not able to make the Chinese join a test

ban, they wanted to isolate them through such an agreement.662 During a reception at the

Polish Embassy Gromyko’s wife told US Ambassador to the USSR Foy D. Kohler: “You

tell Mr. Harriman that he has to do everything that is necessary to get this (test ban)

treaty. We have to have this so that when those Chinese have their first nuclear explosion,

659
Document 282. Editorial Note, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. VII, Arms Control and Disarmament
660
Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, July 15, 1963, FRUS 1961-
3, Vol. VII, p. 800.
661
Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, July 15, 1963, FRUS 1961-
63, Vol. VII, p. 801.
662
Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, FRUS 1961-63, Vol.
VII:808; Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, July 23, 1963, FRUS
1961-63, Vol. VII:833.
210
we will have a basis on which to call them to account.”663 Given that Soviet spouses did

not play an important role in Soviet policy, the significance of this even should not be

exaggerated. Indeed, Gromyko and Khrushchev were unwilling to discuss the issue, so

Harriman could not pursue the possibility of harsher measures with them. 664 Soviet

Ambassador to the US Anatoly Dobrynin argued that the Soviets regarded the split as the

result of Mao’s megalomania, and hoped that once he was out of the way Sino-Soviet

relations would improve.665

The main provision of the treaty, Article I, stated that each of the signatories

“undertakes to prohibit, to prevent, and not to carry out any nuclear weapons test

explosions, or any other nuclear explosions, at any places under its jurisdiction or

control” in the atmosphere, under water and outer space. It allowed underground testing

provided it did not result in radioactive debris beyond the border of the testing state.

If preventing Chinese proliferation was the main reason for the test ban, then

Chinese nuclear explosion would obviate such a ban. Thus, the US insisted on the

inclusion of a withdrawal clause that allowed the US to leave the agreement if China

went nuclear. This would also help the ratification of the treaty by Congress. To make the

withdrawal clause more palatable to the Soviets, the US agreed to extend the treaty to

nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes as well. There was some haggling over the

wording of the withdrawal article, because the Soviets wanted to avoid explicit reference

663
FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. VII: 845, fn1: “Telegram 303 from Moscow, July 24, not printed; Department of
State, Central Files, DEF 18-4.
664
Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, July 27, 1963, FRUS 1961-
63, Vol. VII, 860.
665
Document 54, Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, September 25, 1964, 1-3:30 p.m., Vol.
XXX, China.
211
to a Chinese nuclear detonation. They preferred to put pressure on China indirectly,

through the Afro-Asian bloc whose leadership China craved. In the end the agreed-on

withdrawal clause (Article IV) stipulated that withdrawal was justified if a signatory

“decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have

jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. 666

In parallel with the test ban talks Sino-Soviet talks were held in Moscow between

July 5 and 20. As these talks failed to improve relations between the two communist

giants and collapsed on July 20, they cleared the way for a test ban treaty. 667 Test ban

negotiations ended on July 25. The test ban that seemed so elusive for so many years was

achieved in ten days. The LTBT was initialed on July 25 and formally signed in Moscow

on August 5, 1963 by Rusk, Gromyko, and British Foreign Minister Lord Home.

Kennedy felt very strongly about the LTBT and he did all he could to ensure its

ratification by Congress. Reportedly he said that he “would gladly forfeit his re-election,

if necessary, for the sake of the Test Ban Treaty.”668 He carefully selected influential

Senators for the bipartisan delegation to the Moscow signing ceremony. He also

reassured the Central Intelligence Agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Joint

Chiefs of Staff that the LTBT would not hurt national security and their interests. He

consented to a vigorous program of underground testing, improvement of US technical

666
Seaborg 1981, 247; Dean 1966, 100. When China did finally detonate its first nuclear device more than
a year later, none of the parties took advantage of the withdrawal clause.
667
Mastny 2008, 18; Lüthi 2008, 246.
668
Jacobsen and Stein 1966, 463.
212
equipment to monitor observance of the treaty, and readiness to resume atmospheric

testing if the Soviets violated the LTBT.669

Kennedy’s efforts were fruitful. On September 24 the US Senate ratified the

treaty by 80 votes to 19. Kennedy signed the LTBT on October 7, which then entered into

force on October 10. World opinion greeted the LTBT enthusiastically and the Bulletin of

the Atomic Scientists pushed back the Doomsday Clock from eight to twelve minutes to

midnight.670

After the LTBT

Considering Preventive Strikes671

By the end of the year more than a hundred states signed or acceded to the LTBT,

except France, China and a few regimes friendly to China. 672 Kennedy was angry with

France and thundered that “Charles de Gaulle will be remembered for one thing only—

his refusal to take that treaty.”673 Since China did not join the LTBT, the US remained

concerned about a nuclear China. On 1 August Kennedy stated that with “700 million

people, a Stalinist internal regime,…nuclear powers, and a government determined on

669
Kaysen 1999, 111.
670
Maddock 2010, 218.
671
Although decision makers conducted the discussion in terms of “preemption,” arguably “prevention” is
the more appropriate term. Preemptive strikes refer to targeting an enemy which represents an imminent
threat, while preventive strikes refer to targeting an enemy before it becomes an imminent threat. The US
would strike against China before it could pose an imminent nuclear threat to the US.
672
Jacobson and Stein 1966, 464.
673
Kochavi 2002, 223.
213
war as a means of bringing about its ultimate success,” a nuclear China would result in an

extremely dangerous situation.674

In addition to US prejudices which imputed aggressive intentions and

occasionally irrationality to China, race amplified fears of a nuclear China in another

way. If China broke the white nuclear monopoly, other non-white countries would also

want the bomb. As a State Department memo put it: “The phenomenon of nuclear spread

may come to have a racial aspect, with a widespread feeling that nuclear weapons, now in

the hands of yellow men, can be in the hands of brown and black men.” 675 Moreover,

there was a sense that decolonization was increasing non-white influence in international

politics at the expense of white powers. In this context, in the words of a briefing

prepared for McNamara, “The Chinese test will represent probably the last opportunity

for the Western world to determine the patterns for the evolution of world politics”

(underlined in original). 676

The Kennedy administration suspected that the LTBT may not be sufficient to

stop Chinese proliferation, 677 but hoped that it would facilitate the Soviet policy of non-

assistance towards the Chinese nuclear program and would isolate China

internationally. 678 The latter expectation was only partially met. Afro-Asian countries

674
Presidential news conference, 1 August 1963, The Public Papers of President Kennedy, 1963,
Washington, 1964, p. 616; On August 10 Rusk expressed his concerns about China to the German
Chancellor in similar terms. See Telegram from Rusk to the Department of State, Bonn, August 10, 1963,
FRUS 61-3, Vol. VII, 874.
675
“Effects of the Chinese Bomb on Nuclear Spread,” November 2, 1964, Dept of State memo, DDRS.
676
Outline for Secretary’s Briefing Book, Memo for the Secretary of Defense, October 27, 1964, DDRS.
677
Memorandum by Director of CIA McCone, April 8, 1963, FRUS 1961-63, Vol. VII, 668.
678
Document 44, Draft Position Paper, Washington, August 14, 1964, FRUS 1964-8, Vol. XI, Arms
Control and Disarmament; “Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, January 9, 1963, between USSR
and US,” FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. VII, 629.
214
opposed proliferation, but they were also proud of China for breaking the white nuclear

monopoly, which substantially decreased the isolating effect of the treaty. 679

Since China was unwilling to join the LTBT, it was time to consider harsher

measures. 680 Both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations considered preventive

strikes against Chinese nuclear facilities. 681 Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Director William Foster recalled that Kennedy told the Portuguese Minister of Foreign

Affairs, Alberto Nogueira, that “the day [was] fast approaching [when] the West [would]

have to decide whether to use the atomic bomb on China so as to prevent the Chinese

from making atomic weapons.”682

The main preventive military actions considered were (1) overt action without

specific justification; (2) covert action without specific justification; (3) overt action

justified as response to Chinese aggression; and (4) overt action justified based on non-

proliferation.683 Robert Johnson of the Policy Planning Council represented the moderate

position in the debate about prevention. He advised against the first option because he

considered that such an unprovoked military action would entail high political costs and

679
Outline for Secretary’s Briefing Book, Memo for the Secretary of Defense, October 27, 1964, DDRS.
680
For a good discussion see Burr and Richelson 2000.
681
JCSM-986-63, 31 July 1963, FRUS 1961-63, VII: 24; NSC paper, “Destruction of Chinese Nuclear
Weapons Capabilities,” 14 December 1964, China folder, Box 5, NSF, LBJL.
682
Cited in Kochavi 2002, 220.
683
“Action against the Chinese Nuclear Program,” Walt W. Rostow, Chairman, Policy Planning Council,
to McGeorge Bundy, “The Bases for Direct Action Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities,” 22 April 1964,
attached to Policy Planning Council study, “An Exploration of the Possible Bases for Action Against the
Chinese Communist Nuclear Facilities,” by Robert Johnson, 14 April 1964, NSA Nukevault Key
Documents collection; Document 13, Memorandum, Robert H. Johnson, Department of State Policy
Planning Council, “The Chinese Communist Nuclear Capability and Some ‘Unorthodox’ Approaches to the
Problem of Nuclear Proliferation,” 1 June 1964, NSA The Test Ban Challenge; Document 4, Memorandum
from Komer to Bundy, February 26, 1964, FRUS 1964-68, XXX, China.
215
military risks. Interestingly, he argued that any unprovoked prevention would be

vulnerable to the charge of racism. 684

Covert action (option 2) would decrease political costs, but would only briefly

delay a Chinese bomb and its feasibility was uncertain. The last option was more

preferable because it would lower the political costs of prevention by further isolating

Chinese nuclear efforts through arms control agreements. The problem was that non-

proliferation agreements would take longer to achieve and in the meantime China may go

nuclear. Robert Johnson argued that the third option, action taken in response to Chinese

aggression, was the most preferable, because it would be politically the least costly.

While Robert Johnson represented the dovish camp, Henry S. Rowen of the

International Security Affairs Office in the Department of Defense represented the

hawkish camp. 685 The doves, he argued, underestimated the long-term implications of a

nuclear China. Even in the short run nuclear weapons would make China more dangerous

in Asia. But in the long run China would develop ICBMs and the US would become

vulnerable to a Chinese nuclear attack. Robert Johnson’s moderate position missed the

fact that even a small Chinese arsenal could be very destructive and threatening. In what

harkened back to the idea of a China insensitive to human losses, the hawks argued that

the US was far more vulnerable than China, because “we are likely to be more concerned

about, say, the loss of our two or three largest cities than would be China with respect to

684
Johnson, “An Exploration of the Possible Bases for Action Against the Chinese Communist Nuclear
Facilities,” April 14, 1964.
685
Document 51, Memorandum from Komer to Bundy, September 18, 1964, FRUS 1964-68, XXX, China.
A note in Bundy's handwriting reads: “Very interesting. McGB.”; Analysis of Robert Johnson’s paper of 14
April 1964, ACDA memo, December 14, 1964, DDRS.
216
her’s.”686 The doves also overestimated the feasibility problems of military prevention,

and underestimated the importance of delaying the Chinese bomb. Moreover, forceful

action against China would also discourage nuclear proliferation by other states.

Although Bundy and others found Rowen’s argument powerful, eventually the

moderate position won the day and no military action was taken. Rusk, McNamara and

Bundy at a State Department lunch and then at a meeting with President Kennedy,

decided that the US should not launch an unprovoked unilateral military action against

China’s nuclear facilities. But they were favorable to prevention in response to Chinese

aggression or if the US became engaged in military conflict with China. They were also

open to joint action with the Soviets. 687 The Soviets remained uninterested in harsher

measures until the 1969 clashes with China and by then the US lost interest.

China detonated its first nuclear device on October 16, 1964. The PRC’s official

statement called the LTBT “a big fraud,” reiterated the “paper tiger” view of the bomb,

and declared a policy of non-first use. China restated its interest in the elimination of

nuclear weapons, but until that was possible, Chinese nuclear capability was necessary in

the struggle against imperialism. 688 In a television interview Kennedy labeled the Chinese

bomb an offense against humanity, which violated world consensus for the test ban

686
Analysis of Robert Johnson’s paper of 14 April 1964, ACDA memo, December 14, 1964, DDRS.
687
Doc. 49, Memorandum for the Record, Washington, September 15, 1964, FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXX,
China.
688
Lewis and Xue 1988, 241-242.
217
treaty.689 But much of the American official reaction, especially under President Johnson,

took a moderate tone similar to earlier threat deflation propaganda. 690

Between October 1964 and March 1972 the PRC conducted 14 nuclear weapons

tests.691 As opposed to the Americans and the Soviets, the Chinese chose to keep their

nuclear arsenal surprisingly small. 692 Nuclear weapons not only did not make China more

aggressive, but actually made it less aggressive and more cautious. 693 The figure below

shows that similar to most other states, but in contrast with the Soviet Union, China

became significantly more peaceful after it acquired nuclear weapons.

Figure 4.2: China More Peaceful After Going Nuclear694

689
Outgoing telegram Dept of State, to all US Diplomatic posts, subject: “Further Guidance re Chicom
Nuclear Atmospheric Test,” October 21, 1964, DNSA US Nonproliferation collection.
690
Foot 1995, 183-4; NSF Country file, Box 22, C050-2, 16 Oct, 1964, LBJL.
691
Document 00245, 1972/03/00, “Soviet and Peoples Republic of China Nuclear Weapons Employment
Policy and Strategy,” Part II, DNSA China and the US collection.
692
Lewis 2007.
693
Jones 2010, 449; Gavin 2009-10, 16.
694
Fearon January 29, 2012. A similar graph also shows that China not only was involved in fewer military
disputes, but also initiated fewer disputes after going nuclear.
218
The 1972 Sino-American Rapprochement

A major event in the aftermath of the LTBT was the Sino-American

rapprochement almost a decade later. One may wonder how, if US threat perceptions of

China were inflated, was this improvement of relations possible. I contend that inflated

threat perceptions do not necessarily imply conflict. They create certain dispositions but

are not entirely determinate as to the particular behavior and need to rely on other factors

to become determinate. To explain the broader US China policy we need to bring in

domestic politics. The US continued to perceive China as threatening, just as it did

earlier. But if inflated threat perceptions were channeled towards “containment with

isolation” in the early 1960s, they were channeled towards “containment without

isolation” a decade later. The main reasons were the bankruptcy of the “containment with

isolation” policy and the weakening of the China lobby that championed it. The tide

turned in favor of China policy revisionists. 695

“Containment without isolation” gradually became the dominant revisionist China

policy. In its 1965 report to the President, the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation argued

that a nuclear China was the biggest problem facing non-proliferation efforts “because of

their size, intransigence and isolation.”696 The proposed policy was to end the isolation of

China by adopting “a ‘join first’ instead of ‘behave first’ position”. If the US was

committed to nonproliferation, a major reconsideration of China policy was necessary. 697

695
For the three main revisionist schools see Kochavi 2002, 248-9.
696
Doc. 60, “Minutes of Discussion of Committee on Nuclear Proliferation,” January 7-8, 1965, FRUS
1964-68, Vol. XI, Arms Control and Disarmament.
697
Goh 2005, 70.
219
Perhaps China could be told that joining the LTBT was a first step in its path towards

responsible membership in the international community. 698

Amidst the shift towards more cooperative China policies the China threat

remained strong. McNamara and later President Nixon justified the deployment of light

Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems based primarily on the nuclear China threat. 699

Given overwhelming US nuclear superiority, such a position suggested underlying

concerns of Chinese irrationality, 700 which made deterrence unreliable. Indeed,

McNamara argued that the ABM system would be useful “to limit damage to our Nation

in the event of our offensive force failed to deter an ‘irrational’ aggressor”. That he had

China in mind was implied as he added that the ABM system “could hold US fatalities

below 1 million in face of primitive Chinese attack.”701 Similarly, President Johnson

justified the build-up of troops in Vietnam based on the China threat,702 while in October

1967 Rusk infamously invoked the threat of a billion Chinese armed with nuclear

weapons.703

698
Doc. 63, “Memorandum From James C. Thomson, Jr., of the National Security Council Staff to the
President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” October 28, 1964, FRUS 64-8, XXX,
China.
699
Doc. 01411, “Report on the Proposed Army-BTL Ballistic Missile Defense System,” October 29, 1965,
Strategic Military Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, DNSA US Nuclear History; Doc.
00463 “Statement of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara before the House Armed Services
Committee on the Fiscal Year 1967-71 Defense Program and 1967 Defense Budget,” c. 1966, DNSA US
Nuclear History; Doc. 20, Office of the Secretary of Defense, “FY 73 Safeguard Rationale,” 27 February
1972, NSA Missile Defense 30 Years Ago collection; Doc. 00476, Strategic Offensive and Defensive
Forces, Draft Presidential Memo, January 9, 1969, DNSA US Nuclear History.
700
Hearings before the Subcommittee on Arms Control, 91st Congress, second session, 1970, p. 172.
701
Doc. 00474, Statement of McNamara before the House Subcommittee on Department of Defense
Appropriations on the Fiscal Year 1969-73 and 1969 Defense Budget, January 22, 1968, DNSA US
Nuclear History
702
Peck 2006, 226.
703
Rusk 1990, 290.
220
 Even if the China threat was employed purely instrumentally in some or all of

these cases, it nonetheless shows that threat perceptions remained high. But in the

absence of a strong China lobby these fears were channeled towards “containment

without isolation.” In a 1967 Foreign Affairs article Richard Nixon argued that in the

long run isolating China was not a viable solution because there was not enough room on

the planet for a billion Chinese living in “angry isolation.” He dismissed the idea that the

US should form an anti-Chinese alliance with the Europeans and the Soviets, as this

would be seen as racist. Instead, he believed it was best “to pull China back in to the

family of nations”.704 A Lou Harris poll of June 1966 found that 57 percent of the public

supported the recognition of China, while 43 percent opposed it. China was still

perceived as aggressive, but the public concluded, perhaps due to China’s nuclear

detonation, that it was here to stay and the threat it posed should be addressed by

engaging, rather than isolating it.705 More China-friendly policies also seemed attractive

because they promised to help settle the Vietnam War. 706 Consequently, President Nixon

and Secretary of State Kissinger orchestrated the Sino-American rapprochement.

Classical Content Analysis

This section employs classical content analysis to assess the extent to which the

arguments made in this chapter are supported by evidence drawn from a more systematic

sampling of texts. More specifically, it looks at three questions: 1) Is there evidence that

704
Article by Richard M. Nixon, FRUS 1969-72, Vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy 1969-72, Source:
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 46, No. 1, October 1967, pp. 113-125.
705
Foot 1995, 101.
706
Doc. 00307, 1974/08/14, People’s Republic of China, DNSA China and the US.
221
perceptions of the China threat were greater than those of the Soviet threat? 2) How does

race hold up in comparison with alternative explanations? 3) Is there systematic evidence

that the China threat was racial? As discussed in Chapter 3, classical content analysis can

be helpful in answering such questions by providing word frequencies and concordances

(the immediate textual context of relevant words). For example, if we find that “threat” is

more frequently associated with China than with the Soviet Union, there are reasons to

think that China was perceived as more threatening. While frequency tests can help us

indirectly assess degrees threat perception, concordance tests can help us assess the

nature of these perceived threats. Word frequencies and concordances can also give us an

idea regarding the relative importance of alternative explanations.

Of course, classical content analysis has significant limitations. Concordances

might not capture relative explanatory power, since correlation is not causation. Word

frequencies can miss the importance of taboo topics, such as race. We must keep these

limitations in mind as we evaluate the results below. Nonetheless, the large-N

quantitative evidence analyzed by classical content analysis can still usefully complement

the in-depth case study of this chapter.

In order to perform content analysis, I operationalized the relevant terms by

building “content dictionaries”. Content dictionaries are a group of words, usually

synonyms of the term we are interested in analyzing. In constructing content dictionaries

I relied on my knowledge of the subject and the Thesaurus to put together a list of words

that in my view could best capture the relevant terms. I built a content dictionary for race

consisting of yellow, white, race, color, civilized, fanatic, irrational, Asiatic, and Oriental.

222
To minimize chances of overcounting race, I performed concordance tests and excluded

non-racial occurrences (such as arms race) from the frequency test. The content

dictionary of threat consists of threat, peril, danger, menace, aggression, conflict, fear,

tension, violence, and war. To capture the threat perception of China and the Soviet

Union, I performed a concordance test of “threat” and selected those instances where

“threat” was associated with China or the Soviet Union. The frequencies and

concordances together provide a useful depiction of American threat perceptions of

China and the Soviet Union.

I also looked at word frequencies for the “Cuban missile crisis,” “proliferation,”

and “fallout,” key words of alternative explanations for the LTBT. As discussed in the

next section, these alternative explanations argue that the LTBT was not so much the

result of racially inflated threat perceptions as of fears of nuclear proliferation more

generally, fears of radioactive fallout due to atmospheric testing, and fears of a nuclear

war amplified by the Cuban missile crisis. I coded most texts manually, except the

journal articles, where I used the Yoshikoder software, as I did in Chapter 3. This gave

me the chance to include in the frequency count most variants and synonyms of the key

terms of alternative explanations, even though I did not construct separate content

dictionaries for them.

I performed the content analysis on 150 systematically selected texts, including a

broad range of newspaper articles, governmental documents, and journal articles for the

period between January 1, 1961 and December 30, 1964 (see Appendix B). To select

newspaper articles, I searched the Proquest Historical Newspapers database using four

223
search words: “threat,” “test ban,” “Communist China,” and “Soviet Union”. Of the 343

search results I selected the first 50, ordered by relevance. The articles come from four

historical newspapers: The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post,

and the Chicago Tribune. To select journal articles, I searched the JSTOR database using

the same four search words. Of the 122 search results, I selected the first 50, ordered by

relevance. The selected articles come primarily from political science, international

relations, and international law. Finally, to select governmental documents I searched the

Proquest Congressional database with the same search words. I found only 2

congressional documents. I selected the rest of 48 governmental documents from the

Foreign Relations of the United States series. Since I was interested in American threat

perceptions of both China and the US, I selected the following FRUS volumes between

1961 and 1963 (FRUS for the Kennedy years): Volume V The Soviet Union; Volume VII

Arms Control and Disarmament; Volume VIII National Security Policy; and Volume

XXII Northeast Asia (section on China). I searched for “threat” in each of these volumes

and selected the first ten documents from Vols. V, VIII, and XXII. Because it is the most

relevant for the subject matter of the chapter, I selected the first 18 documents from

Volume VII to reach the limit of 50 governmental documents.

The results pertaining to the first question suggest that perceptions of China were

greater than those of the Soviet Union. Although the frequency of the Soviet threat,

especially in governmental documents, suggests that the Soviet Union was seen as a

threat (not surprisingly for the Cold War), overall threat was more often associated with

China (83) than with the Soviet Union (61) (see Table 4.1). Concordance tests suggest

224
that not only were threat perceptions of China higher than those of the Soviet Union, but

their nature was also different. While both communist giants were seen as enemies of the

“Free World,” Khrushchev was perceived as brutal but calculating, while Mao was

perceived as a “madmen”. The intensity of the adjectives associated with the China threat

(“vicious,” “aggressive,” and “fanatic,”) suggests that, with a few exceptions, 707 it was

seen as more dangerous than the one posed by the Soviets. The Chinese were perceived

as convinced of the inevitability of (nuclear) war with the “imperialist West”. In contrast,

the Soviets were perceived as an enemy which embraced “peaceful coexistence”.

Threat China threat Soviet threat

Newspapers 37 29 8
Journal 65 34 25
Articles
Government 42 18 24
Documents
Total 144 83 61
Table 4.1: Content Analysis Threat Frequencies

Second, in the frequency test Race does respectably in absolute terms, but it is

outperformed by two of three alternative explanations (see Table 4.2). In the aggregate,

the Cuban missile crisis was the most frequently mentioned (114), closely followed by

Proliferation (104). Race was third (84), just ahead of Fallout (74). Cuban missile crisis

707
Some criticized explicitly the widespread view that the Chinese were the “bad” Communists, irrational
and fanatic, while the Soviets were the “good” Communists (see Ford 1964; US, China, Russia: A Strange
Triangle, Washington Post, October 18, 1964.
225
performed best in all categories except governmental documents, where Proliferation was

most frequently mentioned (64). Race performed worst in governmental documents (5),

and best in journal articles (63). The respectable performance of Race suggests that while

it may not be the primary explanatory factor of the LTBT, it played a sufficiently

important role to be worth taking seriously. Admittedly, the results may have been

influenced by the fact that in the absence of a content dictionary Yoshikoder

undercounted the alternatives in the Journal articles. However, I suspect that the

emerging taboo nature of race talk at the time contributed at least as much to the

undercounting of race in these documents.

Race Cuba Proliferation Fallout

Newspapers 16 17 11 3
Journal 63 57 30 22
Articles
Government 5 41 64 49
Documents
Total 84 114 104 74
Table 4.2: Alternative Explanation Keyword Frequencies

Third, although the causal link between race and the China threat cannot be

unequivocally established, there are some reasons to suspect its existence. Explicit

rhetoric linking race to China threat is absent, not surprisingly, given emerging normative

prohibition against racism. Although China was seen as vicious, aggressive, and fanatic,

based on this sample of texts it is difficult to show that these features were seen as racial.

226
For example, President Johnson voiced concerns of a nuclear China, arguing that the four

(white) nuclear powers (the US, the USSR, Britain, and France) were all “sober and

serious states, with long experience as major powers in the modern world. Communist

China has no such experience.” 708 Whether China’s lack of sobriety and seriousness

implied by this statement is inherent to the Chinese character, and hence racial, is

impossible to tell. Yet the loose correlation between Race and the China threat

frequencies suggests that a causal connection is plausible, even if explicit rhetoric does

not connect the two (see Figure 4.3). Race and the China threat fall and rise together

between 1961 and 1963. The dip from 1961 to 1962 is surprising. The shift away from

race and the China threat to the Soviet threat may be due to Cuba. After 1963 somewhat

surprisingly the China threat decreases slightly, while race continues to rise. Perhaps

cooperation with the Soviets and the conclusion of the LTBT mitigated the China threat.

60
40
20
0
1961 1962 1963 1964

Race China Threat

Figure 4.3: Correlation between Race and the China Threat

708
The President’s Report on Events in Russia and China, The Washington Post, October 19, 1964.
227
 In sum, classical content analysis provides evidence which suggests that 1)

American threat perceptions of China were higher than those of the Soviet Union; 2) that

race is an explanatory factor worth taking seriously, but it may not be the strongest

explanation for the China threat and the LTBT; and 3) the link between race and the

China threat cannot be unambiguously established, but is plausible. I hope that with the

evidence provided by the case study above, and the discussion showing the lacunae of

alternative explanations, the reader is persuaded that race played a role in inflating threat

perceptions and facilitating the LTBT.

Alternative Explanations

One alternative explanation to the racial one provided in this chapter is that public

fears of radioactive fallout led to the LTBT.709 The 1954 BRAVO test series of US

hydrogen bombs, which contaminated the Japanese fishermen aboard the Lucky Dragon,

mobilized international public opinion against atmospheric testing. The 1955 radioactive

rain in Chicago did the same domestically. Furthermore, new research suggested that

strontium-90 was found in milk due to testing, and this caused various diseases including

leukemia, bone cancer, and genetic defects. In response, a grassroots anti-testing

movement emerged, which included famous scientists like Linus Pauling and influential

organizations like the Nuclear Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). Kennedy

himself referred to the danger of fallout when asking the Senate to ratify the LTBT. 710

709
Tannenwald 2005, 27; Divine 1978; Jacobson and Stein 1966, 19-20.
710
Bechhoefer 1972-73, 130; Hearings on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. at 3, 1963.
228
 Fears of radioactive fallout were important in initiating test ban talks and the 1958

moratorium on testing. 711 But there is little evidence that they played an important role in

the achievement of the LTBT. The American public’s concerns over fallout actually

decreased over time as information about it increased. If in 1958 less than a third of the

public dismissed the danger of radioactive fallout, by 1961 two thirds did. 712 Wide

swings in public support for test cessation also suggest that the public could not have

pressured the US government towards the LTBT. A majority of Americans approved of

test cessation in November 1959 (77%), disapproved between June 1961 (53%) and

March 1962 (67%), and approved again in August 1963 (61%).713 That support for test

cessation was highest in 1959 and then increased again after the LTBT was signed

suggests that the public followed, not pushed, Kennedy to the LTBT. After Kennedy’s

American University speech in June 1963 unqualified public support for a test ban

increased to 52 percent, and after the treaty was signed it increased to 81 percent.714 The

media followed a similar trajectory, opposing a test ban in the late 1950s and supporting

it after its signing. 715 The high public support elicited by Kennedy’s efforts may have

facilitated the ratification of the treaty by Congress. AEC Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg

argues that congressional mail showed that fear of fallout was the primary factor in public

support for the LTBT.716 Nonetheless, the empirical record shows little evidence that

public concern of fallout was a prominent reason for Kennedy’s pursuit of a test ban.

711
Wittner 1997, 181-82, 414, chapter 18.
712
Boyer 1984, 823; Rosi 1965, 287.
713
Rosi 1965, 283.
714
Terchek 1970, 119; Seaborg 1981, 268-9.
715
Lepper 1971, 53; Terchek 1970, 70.
716
Seaborg 1981, 268-9.
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 Another explanation emphasizes the role of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October

1962. The crisis, this explanation goes, created a political context favorable to test ban

negotiations, 717 by driving home the importance of nuclear cooperation between the

superpowers to avoid nuclear holocaust. In a letter to Khrushchev Kennedy expressed his

hopes that stepping back from the nuclear brink would facilitate progress on the test ban.

Khrushchev responded two days later by suggesting that “we have now conditions ripe

for finalizing the agreement on signing a treaty on cessation of tests of thermonuclear

weapons.”718

There is no doubt that the crisis created a “window of opportunity” for the test

ban. 719 The crisis probably contributed to Khrushchev’s December 19 proposal. But

Kennedy’s rejection of this proposal and the obstructionist attitude adopted by Soviet

diplomats in early 1963 effectively closed this window of opportunity. Without

Kennedy’s growing concerns of Chinese nuclear detonation it is unlikely that he would

have nonetheless persisted in his test ban efforts.

General fears of nuclear proliferation provide the strongest alternative

explanation. It can account for much of the US persistence in pursuing a test ban. 720

Kennedy repeatedly expressed his concerns regarding the danger of nuclear proliferation.

His statement during the news conference of March 21 1963 is representative: “I see the

possibility in the 1970s of the president of the United States having to face a world in

which fifteen or twenty or twenty-five nations may have these weapons. I regard that as

717
Wenger and Gerber 1999, 469.
718
Cited in Mastny 2008, 8; for the Kennedy-Khrushchev correspondence between October 28 and 30,
1962 see FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. VI:186, 188, 192.
719
Mandelbaum 1979, 134, 157.
720
Firestone 1999, 74; Bechhoefer 1972, 130.
230
the greatest possible danger…’” 721 This fear was echoed by others in the administration.

Harriman told Khrushchev in Moscow that “If no agreement is reached, then in a few

years there might be ten or fifteen nuclear powers.722 Kennedy’s instructions to Harriman

before leaving for Moscow stated that a test ban was in US national interest in part

because it was an “indispensible first step toward the limitation of the further diffusion of

nuclear weapons.”723 Although members of the Kennedy administration did not think a

test ban would stop nuclear proliferation, they hoped that it would slow it down.

Concerns of nuclear proliferation were certainly important drivers behind test ban

efforts. But with respect to the timing of the LTBT, they are indeterminate. If the US was

so concerned about nuclear proliferation, it is unclear why it did not push harder for the

LTBT earlier, before France obtained the bomb in 1960. During the early years of the

nuclear age the US was less concerned about nuclear proliferation. 724 The empirical

record shows that what made the issue a top national security priority was the fear of a

nuclear China. It was not simply the threat of proliferation that led to the LTBT,

important as that was, but the threat of Chinese proliferation. Without the racially inflated

threat perceptions of the Kennedy administration explanations of the LTBT remain

severely truncated. This chapter contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of

the LTBT and explores one way in which race matters in international politics.

721
Cited in Seaborg 1981, 198-9.
722
Memorandum of Conversation, Moscow, July 26, 1963, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. V:213.
723
He also mentioned that it was a first step towards stopping the arms race. Draft Instructions for the
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Harriman), July 5, 1963, FRUS 1961-3, Vol. VII:769.
724
Mandelbaum 1979, 161.
231
Conclusion

In conclusion, this chapter argued that racial prejudices inflated American threat

perceptions and facilitated the achievement of the LTBT. In conformity with Hypotheses

2 and 3, racial prejudices pertaining to aggressive intentions and irrationality inflated

American threat perceptions of a nuclear China. These racially inflated fears facilitated

American efforts to work towards the LTBT, despite years of unproductive arms control

negotiations. The Soviets, largely for strategic reasons, but to a lesser extent also because

they shared racial fears of a nuclear China, cooperated with the US to bring about the

LTBT. Although the LTBT ultimately did not inhibit the Chinese bomb, it facilitated

détente and subsequent arms control agreements.

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 Chapter Five: Race and the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment

Open investment is the twin of free trade in American economic policy. After

World War II the US had maintained one of the most open investment policies in the

world, keeping restrictions at a minimum. During the second half of the 1980s this open

investment policy was challenged by a flurry of Congressional bills proposing stricter

regulations of foreign direct investment in the United States (FDIUS). 725 These

Congressional efforts led to the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment, which expanded federal

authority to regulate foreign direct investment. For the first time in history, the President

had discretionary power to screen and even block FDIUS on national security grounds

broadly construed.

Why did Congress push for Exon-Florio, weakening America’s open investment

policy? There is much agreement that Congressional action was driven by fears of

Japanese FDIUS, but there is little agreement over the sources of this fear. Given that

Japanese FDIUS was much smaller than European FDIUS in general and British FDIUS

in particular, this fear is puzzling. Why did Americans perceive Japanese direct

investment as more threatening than British direct investment, which was double the

size? As discussed in more detail later, alternative explanations focusing on Pearl Harbor,

725
A prior, smaller challenge to open investment occurred in the 1970s in response to Arab investment.
233
threat inflation by US industries, and the fast growth of Japanese investment are

insightful, but incomplete, leaving room for a racial explanation.

This chapter argues that Congress weakened the open investment policy through

Exon-Florio in response to the American public’s racially inflated threat perceptions of

Japanese FDIUS. Japan’s impressive economic growth and its trade surplus with the US

led to trade frictions. In the American mind these frictions activated the perception of

Japan as a ‘Yellow Peril’. Based on racial prejudices underpinning this lens of

perception, the American public imputed aggressive intentions and deviousness

(Hypotheses 2 and 4) to the Japanese. Americans then perceived the smaller FDIUS from

Japan, a non-white democratic ally, as more threatening than the larger FDIUS from

Britain, a white democratic ally. By the late 1980s the ‘Yellow Peril’ trumped even the

‘Red Peril’ as Americans perceived Japan, their non-white democratic ally, as more

threatening than the USSR, their white communist enemy. Due to differences in electoral

incentives and institutional roles, Congress was more eager to act on these popular fears

than the Executive. Although it could not be insensitive to public and Congressional

pressure, the Executive used liberal free market rhetoric to justify its support for open

investment. It successfully opposed the most restrictive Congressional bills, but

eventually had to acquiesce to a watered-down Exon-Florio. The President’s support for

open investment and subsequent selective application of Exon-Florio mitigated the extent

to which the America’s open investment policy was undermined.

The argument does not imply that all those concerned about Japanese foreign

investment did so because of racial prejudices. Unfortunately, a limitation of the analysis

234
is that it cannot tell us precisely how important race is relative to alternative factors. The

argument is only that race was an important contributor to the passage of Exon-Florio,

not that it was more important than other factors. The argument also does not imply that

race is necessary for inflated fears of foreign investment generally. These fears can have

various other causes, such as nationalism or a history of conflict between host and source

countries. 726

Although this case is consistent with the theoretical expectation that race

inflates threat perceptions, it only partially meets another theoretical expectation: that of

cooperation along the color line. Europeans’ threat perception of Japanese investment

was also racially inflated, but transatlantic cooperation against Japan was modest, largely

limited to policy coordination. More extensive cooperation was obstructed by a host of

factors including heightened concerns of being perceived as racist, US liberalization

efforts at the Uruguay Round negotiations of GATT, the liberal economic ideas prevalent

in the Reagan Administration, and coordination problems among European states.

The chapter proceeds as follows. The first part shows how race inflated US threat

perceptions of Japanese FDIUS. It starts with a brief discussion of the “economic Yellow

Peril”. The chapter continues by tracing how Japanese-American trade frictions activated

prejudices of the ‘Yellow Peril’, rendering Japanese investment more threatening than

European investment. US threat perceptions were inflated to such an extent that Japan

came to be seen as more threatening than the USSR. The second part traces how this

726
European concerns of American FDI in the 1960s and American concerns of European FDIUS in the
late 19th century provide examples of how nationalism can inflate such threats (Wilkins 1989, 573-84;
Reich 1989). Asian concerns of their markets being flooded by Japanese products in the 1970s were also
inflated by World War II memories of Japanese atrocities.
235
racially inflated threat perception led to the Exon-Florio Amendment. The chapter

concludes with a discussion of alternative explanations and the limitations of the

argument.

RACE INFLATES US THREAT PERCEPTIONS OF JAPANESE FDIUS

The “Economic Yellow Peril”

Western concerns about the ‘economic Yellow Peril’ can be traced back to the

end of the nineteenth century. 727 This perceived peril came in two versions. The first,

touched upon in Chapter 3, was the economic peril of ‘Oriental’ immigration. 728

Allegedly due to racial characteristics, inferior non-whites were better adapted to inferior

living conditions and mechanized production. ‘Oriental’ laborers could work more for

less, posing a severe challenge to the welfare and even the survival of white laborers.

Once they monopolized a sector of the economy, their racial solidarity facilitated

collusion to raise wages. The competition was unfair and whites had to be protected. The

“silent invasion” of ‘Oriental’ laborers could be stopped only by prohibiting Oriental

immigration to the US altogether. With the 1924 immigration law excluding ‘Oriental’

immigrants from the US, this version of the ‘Yellow Peril’ receded.

This chapter focuses on the second version of the ‘economic Yellow Peril’,

economic competition from the Orient. 729 The dominant fear was not of ‘Oriental’

immigrants, but of inexpensive ‘Oriental’ products. ‘Oriental’ industrialization, in

conjunction with cheap and abundant labor, would flood Western markets with goods at

727
Pearson 1893, 100-101; 133-41; Wilkinson 1991, 126-7.
728
Thompson 1978, chapter 4.
729
Thompson 1978, chapter 5.
236
the expense of white producers. In the case of Japan this perceived peril was amplified by

the racial prejudices of devious and aggressive Japanese (businessman), traits which

made Japanese economic competition especially formidable. By 1893-1894 the US

Congress considered the protection of the American silk and camphor industries from

Japanese competition.730 Following Japan’s victory over Russia in the 1904-5 war,

Roosevelt warned that soon the West “would dread the economic power of Japan more

than that of any current industrial rival.” 731

Although in the US prejudices of Japanese aggressiveness and deviousness were

reinforced by Pearl Harbor, in the West more generally they preceded this historical event

by centuries. As early as 1580 the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano noted that the

Japanese “are the most false and treacherous people of any known in the world.” 732 More

than three centuries later, these prejudices were alive and well. In 1902 one British

observer explained the Western prejudice of Japanese deviousness as an

overgeneralization from the realm of business. Because being a merchant in Japan was

“formally the lowest of the respectable callings” it was hard to find “a very high standard

of business morality.” English and American businessmen only interacted with these

supposedly immoral Japanese businessmen, hence they thought of all Japanese as

“dishonest, tricky and altogether unreliable…” 733

Western prejudices of Japanese aggressiveness can be traced back to perceptions

of the Japanese “warrior trader” and “soldier-bureaucrat.” This prejudice was reinforced

730
Thompson 1978, 145,158.
731
Cited in Thompson 1978, 170.
732
Cited in Littlewood 1996, 3-4.
733
A.M. Bacon, Japanese Girls and Women, Boston, 1902, p. 262; cited in Wilkinson 1991, 120;
interestingly, Bacon did not extend this characterization to the Chinese.
237
when Japan aggressively pushed into Western markets in the 1930s. During the Great

Depression of 1929-32, in contrast with other industrialized nations, Japan registered an

increase in exports and foreign market share. Western businessmen reacted vehemently,

denouncing Japanese exports as a “swelling tide of yellow trade,” “unfair competition,”

“new yellow peril” and the “menace of a sharp inrush of Japanese goods”.734 A similar

minor wave of “economic Yellow Peril” occurred in Europe in the 1950s, but it failed to

take off because Japan was a Western ally and China represented the real “Yellow Peril”.

It was not until the 1970s, after the Sino-American rapprochement, that American

perceptions of the Japanese “Yellow Peril” were activated by trade frictions. The next

section discusses how this happened.

US-Japanese Trade Frictions Activate Prejudices Underlying the Japanese ‘Yellow

Peril’
After Japan’s defeat in the “war without mercy,” 735 the racial fears and hatreds of

World War II faded into the background. Japan became America’s Cold War ally against

the Soviet Union. Although race continued to mediate Japanese-American relations, the

‘Yellow Peril’ temporarily gave way to racial paternalism, with Japan in the role of a

“good pupil” to be guided to democratic and capitalist maturity. 736 During the same

period, as discussed in Chapter 4, China was perceived as the nuclear “Yellow Peril”. But

734
Cited in Wilkinson 1991, 129.
735
Dower 1986.
736
US Senate, Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Foreign Relations, 82nd Cong., 1st sess.,
Hearings to Conduct an Inquiry into the Military Situation in the Far East and the Facts Surrounding the
Relief of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from His Assignments in that Area, 1951, pt. 1:312-13,
cited in Dower 1986, 303. This racial paternalism overlapped with the gendered image of Japan as a
subservient geisha, further mitigating American racial fear of and hostility towards Japan (Shibusawa
2006).
238
the 1972 Sino-American rapprochement and China’s responsible behavior as a nuclear

power discredited these racially inflated threat perceptions. Meanwhile, the Japanese

economy’s meteoric rise and ballooning trade surplus with the US caused trade frictions.

These re-activated American racial fears of Japan and transposed the ‘Yellow Peril’ from

China to Japan. This time around, however, Japan was an “economic Yellow Peril,”

rather than the “immigration Yellow Peril” of the early twentieth century or the “military

Yellow Peril” of World War II.

After World War II the Japanese economy lay in shambles. For resource-poor

Japan the best solution for economic recovery was export-led growth. Stimulated by the

industrial policy of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and

access to the American market, from 1949 to 1973 Japanese exports grew by 14.7 percent

and real GNP by 9.5 percent per year. 737 Japan’s GNP surpassed Britain’s in 1967,

France’s in 1968, and West Germany’s in 1969. In 1970 Japan became the world’s third

largest economy with $200 billion, after America’s $932 billion and the USSR’s $600

billion.738 “If the present Japanese expansion of production continues,” Secretary of

Commerce Malcolm Baldrige warned, “it will be, in 20 years, a greater industrial power

than the United States.”739

After 1965 Japan’s chronic trade deficit with the US was replaced by a chronic

trade surplus. A frustrated Nixon referred to Japanese diplomats as “little Sony salesman”

and threatened to apply import tariffs under the Trading with the Enemy Act “only for

737
Watts et al 1979,7.
738
Japan was only 19th measured by GNP per capita. See “Toward the Japanese Century,” Time, March 2,
1970.
739
Cited in White 1985.
239
textiles—i.e., Japs,” sparing the Europeans.740 Kissinger was recorded telling the Joint

Chiefs of Staff that the Japanese are “mean and treacherous”.741 This trade surplus

increased substantially under President Ronald Reagan, whose fiscal expansion and

monetary contraction raised the value of the dollar, making US exports less competitive.

American cumulative foreign trade deficit during the 1980s totaled $1 trillion, about half

of it with Japan. High interest rates attracted Japanese capital, which in effect financed

America’s deficit spending. By 1986 Japan replaced the US as the world’s biggest

creditor, while the US became the world’s biggest debtor. To decrease the growing trade

deficit and protect threatened industries, the US pressured Japan into a series of

‘voluntary’ export restraints (VERs) first in textiles, then in steel, televisions,

automobiles, and many others. Despite these agreements, Japanese-American trade

frictions proliferated.

Frequent and persistent trade frictions activated the racial prejudices underpinning

the ‘Yellow Peril’. Americans imputed aggressive and devious intentions to Japanese in

general and Japanese businessmen in particular. Imputed deviousness was visible in

extreme versions of ‘Japan, Inc’. This pejorative label was coined in the 1960s in the

business press to refer to collusion among private and public actors in Japan to promote

exports and protect domestic markets from foreign competition. Extreme versions of

Japan, Inc. explained Japanese economic success as a function of “scheming, conniving,

treacherous or playing by immoral rules in the frantic equation of economic competition

740
Cited in Schaller 1997, 212, 235; Haldeman notes, Aug. 14, 1971, WHSF, Nixon Project. In 1971, upset
that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported bad economic news, Nixon instructed his aide Frederick Malek
to purge the ‘Jewish cabal’ there (Schaller 1997:234). Although the dissertation focuses on Asian racial
Others, there is an interesting study to be written on Israel as the racial Other.
741
Cited in LaFeber 1997, xxi.
240
with war.”742 In this view, the liberal economic system built on openness and fair

competition was taken advantage of by a closed and unfair trader, Japan. Some even

argued that Japanese culture was incompatible with the liberal economic order, thus

Japan could not partake in it without losing what made it “genuinely Japanese”. 743

Prejudices of Japanese aggressiveness were also widespread. A 1970 Time article

explained that the Japanese businessman was the descendant of the “warrior-trader, who

began plundering Asia as early as the 14th century,” and the “soldier-bureaucrat who went

to war a generation ago to develop a ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’”.744 A

1971 Time story transposed to Japanese businessmen elements of the ‘Yellow Peril’

applied to Chinese soldiers during the Korean War. It was now Japanese businessmen

who constituted “the human sea” and employed “human-sea tactics” as they ‘flooded’

foreign markets and ‘drowned’ foreign businessmen. It further explained that,

because Japan “has been shaped by Oriental history and psychology,” it engaged in

“inscrutable economics.” The article cited a member of the Nixon Cabinet, most likely

Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans: “The Japanese are still fighting the war, only now

instead of a shooting war it is an economic war. Their immediate intention is to try to

dominate the Pacific and then perhaps the world.”745

The racial prejudices underpinning the perception of Japan as an “economic

Yellow Peril” were reinforced by newspapers and books. A systematic survey of the New

York Times between 1975 and 1995 reveals that trade frictions were regularly described

742
Morris 2001, 57; Clapp and Halperin 1975, 206-7.
743
Prestowitz 1988, 313.
744
“Toward the Japanese Century,” Time, March 2, 1970.
745
“Japan, Inc.: Winning the Most Important Battle,” Time, May 10, 1971.
241
in terms of “trade war,” “crossed swords,” “bloody battle,” “weapons,” and

“retaliation.”746 Scholars concurred that the Japanese were “targeting one American

industry after another for destruction” in what was “an effort to continue fighting World

War II through economic aggression.” 747 Bestsellers such as Herman Kahn’s 1971 The

Emerging Japanese Superstate and Ezra F. Vogel’s 1979 Japan as Number One: Lessons

for America depicted a powerful Japan which could threaten American primacy. Book

titles such as Japan: The Planned Aggression, The Japanese Threat, The Japanese

Industrial Challenge, Japan: Monster or Model, and Stop the Japanese Now captured the

rising alarm that Japan engendered.748 While American bestsellers about Japan in the

1950s and 1960s focused on geishas and cherry blossoms, those in the 1970s and 1980s

switched to shoguns and ninjas. 749 Michael Crichton’s 1992 bestselling docu-novel,

Rising Sun, explained Japanese economic success based on “a new kind of trade—

adversarial trade, trade like war, trade intended to wipe out the competition—which

America has failed to understand for several decades.”750

Consistent with these fears, American public opinion was increasingly leery of

Japan. A Louis Harris survey in 1971 found that 25 percent of Americans agreed with the

statement that “Orientals, including the Japanese, are sly and devious—we should never

trust them or rely on them as allies” and 50 percent agreed that “the Japanese economic

advance is so great it now poses a serious economic threat to Western countries,

746
Luther 2001, 144.
747
Packard 1987/88, 350; Cohen 1998, 36.
748
Wilkinson 1991,138.
749
Johnson 1991, viii.
750
Crichton 1992, 347.
242
including the US.”751 Although Americans considered Japan to be more reliable than

other Asian states, 54 percent still thought the Japanese were sly, 35 percent that they

were treacherous, and 37 percent that they were deceitful. 752 Trade frictions activated and

further amplified these negative attitudes. 753

Politicians came to see trade frictions as a trade war against a devious and

aggressive Japan, and made increasingly violent statements in response. In 1982 the

Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, asserted that if he were President he would “fix the

Japanese like they’ve never been fixed before”. Secretary of Commerce William Verity

referred to “the Japs” in a speech before departing to Tokyo for his first round of 1987

trade negotiations.754 California Senator Peter Wilson argued that the US was “at war

with Japan”. 755 Another Senator called the Japanese decision to increase automobile

exports to the US “an economic Pearl Harbor”; a White House staff member stated that

“The next time B-52s fly over Tokyo, we better make sure they carry bombs.”756

If Japan’s economic success was perceived as an external threat to the US, the

economic success of Japanese Americans was perceived as an internal threat to white

Americans. A 1971 Newsweek article made the point that Japanese Americans “not only

have outshone their minority groups but…have ‘outwhited’ the whites.” 757 Coupled with

751
Cited in Glazer 1975, 142-143.
752
Watts et al 1979,41-47.
753
Kunkel 2003, 341.
754
Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly,’ October 26, 1987.
755
Burstein 1988, 86.
756
Dower 1986, 314.
757
“Outwhiting the Whites,” Newsweek, June 21, 1971, pp. 24-25.
243
Japanese-American trade frictions, this resulted in a wave of hate crimes against Asian

Americans.758

Although the racial prejudices underlying the “economic Yellow Peril” were

based on a kernel of truth, they distorted perceptions, leaving many with a reality selected

for them by their stereotypes.759 Revisionists and proponents of the developmental state

identified unfair and aggressive Japanese economic practices. 760 Nonetheless, explaining

Japan’s economic success based on such unfair and aggressive practices is exaggerated.

The bilateral trade imbalance was caused by macroeconomic factors facilitated by

“Reaganomics”. Japanese aggressive targeting of foreign markets and ‘devious’ informal

trade barriers such as product standards, collusive business practices, and government

procurement practices did exist, but accounted for a relatively small portion of the trade

deficit.761 It is instructive that many of the “unfair” and “aggressive” economic practices

used to explain Japan’s economic success in the 1980s were later employed to explain

Japanese economic failure.

Economics Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson saw racism underneath the trade

friction and stated that “Ugly racism has to be fought, in the economic as well as political

and social spheres.”762 Nonetheless, many found it convenient to believe that the trade

deficit was rooted in ‘Oriental’ deviousness and aggressiveness.763 As late as 1985

758
Worsnop and Leepson, 1991.
759
Littlewood 1996, xiii.
760
On revisionism see Johnson 1982; Prestowitz 1988; Van Wolferen 1990. On developmentalism see
Krasner 1986.
761
McCulloch 1988; Kunkel 2003, 71; Destler and Nacht 1990/91, 104; Vogel 1979, 13; Hart 1992; see
also Hugh Patrick, US Congress, Symposium on US-Pacific Rim Relations, 1986, 62.
762
Samuelson 1971.
763
Howe 1988; Johnson 1975, 97.
244
Theodore White warned in an influential New York Times piece entitled “The Danger

from Japan” that “the Japanese are on the move again in one of history’s most brilliant

commercial offensives” to conquer world markets. Their weapons were aggressive

targeting of American industries, devious trading practices, supported by the “gift of

genetics”—outstanding intelligence.764 Some, like U. Alexis Johnson, a former US

ambassador to Japan, criticized the conception of international trade as “a form of

warfare,” as well as blaming only Japan for the bilateral trade deficit. 765 But such

arguments did little to allay public alarmism about Japan.

Consistent with the main argument of this section that trade frictions activated the

‘Yellow Peril,’ Californian Congressman Robert Matsui noted: “There is latent anti-

Asian sentiment in this country. The trade imbalance is merely the trigger.” 766 Japan,

which was not exempt from racism either, 767 lamented that “Caucasians are prejudiced

against Orientals…virulent racism underlies trade friction with the United States.”768 In

contrast, America’s second largest trade deficit was with Canada, but this did not cause

much alarm. 769

764
White 1985.
765
See his “The Competition with Japan,” NYT, September 1, 1985.
766
Wong 1986.
767
In 1982 a Japanese official explained that “the Japanese are a people that can manufacture a product of
uniformity and superior quality because the Japanese are a race of completely pure blood, not a
mongrelized race as in the United States’.” (cited in Dower 1986, 315). Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro
Nakasone told LDP members in 1986 that US intellectual level was inferior to that of Japan because
American society had many blacks, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans (cited in Burstein 1988, 73).
768
Ishihara 1991, 27-28, 29.
769
McCulloch 1988, 311.
245
Japanese FDIUS as ‘Economic Yellow Peril’

This section shows that threat perceptions of Japanese FDIUS were racially

inflated. First, it demonstrates that there was a large gap between the high levels of threat

perception and low levels of (Japanese) investment. Second, Japanese FDIUS was

perceived as more threatening than European FDIUS, even though it was smaller. Third,

it shows that Japanese FDIUS was not substantially different from European or Canadian

FDIUS and did not pose a serious threat to American welfare and sovereignty. Fourth, it

shows that security threats of Japanese FDIUS were inflated to the degree that the US

perceived Japan as more threatening than the USSR. Finally, it provides evidence of

racial rhetoric surrounding Japanese investment.

Inflated Threat Perceptions: High Threat Perception, Low (Japanese) Investment

Before delving into a discussion of inflated threat perception of FDI, it may be

helpful to briefly define FDI. Foreign investment can be direct or indirect (also called

portfolio). Foreign direct investment is “the ownership of assets in one country by

residents of another for purposes of controlling the use of those assets,” while indirect or

portfolio investment is “the establishment of a claim on an asset for the purpose of

realizing some return.”770 Foreign direct investment tends to take the form of ownership

of factories, warehouses, real estate, and assembly plants, while foreign indirect

investment tends to take the form of stocks, bonds and Treasury securities. What

ultimately distinguishes direct from indirect investment is control. In practice it may be

770
Graham and Krugman 1995, 8-9.
246
difficult to assess whether foreign investors have actual control over assets. I use the

conventional definition of the Department of Commerce, according to which foreign

investment qualifies as direct if a foreign investor (including an associated group) owns

at least 10 percent of the investment.771 From the perspective of the US, foreign direct

investment can be US direct investment abroad (USDIA) or foreign direct investment in

the United States (FDIUS). This chapter focuses primarily on the latter.

Beginning in the late 1970s foreign investment in the US underwent a surge as a

consequence of high interest rates, US tax reform, the threat of protectionism, and the

increased competitiveness of foreign companies. Total foreign investment in 1989 was $2

trillion, of which only $400 billion was direct investment.772 Although not trivial, FDIUS

accounted for a relatively small share of the US economy. In 1988 total FDIUS amounted

to 4.1 percent of total US employment and 4.1 percent of the GDP. Foreigners owned

between 4 and 5 percent of total assets in the US, while the Japanese owned less than 1

percent. Although FDIUS grew faster than USDIA, it remained smaller than USDIA until

1989 in book value and after that in market value. 773 Because the share of FDIUS in the

economy remained among the lowest of industrial countries, Commerce Under-Secretary

771
Jackson CRS report, 1991, 1. Although one may question the extent to which a 10 percent ownership of
an asset provides control, most foreign investors in the US own 80% of their assets, so this should not be a
major problem with the definition (Froot 1991, 6).
772
US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OIT), 1993, 50. Jackson, 1991, 2-3, 5.
773
Book value refers to the original cost of the asset, while market value refers to the current price at which
investors would trade the asset. Because USDIA was older than FDIUS, it was undervalued in terms of
book value. At the end of 1989, the book value of FDIUS was $390.1 billion, while that of USDIA was
$359.2 billion. Conservative estimates of the Federal Reserve assigned a market value to USDIA of $750
billion, while valuing FDIUS at $450 billion (Whalen 1990, 70-2; see also Statement of Elliot L.
Richardson, US Congress, June 13-July 31 1990, p. 140).
247
for Economic Affairs Robert Ortner considered complaints about foreign investment

“exaggerated, to some degree misplaced, perhaps even chauvinistic.” 774

Despite relatively low levels of foreign investment, public opinion polls showed

high levels of threat perception. As early as 1981, 47 percent of the public was

“extremely concerned” about total foreign investment. 775 Roper Organization polls found

that, even when told that American economic prosperity depended on continuing

investment, the majority of respondents throughout the 1980s opposed raising foreign

capital for investment.776 The public was especially worried about FDIUS, despite its

accounting for only 17 percent of total foreign investment.777 In a 1988 poll taken for The

International Economy, 74 percent of respondents believed that FDIUS threatened US

economic independence, 78 percent supported legislation to curtail foreign ownership of

businesses and real estate, and 89 percent wanted foreign investors to register with the

government.778

Inflated threat perceptions were facilitated by imagined uncertainty regarding data

on foreign investment. “No one knows how much foreign investment there is in the

United States,” critics of (Japanese) FDIUS worried.779 Detailed studies show that much

of this uncertainty, especially those based on fears of underreporting, was exaggerated.

For example, studies of FDIUS in real estate estimated that the value of unreported real

estate does not exceed 2 percent of the total value of reported foreign real estate holdings.

774
US Congress, September 22, 1988, p. 6; US Congress, OIT 1993, 51; Howenstine 1989; Scholl 1989.
775
See public surveys discussed in DeSouza 1994, 79.
776
Cited in DeSouza 1994, 81.
777
Some critics also worried about Japanese portfolio investment (Frantz and Collins 1989:9, 20). For the
inflated nature of this threat see Jackson’s February 15 1990, CRS report.
778
Omestad, 1989, 119.
779
Frantz and Collins 1989, 7; see also Tolchin and Tolchin 1988, 6.
248
There was also plenty of data on FDIUS, with a GAO report in 1989 identifying 15

agencies which collected such data.780

Lower Japanese FDIUS Was Perceived as More Threatening than Higher European

FDIUS

Although FDI is often perceived as highly threatening because it is visible and

“constitutes a foreign-controlled economic presence within a sovereign state,”781 a closer

look reveals that the American public was not equally concerned about all FDIUS.

Instead, Americans worried primarily about Japanese investment. For example, a 1988

Roper Organization poll found that while a majority of Americans were comfortable with

Canadian and European investment, only a minority was comfortable with Asian

investment. Since non-Japanese Asian investment was minuscule at the time, we can

safely infer that concerns regarding Asian FDIUS referred to Japan. This was neither an

isolated incident, nor a fleeting phenomenon. A similar CBS News/NYT/TBS survey two

years later found that while a majority of respondents worried that Japanese foreign

investment posed a threat to American economic independence, only a minority held

such worries about the much larger European investment (see Table 5.1).

780
Graham and Krugman 1995, 30; US Congress, October 17, 1990, p. 8. Much BEA data was somewhat
inaccurate in that it assigned all of the investment of a firm to the main industry of the firm, even if that
firm invested in several different industries. This resulted in inaccuracies at lower levels of aggregation, but
showed accurately the overall level of FDIUS.
781
Kudrle and Bobrow 1982, 353.
249
 Polls Findings
March 31, 1988 73% of Americans were comfortable 33% were comfortable
Roper Organization with Canadian investment and 54% with Asian investment
were comfortable with European
investment
June 5-8, 1990 CBS 37% of Americans perceive European64% perceive Japanese
News/New York investment as a threat to Americaninvestment as a threat
Times/Tokyo economic independence to economic
Broadcasting System independence
Table 5.1: Japanese FDI Perceived as More Threatening than European and
Canadian FDI782

Numerous surveys found additional evidence of inflated fears of Japanese

investment. A 1987 survey revealed that 53 percent of respondents would oppose the

Japanese acquisition of one of the ten largest American manufacturing plants, and 65

percent would oppose the Japanese acquisition of one of the ten largest American

banks.783 A 1988 CBS News/Tokyo Broadcasting System poll found that 64 percent of

Americans believed that Japanese investment in real estate and farms posed a threat to

American economic independence. 784 In addition, 72 percent of Americans said that

Japanese investment in American real estate and land “bothered” them, while 73 percent

agreed with the statement that “If the US government doesn’t do something soon, the

Japanese will end up owning most of this country.”785

Japan’s higher (typically informal) barriers to foreign investment may have

contributed to the American public’s concerns about Japanese FDIUS, assuming that the

public was aware of it. If Japanese FDIUS was high, this would have been a legitimate
782
Source: CBS News/New York Times/Tokyo Broadcasting System, June 5-8 1990, questions 20-23;
DeSouza 1994, 81.
783
Cited in DeSouza 1994, Time/Yankelovich, February 18, 1987.
784
CBS News/Tokyo Broadcasting System Poll, May 14-17, 1988, Japan and the US, question 30.
785
CBS News/NYT/Tokyo BS poll, June 5-8 1990, questions 20-23, 47, 48, and 50.
250
cause for concern. However, it is not entirely clear why Japanese barriers to foreign

investment would make it more threatening than European investment, given that

Japanese FDIUS was modest.

In contrast with high threat perceptions, Japanese direct investment was low.

Japanese FDIUS amounted to no more than 1 percent of total US assets at the time.

Initially public threat perceptions were narrowly focused on Japanese investment, but by

the late 1980s and early 1990s they cast a shadow over American views of Japanese-

American relations in general. 786 “The most extraordinary thing about Japanese

investment in the United States during the 1980s,” wrote one scholar, “is the amount of

attention it has attracted relative to the actual level of holdings of US assets by Japanese

investors.”787 Striking a similar tone, former Secretary of Commerce Peter G. Peterson

lamented that “Japan is popularly vilified as the chief foreign ‘invader’ even though its

direct investments in the US amount to half the British total and about the same as the

Dutch.”788 One state official involved in a controversy over Japanese ownership of

American farmland noted that when Europeans were buying it was never an issue. 789

What explains this variation in American public threat perception of FDIUS?

Why was Japanese FDIUS perceived as more threatening than the larger European

FDIUS? For example, of the $329 billion of total foreign investment in 1988, $216.4

billion came from Europe ($102 billion from Britain), while only $53.4 billion originated

786
Ladd and Bowman 1996, 57, Gallup polls; see also Americans Talk Security, July 1988; CBS
News/NYT Poll, June 20, 1988; Time Mirrors, Jan 1988; Harris Poll, June 15, 1987; CBS News/NYT Poll,
May 2, 1986.
787
Makin 1989, 43-4.
788
Felsenthal 1990, 358.
789
Tolchin and Tolchin 1988, 43.
251
in Japan. Although the gap narrowed over time, in 1988 at $95.7 billion British FDIUS

was twice as large as the $51.1 billion Japanese FDIUS (see Table 5.2). European FDIUS

was also older and was undervalued in terms of book value. When adjusted for inflation

and market value appreciation, not only British, but also Dutch FDIUS surpassed

Japanese FDIUS.

Year United Holland Canada Japan

Kingdom
1980 14.0 (16.6) 19.1 (25.0) 12.2 (14.4) 4.7 (6.2)
1981 18.6 (17.2) 26.8 (24.9) 12.1 (11.0) 7.7 (7.1)
1982 28.4 (23.0) 26.2 (21.0) 11.7 (9.3) 9.7 (7.8)
1983 32.2 (24) 29.2 (21.3) 11.4 (8.2) 11.3 (8.2)
1984 38.4 (23.3) 33.7 (20.5) 15.3 (9.3) 16.0 (9.7)
1985 43.6 (23.9) 37.1 (19.7) 17.1 (9.1) 19.3 (10.4)
1986 55.9 (25.4) 40.7 (18.5) 20.3 (9.2) 26.8 (12.2)
1987 75.5 (28.7) 46.6 (17.7) 24.7 (10.1) 34.4 (13.1)
1988 95.7 (30.4) 48.1 (15.3) 26.6 (8.4) 51.1 (16.2)
1989 105.5 (28.2) 56.3 (15.1) 28.7 (7.7) 67.3 (18.0)
1990 108.1 (26.8) 64.3 (15.9) 27.7 (6.9) 83.5 (20.7)
Table 5.2: Direct Investment Position in the United States by Country of Ultimate
Beneficial Owner, 1980-90 (in billions of US dollars) and percentage of total stock in
parentheses790

Much of the explanation for variation in American threat perception can be

explained by particular features of Japanese FDIUS. As Table 5.2 shows, Japanese

FDIUS grew faster than FDIUS coming from other states. In 1980 Japan was the sixth

790
Source: US Department of Commerce, Survey of Current Business, various issues, Kang 1997, 318-319.
252
largest investor in the US, but by 1989 it ranked second after Britain. Undoubtedly, this

explains an important part of inflated American threat perceptions.

Although this explanation is very powerful, as discussed later in the chapter,

it does not capture the whole story. The next three sections provide evidence that threat

perceptions of Japanese investment were racially inflated. I first show that Japanese

investment was similar to European and Canadian investment and did not pose a serious

threat to American welfare and sovereignty. Next, I show that Americans perceived Japan

as more threatening than the USSR, its Cold War archenemy. The last section discusses

evidence of racial rhetoric surrounding Japanese FDIUS. I hope that together these

sections make a convincing case for race.

Japanese FDIUS: Neither Fundamentally Different nor Threatening

If Japanese investment was fundamentally different and harmful to the US, then

even low levels of it would have justified high threat perceptions. Indeed, at the heart of

inflated threat perceptions of Japanese FDIUS was the perception that Japanese

investment was fundamentally different than European and Canadian investment. While

US affiliates of British, Dutch, and Canadian firms were expected to behave like

American firms, those of Japanese firms were perceived as aggressive and devious and

were expected to behave in different and harmful ways. Indicative of this sentiment,

Richard Lamm, the Democratic governor of Colorado, considered Japanese investments

“Faustian bargains,” while the late CIA director William Casey believed they served as a

253
“Trojan horse”.791 This section shows that Japanese FDIUS was neither substantially

different from European and Canadian investment nor threatening to American economic

welfare and political sovereignty.

Perceived Economic Threats: Becoming Japan’s Colony

The three main perceived economic threats were that Japanese investment would

provide lower quality jobs, it would increase the trade deficit, and it would result in the

Japanese buying up the country. The first two perceived threats centered on the concern

that Japanese FDIUS was fundamentally different from European and Canadian FDIUS.

Unlike these, which substituted for exports to the US, Japanese FDIUS would facilitate

such exports.792 Japanese FDIUS would consist of “screwdriver operations,” which

would function as trading branches, assembling products from components made in Japan

and then selling them on the American market.

The first concern about such “screwdriver operations” was that Japanese FDIUS

would provide low skill and wage jobs to Americans, while keeping the good

manufacturing jobs at home. Over time, the US would be “de-industrialized” and would

become Japan’s economic colony. 793 In fact, the empirical record shows that, due to their

concentration in high-wage industries and the acquisition of large US companies which

paid higher than average wages, US affiliates of foreign-owned companies tended to

791
Felsenthal 1990, 356.
792
In Japanese economist Koyoshi Kojima’s terminology, Japanese FDI was trade-creating, whereas
American FDI was trade-destroying (Reich 1996, 41).
793
Glickman and Woodward 1989, 121; Frantz and Collins 1989, 169; Tolchin and Tolchin 1988, 28.
254
provide better jobs than their domestic counterparts. 794 Japanese FDIUS was no different.

In 1990 compensation per worker for Japanese-owned US affiliates was $39,130. This

was higher than the $35,760 for British-owned ones, but similar to the European-owned

affiliate average of $39,680.795

It appears that inflated fears of low-wage Japanese jobs were the result of an

overgeneralization from a few Japanese carmakers. Some Japanese plants indeed

provided lower wages than domestic-owned firms in the automotive industry, because

their employees in these new plants were younger, the plants were concentrated in low-

wage areas, and because US wages were higher than the average manufacturing wage.

But this did not even apply to all US affiliates of Japanese companies in the automotive

industry, let alone to all Japanese direct investment. The wages and benefits of most US

affiliates of Japanese firms were similar to US-owned firms. 796 Brookings Institution

economist Robert Lawrence concluded: “Fears of deindustrialization were overblown.” 797

The second concern about Japanese FDIUS was that it would worsen the bilateral

trade imbalance. If Japanese direct investment was only a trading branch for Japanese

parent companies, it would increase imports from Japan. This fear was supported by

studies showing that Japanese investors had a higher tendency to rely on imported

components than other foreign investors.798 The trade deficit caused by US affiliates of

foreign companies, particularly that by Japanese-owned US affiliates, also amounted to a

considerable share of the total US trade deficit. In 1988 the US trade deficit was $127

794
Jackson 1991 CRS report: 22-3; Doms and Jensen 1998, 50.
795
Graham and Krugman 1995, 78.
796
Glickman and Woodward 1989, 138.
797
Frankenberger 1991, 140.
798
Encarnation 1992, 129; Reich, 1996, 46.
255
billion, of which $89.9 billion was affiliate trade deficit. Of the $89.9 billion affiliate

trade deficit $51 billion (57 percent) was Japanese-owned affiliate deficit.799

This concern was more serious than that of low quality jobs, but was nonetheless

inflated. Although the US trade deficit was growing constantly, the share caused by US

affiliates varied substantially. The affiliate deficit was 93 percent of US trade deficit in

1980, 38 percent in 1984, and 70 percent in 1988. This suggests that although the affiliate

deficit contributed to the US total trade deficit, the latter was not primarily a function of

the former. Turning to Japanese FDIUS, the baseline for assessing its impact on trade

balance is the counterfactual case of its absence, not whether it contributed to trade

deficit. If in the absence of Japanese FDIUS the US would have imported even more

from Japan and would have exported even less to Japan, then Japanese FDIUS actually

had a favorable impact on the bilateral trade balance. Studies suggested that even the

higher import propensity of Japanese-owned automotive plants would reduce imports

from Japan by displacing imports of finished cars. 800

Economists who are skeptical that direct investment can have a significant impact

on the trade balance provide another reason why worries about the trade imbalance were

inflated. They argue that although microeconomic factors such as higher import

propensity have little effect on the trade balance itself 801 they do create a need for a

weaker dollar in order to offset the trade imbalance. This weaker dollar represents a cost

to the US economy. However, estimates indicate that this cost is relatively small.

799
Jackson, April 1991 CRS report, pp. 27-28; Encarnation 1992, 117.
800
Graham and Krugman 1995, 64-5; see also Orr 1991.
801
Graham and Krugman 1995, 64; Kudrle 1991, 418; McCulloch 1988.
256
According to a worst-case calculation, in 1990 the higher import propensity of all

foreign-owned US affiliates increased US imports by about $20 billion, which forced a 4

percent depreciation of the dollar.802 Japanese-owned US subsidiaries’ higher import

propensity accounts for at most 2.5 percent of this depreciation, which could have hardly

caused any significant economic harm.

This higher import propensity, the one clear difference between Japanese and

European FDIUS, is characteristic to all new FDIUS, as product-cycle theory explains. 803

In the early phases European FDIUS also had a high import propensity. As Japanese

FDIUS matured, its practices converged with other FDIUS, decreasing its import

propensity and increasing local content.804 Consequently, the small cost Japanese FDIUS

posed to the US economy by creating incentives to depreciate the dollar was further

reduced.

The third perceived economic threat posed by Japanese FDIUS applied to real

estate. As the US depreciated the dollar to stimulate exports and correct the trade deficit,

the Japanese got bargain prices on US real estate. The perceived threat was that the

Japanese were buying up the country, using the pile of dollars earned from their trade

surplus with the US. A Time magazine cover read “The Selling of America: Foreign

Investors Buy, Buy, Buy”.805 Japanese investment in real estate was concentrated in

Hawaii and California, amounting to about $7 billion in each. But the Japanese also

bought prime real estate property in the major cities: Prudential Plaza and Xerox Center

802
Graham and Krugman 1995, 70.
803
Vernon 1966.
804
Froot 1991, 6; Yoon 1990.
805
Time, 14 September 1987, pp. 52-62.
257
in Chicago; 666 Fifth Avenue, Tiffany, and Exxon in New York; the US News & World

Report Building in Washington; one-third of Los Angeles downtown office buildings. 806

Alarmed by this phenomenon, 53 percent of the American public favored restrictions and

14 percent favored total prohibition on investment in real estate.807 Representative Helen

Bentley worried that “The United States is rapidly becoming a colony of Japan.” 808

Indeed, Japanese investment in real estate registered extraordinary growth and in

1988 it was slightly larger than that of Britain. But total FDIUS in real estate remained

much below other sectors of the economy, amounting to about 1 percent of all US real

estate and 0.7 percent of all US land.809 The Japanese owned about 0.5 percent of US real

estate.810 Although a few acquisitions were highly visible, the Japanese on average

invested in lower value property than the British.

Nonetheless, some worried that Japanese FDIUS in real estate represented an

economic threat in a different way. As the Japanese bought undervalued US assets the US

would suffer losses on its overseas investment. Yet even on the most pessimistic

assumptions, 1989 estimates place US losses of such a “fire sale” to Japanese investors at

about $4.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent of GDP. 811 While the amount is not trivial, it

does not justify the alarm surrounding the issue. The Japanese paid “top dollar” for US

real estate and actually lost money when prices later collapsed.

806
Burstein 1988, 39; Frantz and Collins 1989, 23-4.
807
CBS News/Tokyo Broadcasting System Poll, May 14-17, 1988, Japan and the US, questions 29, 30, and
35.
808
Cited in Smith 1990; Prestowitz 1988, 308.
809
Froot 1991, 14; Glickman and Woodward 1989, 8.
810
Farrell 2000, 179.
811
Graham and Krugman 1995, 82.
258
 To summarize, there is little evidence that Japanese FDIUS represented a threat to

American welfare. As one economist put it, concerns that “foreign interests are buying

out America, lock, stock, and barrel, simply are not supported by the facts.” 812 Paul

Samuelson believed that Japanese investment was “a non-issue” because “foreign

investment—including Japanese investment—doesn’t hurt the US economy.” 813

Perceived Political Threats: Losing Sovereignty

In addition to posing a threat to America’s welfare, many worried that Japanese

FDIUS would threaten US political sovereignty. One critic drew attention to the fact that

the Japanese annually spent about $300 million to shape public opinion and another $100

million on various “agents of influence” to shape American politics. 814 Sony’s acquisition

of CBS Records and Columbia Pictures would also allow the Japanese to shape American

public opinion. There was widespread fear that lavish Japanese spending on lobbying

bought undue influence and even veto power over US legislation. 815

The disproportionate political influence of corporations is admittedly a challenge

for American democracy. Yet it is unclear why the political influence of foreign

corporations would be more pernicious than that of domestic corporations, and it is even

less clear why the influence of Japanese corporations would be more pernicious than that

of other foreign corporations. Presumably, the reason was that Japan and Japanese firms

invested more in lobbying.

812
Graham 1991, 1741.
813
Cited in Marshall 1991.
814
Choate 1990.
815
Prestowitz 1988, 310; Frantz and Collins 1989, 12.
259
 Lobbying expenditure data from 1988 to 1991 does not support the concern that

Japan bought disproportionate political influence in America. As usual, Israel spent most

on political lobbying, while Japanese and British spending was similar, ranking

fourteenth and seventeenth, respectively (Canada was fourth). 816 Measured by the amount

of PAC contributions, charitable contributions, and Washington lobby contributions,

none of the top ten most politically active corporations were Japanese (though some were

British).817 Foreign-owned companies’ PAC contributions amounted to about 5 percent of

total corporate PAC contributions in the 1985-6 and the 1987-8 election cycles. In the

1987-88 election cycle foreign-owned companies contributed $2,8 million, of which

Japan’s at $403,048 was similar to Canada’s $384,577 (British contributions at $729,187

were the largest by far). Japanese-owned US affiliates contributed 14.3 percent of the

$2.8 million total foreign-owned PAC contributions and 0.75 percent of the total $53.6

million corporate PAC contributions, hardly a threat to sovereignty. 818

It appears that inflated threat perceptions of undue Japanese political influence

were based on unwarranted extrapolations from Japanese trade lobbying. Japan ranked

first in expenditure on trade lobbying, while Canada ranked third and Britain fourth. 819

But there is little evidence that Japan succeeded in shaping US trade policy. The record of

bilateral trade negotiations in this period reveals a series of unfavorable agreements

816
Report of the Attorney General to the Congress of the United States on the Administration of the
Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, for the Calendar Years 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991;
data cited in Kim 1999.
817
Hansen and Mitchell 2000.
818
Walke and Huckabee 1989.
819
Report of the Attorney General in Kim 1999.
260
imposed on Japan by the US to decrease America’s bilateral trade deficit. 820 Japanese

trade lobbying either succeeded only in averting even more unfavorable trade agreements

or failed miserably. Nor is there much evidence that Japanese firms swayed American

public opinion. As discussed earlier, the majority American public was hostile to

Japanese FDIUS. The Japanese spent more on lobbying to counter this hostile climate,

rather than to gain disproportionate political control. In this light worries about Japanese

lobbying curtailing American political autonomy seem overblown.

This section showed that Japanese FDIUS was not fundamentally different from

European and Canadian FDIUS, and it did not pose significant economic or political

threats. The next section shows that Japan and Japanese investment did not pose a

significant security threat either.

Perceived Security Threats: The ‘Yellow Peril’ Trumps the ‘Red Peril’

American threat perceptions were inflated to the extent that Americans perceived

Japan as more threatening than the USSR. Japan came to be seen as the next hegemonic

challenger and Japanese investment was seen as both a syndrome and an instrument of

this challenge. Given that Japan was America’s democratic ally, while the USSR was

America’s communist enemy, this was puzzling. The overwhelming Soviet military

superiority amplified this puzzle.

820
The main bilateral agreements include various Market-Oriented Sector-Selective (MOSS) agreements
(1984-85), the Semiconductor Trade Agreement (1986), various voluntary export restrictions, and the
Structural Impediments Initiative (SII) (1990).
261
 During the late 1980s and early 1990s the public and even some experts thought

that the ‘Yellow Peril’ trumped the ‘Red Peril’. A 1989 poll found that 68 percent of the

respondents perceived Japan as the greatest threat to the US compared to only 22 percent

of those who perceived the USSR as the greatest threat.821 A year earlier 59 percent of

Americans named Japan as the “strongest economic power in the world today,” when in

fact the American economy was twice as large as Japan’s. 822 A former counselor of the

Commerce Secretary, Clyde Prestowitz, warned that “Today the real challenge to

American power is not the sinister one from the Eastern bloc, but the friendly one from

the East.”823 During the early 1990s Samuel Huntington still argued that the Japanese

threat to American primacy was equivalent to that of the earlier Soviet threat.824 Since

academic bestsellers throughout the 1980s emphasized the economic basis of hegemony,

this fear was not entirely unreasonable, but it was nonetheless exaggerated. 825

Undoubtedly, the ‘Yellow Peril’ trumped the ‘Red Peril’ not only because the

former was increasing, but also because the latter was decreasing. Gorbachev’s improved

relations with the West, the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and the winding down

of the Cold War in general did much to decrease the Soviet threat. Nonetheless, that

American threat perceptions of Japan exceeded that of the USSR is still remarkable,

because public threat perceptions of the USSR remained considerable as fears held for

half a century died slow. For example, a 1989 poll found that about half of the American

821
Friedman and Lebard 1991, 7; see Business Week/Harris Poll, in Business Week, August 7, 1989, p. 51.
822
Americans Talk Security, no. 4, April 1988, p. 84, in Thomas 1989, 170.
823
Prestowitz 1988, 22.
824
Huntington 1991, 8; See also Huntington 1993; Olsen 1992, 4-5.
825
Gilpin 1981; Kennedy 1989 [1987].
262
public thought the USSR was aggressive and was trying to dominate the world. 826 It is

surprising that threat perceptions of Japan, an ally, could reach levels that exceeded the

Soviet threat, even if the latter was not America’s archenemy anymore.

Japanese FDIUS played an important role in these inflated threat perceptions of

Japan. On the one hand, Japanese investment was seen as a highly visible syndrome of

Japan’s economic might, amplifying threat perceptions. 827 On the other hand, it was seen

as an instrument or weapon in this hegemonic challenge as well. Insofar as a hegemonic

war was unlikely, the Japanese-American hegemonic competition would take the form of

“mercantile realism”.828 Japanese FDIUS would be Japan’s potent weapon in this

competition. In particular, Japanese investors would bankrupt the American

semiconductor industry through predatory practices and hollowing out of high technology

firms. 829 Furthermore, many worried that, as Senator Daniel P. Moynihan put it, Japanese

foreign investment was “a new form of industrial espionage.”830

The fear was that Japanese direct investment would lead to the erosion of US

defense industrial base and the Pentagon’s dependence on Japanese suppliers. As the

electronic content of advanced weapons systems increased, high technology became

critical for national security, and foreign dependence raised serious concerns. 831 Foreign

dependence put at risk the Department of Defense’s ability to respond to threats, because

826
May 9-11, 1989 The New Face of Communism, CBS News/NYT poll
827
Emmott 1989, 18; Omestad 1989.
828
Heginbotham and Samuels 1998, 192-193; Huntington 1993, 72, 75.
829
Hollowing-out referred to investment into US high tech firms only to transfer their technology back to
Japan, leaving behind only the hollowed-out shell of the acquired firm (Tolchin and Tolchin 1988, 9, 15).
For concerns about Japanese influence in the semiconductor industry see Warhofsky 1989; Prestowitz
1988, 28; Tyson 1992, 43.
830
Turner 1989, 12; Glickman and Woodward 1989, 110.
831
Moran 1990.
263
foreign firms may be less sensitive to American defense needs, more amenable to

influence by foreign governments, and harder to monitor. Fears of foreign dependence

were further amplified by concerns of Japanese technology “leakages” to the Soviets 832

and some assertive Japanese statements.833 Some advocated “containing Japan” in what

was in effect an economic cold war, while others even predicted a hot war.834

In hindsight, fears of Japan as a hegemonic challenger were overblown. Rather

than having to face Japan in a hegemonic competition, the US has enjoyed a rather long

“unipolar moment”.835 Japanese investment did not challenge US hegemony, but actually

supported it. Without Japanese capital inflows the US may have been forced to reduce its

global commitments.836 Political scientists like Joseph Nye and Robert Jervis, who at the

time unsuccessfully tried to allay fears of an “economic cold war,” were ultimately

vindicated.837

More specific fears of Japanese investment undermining US security through

predatory practices, industrial espionage, and hollowing-out were similarly inflated. If

Japanese FDIUS was indeed “aggressive,” one would expect that Japanese FDIUS

loomed large in that most aggressive realm of hostile takeovers. In fact, British and

Canadian investors were the most active in hostile takeovers, eclipsing Japan, which

preferred “greenfield investment” for most of the 1980s and when it did engage in
832
The oft-cited case here is Toshiba’s selling of sophisticated technology, with the Norwegian firm,
Kongsberg Vaapenfabrik, to the Soviets, who used it to design more silent submarine propellers, making
their detection by the US navy more difficult. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, argued that
the Soviets had quiet propellers three years before this technology ‘leakage’ and the US already planned
R&D to deal with this challenge (Frantz and Collins 1989, 14).
833
See for instance the bestseller of a former transport minister, Ishihara 1991.
834
Fallows 1989; Friedman and Lebard 1991.
835
Krauthammer 1990/91.
836
Kant E. Calder, US Congress, Symposium on US-Pacific Rim Relations, p. 160.
837
Nye 1992/93; Jervis 1991/92, 52; see also Jervis 1993.
264
takeovers, it was a “white knight”.838 A glance at royalties and license fees, which are

proxies for technology transfers, shows that the Japanese have not systematically used

direct investment to steal US technology. 839 In fact, more technology was shipped to US

affiliates of Japanese firms than they shipped abroad. 840 The fact that some interpreted

this data as an elaborate Japanese tax evasion scheme further illustrates the distorting

effect of racial prejudices. 841 Apart from one case where Hitachi stole industrial secrets

from IBM in 1985, there is little evidence of industrial espionage. 842 The erosion of the

defense industrial base was due to decreasing competitiveness of US-owned firms, not to

Japanese predatory practices and industrial espionage. 843

The kernel of truth of concerns about the erosion of the US defense industrial base

was the growing Japanese influence in semiconductors. By 1986 Japanese production of

semiconductors and integrated circuits surpassed that of the US, and it became a major

supplier of the latest generation of random access memories (RAMs). Moreover, in

semiconductor acquisitions from October 1988 to April 1992 Japanese investors

accounted for 51 (85 percent) of 60 foreign acquisitions and 30 (77 percent) of 39 foreign

838
A “white knight” is a third party which agrees to acquire a company which is a target of hostile
takeover, at more favorable terms. Jackson 1990, Japanese Acquisition report: 9; Jackson, April 1991
report:15-6; Froot 1991, 11.
839
Kan H. Young and Charles E. Steigerwald, “Is Foreign Investment in the US Transferring US
Technology Abroad?” Business Economics, October 1990, p. 30, cited in Jackson, April 1991 report;
Okubo 1998:198, 201.
840
Jackson, April 1991, 36, 31; Okubo 1998, 198); Statement of Robert Ortner, Commerce Under Secretary
for Economic Affairs, US Congress, Foreign Investment in the United States, 1988, p. 7.
841
Frantz and Collins 1989, 196; Okubo 1998, 198; Dalton and Serapio 1998, 177.
842
Glickman and Woodward 1989, 110.
843
Graham and Krugman 1995, 115.
265
acquisitions, respectively. 844 Perceived security threats appear to be the result of

overgeneralization from this sector.

Nonetheless, if the erosion of the defense industrial base in semiconductors was

due to the decreasing competitiveness of US firms, and Japanese FDIUS actually brought

more technology to the US than it took, then Japanese FDIUS improved US access to

cutting edge technology. In its absence the Pentagon would have had to obtain this

technology from overseas, rather than from Japanese-owned plants located in the US.845

Japanese FDIUS may have increased the Pentagon’s foreign dependence, but there is

little evidence in hindsight that national security was hurt by it.

In conclusion, fears of Japan as the next hegemonic challenger were inflated.

Moreover, Japanese FDIUS did not pose a serious security threat to the US. Above I

showed that the American public misperceived the FDIUS of their non-white and

democratic Japanese ally as more threatening than the FDIUS of their white and

democratic European (British) allies. Furthermore, the public perceived their non-white

democratic Japanese ally as more threatening than their white and communist Soviet

enemy. Combined with evidence of racial rhetoric discussed in the next section, this

suggests that fears of Japanese investment were racially inflated.

844
Kang 1997, 320-321.
845
Raymond Vernon, US Congress, Foreign Investment in the United States, 1988, 284-6; Reich 1992,
156.
266
Evidence of Racial Rhetoric Surrounding Japanese Investment

During the 1980s anti-Japanese racial rhetoric of varying subtlety proliferated in

America. Economists both critical and supportive of foreign investment agreed that

“much of the furor over Japanese FDI in the United States now seems exaggerated,” and

even “quite xenophobic at times, sometimes racist…”846 Some of this rhetoric was quite

subtle and difficult to identify, but there were also numerous instances of more explicit

racism.

Politicians and businessmen occasionally made public racist remarks. The head of

a congressional delegation to Japan in 1983 made reference to “the little yellow men, you

know, Honda”.847 In January of 1985 the Deputy US Trade Representative referred to the

Japanese as ‘Nippers’ in a discussion with reporters, while in August General Motors

chairman Roger B. Smith told Fortune magazine that he wanted to “beat the hell out of

the Japs” in the auto industry.848 The same year Senator John Danforth of Missouri

denigrated the Japanese as “leeches”.849 Representative Jack Brooks of Texas said in

1987: “God Bless Harry Truman. He dropped two of them, He should have dropped

four.”850

Although much of the media opposed anti-Japanese racism, there was evidence of

racism there as well. Andy Rooney of CBS’s 60 Minutes, after joking about Japan

846
Graham and Marchick 2006, 96. Norman J. Glickman’s testimony at US Congress, Foreign Investment
in the United States, 1988, pp. 133, 149; Kudrle 1991, 400.
847
Cited in Dower 1986, 313.
848
Wong 1986.
849
Heale 2009, 27, 29.
850
Luther 2001,144.
267
following up the purchase of the ‘Lockefeller Center’ by buying ‘the Gland Canyon and

Mount Lushmore’, confessed that “I’m vaguely anti-Japanese. Don’t ask me why. Just

prejudice, I guess.”851 In anti-Japanese advertisements Samurai warriors, exaggerated

accents, and ridiculing of the Japanese physique were popular themes. A Bell Lab

newspaper ad which depicted a Samurai ready to attack, read: “First it was consumer

electronics. Then it was the automobile industry. Is our telecommunications industry

next?” A Pontiac dealer in the New York area ran a commercial which invited viewers to

imagine their bleak future if they continued to buy Japanese cars: “It’s December, and the

whole family’s going to see the big Christmas tree at Hirohito Center”. An Oldsmobile

commercial for the same area made reference to the shorter average height of the

Japanese: “That’s why our car is built for our size families, not theirs”. 852

A systematic analysis of American images of Japan in the New York Times

between 1975 and 1995 found that Japan’s economic success was depicted in terms of

‘unfair’ competition, ‘price rigging’ and ‘duplicity’. The Japanese were characterized as

“untrustworthy,” “corporate gangsters,” and even “Asian devils’,” using “treacherous

economic karate.” In addition, the study found strong correlation between culture and

conflict: 66.9 percent of articles which mentioned Japanese cultural characteristics also

mentioned conflict, while 92.9 percent of articles that did not mention Japanese cultural

characteristics did not mention conflict either. 853 If race scholars who argue that culture

851
Schaller 1997, 255-6; cited in Seita 1995, 503.
852
Rothenberg 1990.
853
Luther 2001, 143-44, 197.
268
stands in for race are correct, this finding is suggestive. 854 One can infer that a racially

different Japan was perceived as more conflict-prone and hence more threatening.

Anti-Japanese racism was directed primarily against the Japanese, but it also

spilled over to affect Asian Americans in general. It resulted in an increase of racist

rhetoric and hate crimes, unequaled since World War II. In Los Angeles, for example,

there were graffiti reading “Nips Go Home”. 855 Of the many hate crimes, the most

publicized one was that of the Chinese American Vincent Chin, killed by two

unemployed Detroit autoworkers. Prior to beating him to death, they used racial slurs,

apparently believing that Chin was Japanese. 856

Evidence of racial rhetoric strengthens the case that race contributed to inflated

American threat perceptions of Japanese investment. This section argued that we have

good reasons to think that difference in racial identity helps explain why American

perceived Japanese investment as more threatening than similar European investment,

and perceived Japan as more threatening than the USSR. American threat perceptions of

Japan, scholars concluded, follow patterns which tend to be racial. 857 As Harvard East

Asian expert Peter Stanley put it,

“In moments of international stress, the imagery of Japan almost invariably turns
toward conspiracy, insidiousness, deceit, fanaticism, regimentation, and a kind of
discipline and loyalty that is somehow less than fully human. This tendency in the
imagery reminds us that we are dealing here with something very unusual, a big power
relationship that is also an interracial relationship where distrust and caricature come
easily.”858

854
Balibar 1991.
855
Abramowitz 1992.
856
Worsnop and Leepson 1991.
857
Dower 2001, 302
858
Cited in Moeller 1996, 30.
269
RACIALLY INFLATED THREAT PERCEPTIONS LEAD TO EXON-FLORIO

The first part of the chapter argued that American threat perceptions of FDIUS

were racially inflated. The second part traces how inflated threat perceptions led to the

Exon-Florio Amendment, which weakened American open investment policy. It starts

with a brief discussion of the traditional American open investment policy. Next, it traces

how Exon-Florio was passed into law as part of the 1988 Trade Act. Finally, it addresses

the subtle but important ways in which Exon-Florio weakened American open investment

policy. The chapter concludes with a discussion of alternative explanations and

limitations of the argument.

American Investment Policy before the Exon-Florio Amendment

Historically the United States maintained one of the most open investment

policies in the world. Favorable attitudes towards foreign investment were deeply rooted

in liberal capitalist ideology and America’s positive early experience with FDIUS, which

provided much needed capital for the country’s development. US investment policy was

guided by Alexander Hamilton’s words:

“It is not impossible that there may be persons disposed to look with a jealous eye on the
introduction of foreign capital, as if it were an instrument to deprive our own citizens of
the profits of our own industry; but, perhaps, there never could be a more unreasonable
jealousy. Instead of being viewed as a rival, it ought to be considered as a most valuable
auxiliary, conducing to put in motion a greater quantity of productive labor, and a greater
portion of useful enterprise, than could exist without it.” 859

859
Cited in Seitzinger 1989, 50; Kang 1997, 303.
270
 To guard against “unreasonably jealousy” against foreign investment, prior to

Exon-Florio regulations were kept minimal. There were three categories of regulations. 860

First, sector-specific restrictions limited FDIUS in areas deemed critical to national

security, such as broadcasting, telecommunications, shipping, or energy. 861 Although they

were permanent, they were applicable only to a narrow and well-defined segment of the

economy. Second, emergency restrictions such as the Trading with the Enemy Act and

the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave the President the authority to

seize or restrict FDIUS in times of national emergency, especially war. They were

broadly applicable, but were rarely utilized. The third and most recent category included

minimal data collecting regulations adopted in response to an increase in Arab investment

in the 1970s. 862 In 1975 President Gerald Ford created the Committee on Foreign

Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to monitor foreign investment and bring

problematic transactions to the attention of relevant agencies.

Overall, US investment policy remained open, with foreign investors being

treated by the law as domestic investors were (the principle of national treatment).

American open investment policy was enshrined in various international agreements,

including fifty treaties of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation, twelve Bilateral

860
For an overview of FDIUS regulations see Seitzinger 1989. An additional body of laws not specific to
foreign investment existed that could be applied to block foreign investment. For example, the Department
of Defense could use the Defense Industrial Security Program, the Justice Department could rely on
antitrust reviews, and the Department of Commerce on export control laws to change or even block
transactions.
861
Wilkins 1989, 573-584.
862
These include the Foreign Investment act of 1974, the International Investment Survey Act of 1976,
Domestic and Foreign Investment Improved Disclosure Act of 1977, Agricultural Foreign Investment
Disclosure Act of 1978.
271
Investment Treaties, and various OECD and GATT multilateral instruments. 863 The

Reagan Administration embraced this open investment policy. Reagan’s September 9,

1983 statement illustrated this position: “A world with strong foreign investment flows is

the opposite of a zero-sum game. We believe there are only winners, no losers, and all

participants gain from it.”864 But as the public grew increasingly alarmed about Japanese

foreign investment, this open investment policy was to be challenged by Congress.

The Road to Exon-Florio: ‘Yellow Peril’ Politics

While the Reagan administration embraced an open investment policy, Congress

gradually moved away from it. The main reason for this shift was public pressure. As

discussed earlier, a majority of Americans perceived Japanese FDIUS as threatening and

favored its restriction. Concerns about FDI reached new heights in 1987-88. A March

1988 Roper Organization survey showed that the vast majority of the American public

favored restrictions on FDIUS in companies making products related to national security

(82%), real estate (78%), manufacturing (72%), and high technology (72%). 865

High threat perceptions of Japanese FDIUS held across age, gender, and party

affiliation, but were weaker among the American elite. 866 A 1987 survey of CEOs found

that only 15.4 percent wanted Congress to limit foreign investment in American

companies. A January 1988 Smick Medley poll showed that while 74 percent of the

863
Alvarez 1989, 17-8.
864
Cited in DeSouza1994, 110.
865
Thomas 1989, 193.
866
This is an interesting variation, a blind spot in my theory, which does not address variation across
individuals. One explanation is the higher educational levels of the elite. Studies found that education and
racism are inversely correlated. See Hainmueller and Hiscox 2007.
272
American public felt that foreign investment threatened Americans’ control over the US

economy, only 39 percent of the elite felt this way. A similar survey revealed that this

difference held at the level of individual industries as well. 867 That fears of Japanese

FDIUS were less intense at the elite level helps explain why the Executive was less

worried about Japanese FDIUS and Congress needed external impetus to act.

While the Executive wanted to maintain an open investment policy, Congress,

spurred on by public fears and some industry protectionism, pushed for restrictions. This

variation is rooted in different institutional roles and electoral incentives. 868 Because

much of the Executive is not elected, it is more insulated from public opinion than

Congress. While the President is elected, he has a broader mandate which makes him

accountable for the overall economic state of the country. This provided incentives for

the President to take into account the overall economic effects of restricting foreign

investment at a time when the American economy badly needed it. In contrast,

Congressmen have a narrower mandate and are not responsible for America’s overall

economic situation. 869 This makes Congressmen more likely to respond to public opinion

to court voters’ favor even when this may have unwelcome economic consequences at

the national level. Although the Executive could not be entirely insensitive to public and

Congressional pressure, its use of liberal free market rhetoric in defense of open

investment provided it with some room of maneuver.

867
Thomas 1989, 187, 193.
868
Part of this variation may also be explained by party membership.
869
Erikson 1990.
273
 Congressional efforts to regulate FDIUS were galvanized when in October 1986

Fujitsu, responding to Fairchild Semiconductor’s invitation to bid, offered to acquire 80

percent of Fairchild’s shares.870 A wave of alarm regarding the potential Japanese

acquisition swept through America, even though Fairchild was already owned by the

French company Schlumberger Ltd. Defense officials argued that the acquisition

threatened national security because Fairchild was an important microchip supplier for

the Pentagon. Representatives of the American semiconductor industry worried about

Japanese competition. A New York Times article, echoing stereotypes of Japanese

deviousness, reminded readers that “Japanese businessmen were accused of stealing

secrets from IBM and are suspected of technology diversions through Hong Kong.” 871

Senator James S. Exon (D-NE) urged the President to investigate the transaction. In

response to political pressure the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

(CFIUS) initiated an investigation, its first that year. The Department of Justice also

started an antitrust examination. On March 11, 1987 Secretary of Commerce Malcolm

Baldrige spoke out against the deal. Faced with this vocal opposition, Fujitsu withdrew

its bid. Interestingly, while the French ownership of Fairchild was not perceived as a

threat, its Japanese ownership was.

The Fujitsu-Fairchild case represented a turning point in Congressional attitudes

regarding foreign investment. Some worried that the president could not have blocked the

acquisition unless it declared national emergency under the International Emergency

870
Some also mention Sir James Goldsmith’s attempt to take over Goodyear Tire and Rubber as such a
galvanizing event; see Graham and Marchick 2006, 29.
871
William Safire, “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” New York Times, 26 January 1987. Cited in Kang 1997, 321.
274
Economic Powers Act. This required designating the acquisitions an “extraordinary

threat,” which may have caused a diplomatic crisis with Japan.

As public concerns of Japanese FDIUS increased, so did the number of proposed

bills to regulate (Japanese) FDIUS.872 If Japanese FDIUS was fundamentally different

and threatening, then the open investment policy which worked with European and

Canadian partners was inadequate. Rather, a more restrictive system was necessary, just

like in trade, where the US already pressured Japan into various “voluntary” export

restriction agreements. Although none of these measures singled out Japan specifically,

FDIUS “clearly was a code term for Japanese investment in particular.” 873 As Senator

Rockefeller put it later during a congressional hearing: “And the code word, somehow,

when we talk about this whole problem [of FDIUS and national security], we are talking

about the Japanese. Others are obviously involved, but to the American mind it means the

Japanese.”874 One analyst lamented the popularity of “Japan-bashing” in Congress which

exhibited “an undercurrent of racism,” while another worried that this “Yellow Peril

Politics” would even retake the White House in 1988.875 But if the anti-Japanese

sentiment was strong enough to push Congress against Japan on investment and trade, it

could not win the White House as Representative Richard Gephardt’s (D-Missouri) failed

presidential bid illustrated. Nonetheless, in Congress the atmosphere was so anti-Japanese

872
These include the 1987 Breaux Amendment to regulate foreign financial intermediaries, the Murkowski
Amendment to gather more data on foreign capital, the 1988 Schumer Amendment, and the Financial
Reports Act. (DeSouza 1994: 15); HR 2514 (Coble et al) Hostile Foreign Takeover Moratorium Act; HR
2695 (Panetta) Amends the Food Security Act of 1985; HR 3246 (Smith) Amends the Clayton Act to
improve notification requirements applicable to foreigners who acquire voting securities; S. 1264 (Sanford
et al)-Hostile Foreign Takeover Moratorium Act; S. 1697 (Harkin and Levin)-Foreign Investment
Disclosure Act of 1987.
873
Kang 1997, 319.
874
US Congress, July 11, 1989, 51.
875
Trezise 1989/90, 3; Brody 1987.
275
that one anonymous staff aide, with some exaggeration, concluded that in Congress

“everyone hates the Japanese.”876

The two bills that attracted the most attention in the wake of the Fujitsu-Fairchild

case were the Bryant and the Exon-Florio Amendments. Representative John Bryant (D-

Texas) was unsatisfied with the data collected and made public on foreign investment. In

his view, “America has been selling off the family jewels to pay for a night on the town,

and all too often, we don’t even know who is buying.” 877 In response, he introduced a

series of bills even before the Fujitsu-Fairchild case. A May 8, 1986 hearing in the House

of Representatives discussed two of his bills: The Foreign Investment Disclosure and

Reciprocity Act (HR 2582) and The Foreign Disclosure Act (HR 4242).878 HR 2582

required foreign investors to register their investments, provide an exacting amount of

data, and for the home country to provide reciprocity in investment opportunities for US

investors abroad. HR 4242 dropped the reciprocity aspect and specified demanding

reporting requirements.

The Administration fiercely opposed Bryant’s bills. Joseph Grundfest,

Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Robert Ortner,

Chief Economist at the Department of Commerce, argued that the government already

collected adequate data on foreign investment. Bryant’s bills would unnecessarily burden

all foreign investors with demanding reporting requirements. Stephen J. Canner, Director

of the Office of International Investment at the Department of Treasury, concurred that

876
Cited in Uriu 2009, 53.
877
US Congress, May 8, 1986, 50.
878
US Congress, May 8 1986.
276
Bryant’s bills would subject foreign investment “to an extraordinarily burdensome, costly

and impractical registration system.”879 Canner also agreed with Ortner that HR 2582

violated America’s open investment policies (and international obligations). Moreover,

Bryant’s bills threatened the confidentiality of foreign investment, deterring FDIUS and

hurting the economy.

The second bill that attracted considerable attention was Senator Exon’s

Amendment. In his opening statement during the June 10th hearings he recalled that the

Fujitsu-Fairchild case was one of the main motivating factors behind the bill. 880 Since

there was disagreement at that time whether the federal authority to block the acquisition

existed, Exon’s bill proposed to explicitly give the Secretary of Commerce and the

President the authority to review and possibly block foreign takeovers, mergers,

acquisitions, joint ventures and licensing agreements which would threaten the national

security or essential commerce of the United States. The initial proposal stated that the

President and the Secretary

“shall take into consideration the impact of foreign control on the economic
welfare of individual domestic industries, and any substantial unemployment, decrease in
revenues of government, loss of skills or investment, or other serious effects resulting
from the control of such industries by foreign citizens shall be considered, without
excluding other factors, in determining whether such weakening of our internal economy
may impair the national security and essential commerce.” 881

The Administration opposed the bill on the grounds that it would have a “chilling

effect” on foreign investment, it would lead to retaliation against US investment abroad,

879
US Congress, May 8 1986, 92.
880
US Congress, June 10, 1987, 2.
881
US Congress, May 8, 1987, para 905a.
277
it was unnecessary as existing laws provided adequate safeguards to potential threats by

foreign investment, and it would undermine America’s international obligations and

efforts to liberalize the international economy at the Uruguay Round of GATT

negotiations. Most importantly, the bill was so broad that it seriously threatened US open

investment policy. References to “economic welfare of individual industries” and

“essential commerce” allowed a very broad application of the bill, where all foreign

investment could be screened and possibly blocked. There were too many actors which

could initiate an investigation under the bill. Furthermore, the bill applied not only to

hostile takeovers, but also friendly mergers, joint ventures, and even licensing

agreements. Many worried that this would create an atmosphere of uncertainty for

potential foreign investors and would be abused by those seeking protection from foreign

competition.882 In addition, the administration argued that FDIUS posed a negligible

threat to national security and existing laws could handle them. Secretary of Commerce

Malcolm Baldrige thought the Exon Amendment was “an example of vast overkill” and

was like “trying to kill a gnat with a blunderbuss.” 883

For all these reasons, the Exon proposal undermined the administration’s “open

investment policy”. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul A. Volcker, believed it

was “contrary to our long-standing national policy of maintaining an open economic and

financial market …” US Trade Representative (USTR) Clayton Yeutter argued that it

“runs directly contrary to our belief that investment flows which respond to market forces

produce the best and most efficient mechanism to promote economic growth here and

882
US Congress, June 10, 1987, 9. Also see Alvarez 1989, 65.
883
US Congress, June 10, 1987, pp. 11, 17.
278
abroad”. Former Deputy Secretary of Treasury, acting Secretary of State John C.

Danforth, and Baldrige all concurred.884 Secretary of the Treasury James Baker

threatened a presidential veto, writing that “If this provision is in the final bill, I would

find it particularly difficult to recommend that the President sign the bill.” 885

Business representatives, as articulated by Robert L. McNeill, opposed the bill for

reasons similar to those of the Administration. 886 Some industry representatives, like

Joseph L. Parkinson, Chairman of Micron Technology, supported the Exon proposal. For

them it was a welcome defense against what they saw the aggressive and unfair Japanese

competition.887

The Exon bill was subsequently revised to alleviate the Administration’s

concerns. Revisions narrowed the bill from “essential commerce” to “essential commerce

which affects national security.” 888 The revised bill also specified that the President or the

Secretary of Commerce had discretionary power over whether to take action, and reduced

the number of actors able to initiate investigation. It dropped joint ventures and licensing

agreements, covering only mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. On June 19 the Senate

Commerce Committee unanimously adopted this revised version and reported it out as

part of the Technology Competitiveness Act of 1987.

884
US Congress, June 10, 1987, pp. 12, 47, 69, 70, and 76.
885
US Congress, June 10, 1987, p. 68. Darman, a long time colleague of Baker, at Danforth’s request made
clear to the Committee that this was a veto threat: “That is the kind of language you use when you know
you want to recommend veto, but you do not have the authority to say that the administration will stand
behind the veto” (p. 57).
886
McNeill was the Executive Vice Chairman of the Emergency Committee for American Trade. He
represented the Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT), whose views were shared by a large
number of businesses. See US Congress, June 10, 1987, 51-52.
887
US Congress, June 10, 1987, 41.
888
See Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Senate Report No. 100-80 to
Accompany S 907, cited in Alvarez 1989, 69.
279
 On October 20, 1987 the House version of Exon’s bill was introduced by

Representative James Florio (D-NJ).889 Like Exon, Florio was influenced by the Fujitsu-

Fairchild case in proposing the bill. 890 Florio’s bill was broader than Exon’s. The

Administration opposed it on the same grounds. 891 The next day, October 21, hearings

continued in a different subcommittee.892 Perhaps the most important development was

that business representatives hinted at their openness to a trade-off: they would support

the Exon-Florio Amendment if Congress dropped the Bryant Amendment. Business

representative McNeill suggested that if narrowed to national security, the Exon-Florio

Amendment “might be somewhat acceptable to us,” while the Bryant bill was a “killer

amendment.”893

The Administration threatened to veto the entire Trade Act if it included the

Bryant Amendment. Reagan would have preferred to exclude both the Exon-Florio and

the Bryant Amendments, but he could not be entirely insensitive to public and

Congressional pressures. Moreover, the Executive already used up much of its firepower

to ensure that the flurry of Congressional bills on foreign investment were shot down.

Given these circumstances, a deal to accept a watered down Exon-Florio in exchange for

dropping the Bryant bill was an acceptable compromise. Exon-Florio was also appealing

for the President because it provided him with discretionary powers. This not only meant

that it favored the Executive over Congress in their perennial power struggle, but it also

allowed Reagan to apply the Amendment selectively, mitigating the extent to which the

889
US Congress, October 20, 1987.
890
Statement of Congressman James Florio in 134 Congressional Record, H2320, April 21, 1988.
891
US Congress, October 20, 1987, pp. 19, 22, 74, and 83.
892
US Congress, October 21, 1987.
893
US Congress, October 21, 1987, 22.
280
bill weakened America’s open investment policy. In contrast, the Bryant Amendment

was applicable to all foreign investment where foreigners owned more than a 5 percent

share.

In the face of the Administration’s vigorous resistance Bryant’s bills had little

chance to succeed. But the Fairchild-Fujitsu case reenergized Bryant and his supporters.

Bryant dropped the more demanding HR 2582 and resubmitted HR 4242 in January

1987. Despite the Executive’s opposition, the Bryant Amendment passed in the House. It

even found a Senate sponsor in Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), but under Presidential veto threat

eventually failed to pass in the Senate.

To facilitate its acceptance by Reagan the House-Senate Conference Committee

further revised the Exon-Florio Amendment.894 The final reconciled bill conferred

discretionary powers on the President alone, dropping the Secretary of Commerce. It

drafted the proposal as an amendment to the Defense Production Act 895 and further

narrowed the bill’s focus to national security, eliminating the phrase “essential commerce

which affects national security”. The bill required the existence of “credible evidence” of

threats to national security and the inapplicability of other laws before an investigation

could be started.

Despite this narrowing, the bill remained broad enough to satisfy its

Congressional supporters and threaten open investment policy. It left “national security”

undefined and the Conference Report specified that the phrase should be interpreted

“broadly and without limitation to particular industries” and without implying “any

894
Alvarez 1989, 74.
895
US Congress, October 6, 1987, 402.
281
limitation on the term ‘national defense’ as used elsewhere in the Defense Production

Act.”896 The standard for “credible evidence” remained low and the President was

encouraged to consider broad economic factors when exercising his discretionary

power.897

The revisions made the bill more palatable to Reagan. Although he first vetoed

the Trade Act for other reasons,898 following another round of revisions, he signed it into

law on August 23, 1988 along with the Exon-Florio Amendment. Because of what he saw

as a large number of provisions aimed at Japan, the Japanese Minister of International

Trade and Industry, Hajime Tamura complained that the Trade Act was motivated by

“anti-Japanese feeling and racial discrimination.” 899 Some in the US also worried that

Exon-Florio “may exacerbate racial animosities” because its legislative history suggested

an obsession with Japanese takeovers, but no concern about the more numerous British or

Canadian ones.900

While this chapter argues that racial prejudices inflated threat perceptions and

contributed to the passage of Exon-Florio, I do not mean to imply that all those who

voted for the bill were motivated primarily by racism. Many of those who voted for

Exon-Florio, also voted in 1988 for legislation which apologized on the nation’s behalf

for the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II and set

896
Alvarez 1989, 81-2.
897
These factors included: “a) domestic production needed for projected national defense requirements; b)
the capability and capacity of domestic industries to meet national defense requirements; and c) the control
of domestic industries and commercial activities by foreign citizens as it affects the capability and capacity
of the United States to meet the requirements of national security.” See US Congress, April 19, 1988, pp.
36-7.
898
See US Congress, May 24, 1988.
899
Cited in Cohen 1998, 37; see also Washington Post, April 23, 1988, p. B1.
900
Alvarez 1989, 158.
282
aside $1.25 billion in reparations for the 60,000 surviving internees. Among the bill’s

main supporters were Congressmen Norman Y. Mineta and Robert T. Matsui, both

California Democrats who were interned as children with their families. 901

One may argue that those Congressmen who had a strong record on civil rights

voted for Exon-Florio primarily for pro-union reasons, rather than racial prejudices.

Indeed, there is prima facie evidence for this. In 1988 House members voted in

agreement on key labor issues with preferences of the umbrella interest group of

organized labor, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

(AFL-CIO), 68 percent of the time, while Senators voted so 62 percent of the time. 902

Relying on a voting record data set I constructed I also found evidence of correlation

between votes and interest group ratings. The data set contains the votes of all senators

and representatives on the 1988 Trade Act, of which Exon-Florio was part when it

passed. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the voting records on Exon-Florio, so in

addition to the Trade Act, I also included the votes on a 1988 version of Bryant’s bill,

The Foreign Ownership Disclosure Act (HR 5410). To see how well voting records

correlated with labor’s preferences, I included in the data set ratings by AFL-CIO’s

Committee on Political Education (COPE) and ratings by the liberal interest group

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). The Trade Act and the Bryant bill are

imperfect proxies. Relying on them is likely to overstate the correlation between

Congressional voting and labor preferences compared to Exon -Florio, whose security

focus made it more palatable to Republicans with no pro-union leanings. Nonetheless,

901
Worsnop and Leepson 1991.
902
CQ Almanac 1989, B53-54.
283
they can still give us an idea of the correlation between Congressional voting and labor

preferences.

I found high correlations between higher interest group ratings and voting in favor

of these bills. The correlation between COPE ratings and the votes on the 1988 Trade Act

is 0.77, while that between COPE and the Bryant bill votes is 0.744. The correlation

between ADA ratings and the Trade Act is 0.66, while that between ADA ratings and the

Bryant bill is 0.70. Finally, the correlation between votes on the Trade Act and those on

the Bryant bill is 0.70. These results suggest that correlation between COPE and ADA

ratings on the one hand, and voting on Exon-Florio on the other, were also substantially

correlated.

Party Seats Yeas Nays COPE

ratings
Democrats 311 302 (97%) 9 (3%) 90%
Republicans 224 60 (27%) 164 (73%) 35%
Table 5.3: The 1988 Trade Act Votes and COPE Ratings

350
300
250
200 Yeas
150
100 Nays
50
0
Democrats Republicans

Figure 5.1: Voting on the 1988 Trade Act

284
 Despite this correlation, there are three main reasons why I think that support for

Exon-Florio was not reducible to pro-union sentiments. First, the AFL-CIO and ADA

ratings of the bill’s initiator, Senator James Exon were among the lowest among Northern

Democrats. In 1988 he scored 50 percent on ADA’s ratings and 71 percent on AFL-

CIO’s COPE ratings, both among the lowest among Northern Democrats in the Senate. 903

To put these numbers in perspective, the average ADA ratings of Democrats in 1988 was

75 percent and their average COPE rating was 90 percent. One may argue that Exon’s

ratings are still considerable, so we cannot rule out that the bill was motivated by pro-

union feelings. But a second factor suggests that pro-labor sentiments may not have

played much role in passing Exon-Florio. There is little evidence of labor lobbying

activity regarding the bill. Neither AFL-CIO nor ADA identified Exon-Florio as a key

issue that they supported. The one aspect of the 1988 Trade Bill where labor took a

strong position in the Senate was related to the requirement of advance notice to workers

of plant closing and large layoffs. In the House AFL-CIO supported a bill requiring

foreigners with controlling interest in US business or real estate to report additional

information, but it did not take a position on Exon-Florio. Further, my reading of primary

and secondary sources found that labor did little to support the bill. A “veteran industry

lobbyist” who participated in congressional hearings on FDI captures this passivity:

“[Union] guys were nowhere to be seen’.”904 Third, one may argue that labor was so

influential that it did not need to lobby Democrats to ensure voting in agreement with its

903
CQ Almanac 1989, B56-57.
904
Kang 1997, 322-23.
285
preferences, but the problem is that labor did not have a clear preference on Exon-Florio.

Although labor tended to be protectionist on trade, it was split on foreign investment. On

the one hand it was concerned that union jobs would be replaced with nonunion jobs, but

on the other it also recognized that foreign investment created important employment,

often in “sunset” industries. FDI had a mixed effect on workers’ welfare, which

obstructed taking a clear position on it. 905 Instead of opposing foreign investment, labor

unions such as the United Automobile Workers (UAW) tended to limit their position to

pushing for higher local content in manufacturing. 906 Based on these three arguments, it

is reasonable to conclude that pro-labor sentiments did not obviate the role of race

regarding the passage of Exon-Florio.

FDIUS Policy after Exon-Florio

The Executive limited the extent to which Exon-Florio undermined open

investment policy, but it could not entirely preclude its effects. Through Executive Order

12661 the President designated the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

(CFIUS) to review foreign investments, determine when more detailed investigation

should be undertaken, and to carry out such investigations. The Amendment transformed

CFIUS from a monitoring to an enforcement agency and substantially increased federal

powers to shape and even block foreign investment.907 CFIUS was chaired by the

Department of Treasury, which was sensitive to America’s need for foreign capital and

905
Glickman and Woodward 1989, 188-222.
906
Goodman, Spar, and Yoffie 1996, 581.
907
Kang 1997, 326.
286
committed to maintaining an open investment policy. Although the Treasury does not

dictate CFIUS decisions, its chairmanship does predispose CFIUS to a very selective

application of Exon-Florio, against the intentions of Congress. Between 1988 and the

summer of 1992 CFIUS investigated only 14 of the 700 cases of which it was notified,

and the President exercised his power of divestiture in only one case. 908 Nonetheless,

such screening mechanisms do not have to prohibit many transactions to have a

significant impact.

CFIUS shapes FDIUS under Exon-Florio in at least three ways. First, it

discourages certain investments from even being attempted.909 Second, it functions as a

“trip-wire mechanism” which provides Congress an “entry point” to exert political

pressure to block certain transactions or to further regulate and restrict foreign

investment.910 The vulnerability of this entry point to Congressional pressure was

illustrated by subsequent efforts to further restrict FDIUS. 911 Third, Exon-Florio gives

CFIUS the power to shape transactions through lengthy consultation with foreign

investors. As one scholar notes, the most important effect of CFIUS may be “jawboning

foreign investors either to accept conditions on some kinds of investment or to withdraw

their bids, while not officially blocking them.” 912

Worries about Japanese FDIUS died hard in the aftermath of Exon-Florio.

Stephen Cooney, Director of the National Association of Manufacturers, noted during a

908
Tyson 1992, 147.
909
Kang 1997, 304; Testimony of Christopher R. Wall, US Congress, February 26, 1991, p. 43.
910
Kang 1997, 328.
911
US Congress, March-April, 1992; US Congress, June-July 1990; other bills regarding FDIUS included
S. 856 (Murkowski), HR 4520 (Sharp), and HR 4608 (Lent).
912
Kang 1997, 304.
287
1991 Congressional hearing that “with one exception this morning, every negative

comment made on foreign investment related to Japan.” 913 A 1992 Financial Times

criticized the Rostenkowski-Gradison bill at the time as “just one more instance of the

national paranoia about Japan.”914 Japanese FDIUS grew to overtake Britain’s for a few

months in 1992, before plummeting. Inflated threat perceptions of Japan died only after

Japan’s bubble economy burst and entered the ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s.

Alternative Explanations

Alternative explanations are insightful but incomplete, leaving room for a racial

one. To begin with, one may argue that the reason why Americans perceived Japanese

FDIUS more threatening than European FDIUS was World War II. More specifically, the

American public imputed devious and aggressive intentions to the Japanese not because

of racial prejudice, but because of Pearl Harbor. This is why many Americans talked

about Japanese FDIUS as an ‘economic Pearl Harbor,’ while Nixon talked of an

economic threat “far more serious than the challenge that we confronted even in the dark

days of Pearl Harbor.”915 Although the US also fought Germany in World War II,

Germany did not cause of Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor undoubtedly reinforced racial prejudices and strengthened the image

of the Japanese “Yellow Peril”. World War II more generally helps to explain the war

rhetoric around Japanese-American trade frictions. But there are at least three good

913
US Congress, February 26 and June 12, 1991, p. 183.
914
DeSouza 1994, 62 cites “Uncle Sam tries it on,” Financial Times, September 14, 1992.
915
Cited in Schaller 1997, 236; Nixon remarks to Veterans of Foreign Wars, Aug. 19, 1971, Weekly
Compilation of Presidential Documents (Washington, DC, 1971), pp. 1198-1204)
288
reasons why this explanation is incomplete without race. First, as discussed earlier, the

racial prejudices underpinning the Japanese “economic Yellow Peril” preceded Pearl

Harbor. Second, they were also shared by the Europeans who did not experience this

historical event. Third, although the older generation of Americans feels more intensely

about Pearl Harbor, younger generations do not. A series of public opinion surveys

between 1985 and 1995 found that only a minority of Americans held attacking Pearl

Harbor against Japan. Since the vast majority of Americans feared Japanese FDIUS and

favored legal restrictions against it, Pearl Harbor alone is an incomplete explanation. 916

Again others may argue that the American public perceived Japanese FDIUS as

threatening and Congress passed Exon-Florio because industries looking for protection

from Japanese competition inflated the Japan threat. As early as 1971 Elly R. Carraway,

Jr., president of the textile manufacturer Burlington Industries, told a Senate

subcommittee that the United States was on the ‘brink of defeat’ in a trade war.”917

Chrysler’s chief executive, Lee Iacocca, wrote in his bestselling autobiography of a major

trade war with Japan. 918 Representatives of the semiconductor industry clearly saw the

Exon proposal as a welcome protection against Japanese competition. 919 More

sophisticated versions of this explanation also tell us why Japanese, but not European

FDIUS was threatening to certain industries. Given economies of scale and steep learning

curves, access to foreign markets and control of home markets was crucial in some

industries. Since Japan was less open to USDIA than Europe, this would give Japanese

916
CBS/NYT and TBS surveys in Ladd and Bowman 1996, 22.
917
Schaller 1997, 232.
918
Iacocca 1984, 315.
919
See US Congress, June 10, 1987, 28-31.
289
competitors an unfair advantage. For this reason, even some internationally oriented

industries, like semiconductors, supported FDIUS restrictions. 920

This strategic explanation of threat inflation is insightful. Perhaps it can also

account for some of the broad content of Exon-Florio, initial versions of which even

referred to the “economic welfare of individual industries”. However, this explanation

has at least two shortcomings. First, domestic industry representatives were divided over

FDIUS restrictions as they had contradictory economic interests. They wanted protection

from foreign competition, but they also wanted to avoid retaliation against their

investments abroad. While the semiconductor industry was more protectionist than one

would have expected from an internationally oriented industry, even their demands were

“ambivalent and contradictory,” as were those of the auto and machine tool industries. 921

It is unclear that industries favoring FDIUS restrictions wielded more political power

than those opposing such restrictions, especially since protectionist industries were

opposed by corporate business interest, and received only lukewarm support by the

generally passive labor interests. Second, and closely connected, if protectionists enjoyed

no evident power advantage, this account has difficulties explaining why threat

inflationary arguments of supporters of FDIUS restrictions resonated more with the

public and Congress than threat deflationary arguments of opponents of restrictions. The

extent to which racial rhetoric and advertisements by protectionist industries succeeded in

inflating threats strategically cannot be explained without reference to widespread anti-

Japanese racial prejudices.

920
Milner and Yoffie 1989.
921
Crystal 1998, 528.
290
 Finally, perhaps the most powerful explanation would emphasize that Japanese

FDIUS was perceived as more threatening because it grew faster than European

FDIUS.922 Indeed, Japanese FDIUS increased at an average annual rate of 32.5 percent

from 1980 to 1985, and 28.4 percent from 1985 to 1989.923 This fast growth can account

for much of the high American threat perception of Japanese foreign investment.

However, there are good reasons to suspect that it does not capture the whole story and

that a racial explanation can usefully complement it to provide a more comprehensive

explanation. First, since it was growing from a much smaller base than European FDIUS,

Japanese FDIUS should not necessarily have been more alarming. 924 All FDIUS was

growing fast and it is unclear why Americans did not perceive the much larger and fast

growing British FDIUS more threatening, even if it was not growing as fast as Japanese

investment. Second, levels of threat perception are somewhat at odds with Japanese

FDIUS growth rates. Public threat perceptions were lowest when Japanese FDIUS was

growing the fastest (1980-85) and they were the highest when Japanese FDIUS was

actually growing the slowest or was even stagnating (the early 1990s). 925 Third, a racial

explanation at the very least can complement this and other alternative explanations by

explaining the subtle racial language surrounding inflated fears of Japanese FDIUS.

922
Woodward in US Congress, June 13-July 31 1990, 193; Krause 1989, 115; Jackson, April 1991, 2;
Armacost 1996, 66; Whalen 1990, 72-3.
923
US Congress, OIT 1993, 82.
924
Julius 1991, 9.
925
One may want to object to this point by arguing that it is not reasonable to expect the public to be so
fine-tuned to levels of Japanese investment growth. This objection is well taken. At the same time, it is
arguable whether large fluctuations in Japanese investment growth over more than a decade require an
unreasonably fine tuned public.
291
Conclusions

By bringing in race, this chapter contributes to a more comprehensive

understanding of why and how inflated threat perceptions of Japanese FDIUS led to

Exon-Florio and weakened American open investment policy. First, trade frictions

activated racial prejudices of Japanese deviousness and aggressiveness, which resulted in

American perceptions of Japan as a ‘Yellow Peril’. Second, Americans perceived

Japanese investment as more threatening than the larger European investment and they

perceived Japan as more threatening than the USSR. Third, racially inflated threat

perceptions facilitated the passage of the Exon-Florio Amendment, weakening American

open investment policy, albeit to a limited extent.

The finding that racial difference inflated American threat perceptions is

consistent with the expectations of the racial theory of Chapter 2, but the Exon-Florio

case only partially met the second theoretical expectation, that of cooperation along the

color line. Although European fears of Japanese FDI paralleled those of Americans,

transatlantic cooperation was modest compared to that found by previous empirical

chapters. Europeans perceived Japanese investment as a “Yellow Peril,” as Americans

did. In 1967, a few years before Nixon’s similar remarks, French President Charles de

Gaulle mocked Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Satō as a “merchant of transistors”.926 An

infamous 1979 European Community memorandum leaked to the press referred to the

Japanese as “workaholics living in what Westerners would regard as little more than

926
LaFeber 1997, 327.
292
rabbit hutches.”927 Racial stereotypes of Japanese aggressiveness and deviousness were

not far below the surface. The chief editor of Le Monde believed for Japan economic

competition was war by another means. 928 In 1991 French Prime Minister Edith Cresson

echoed the public sentiment that Japan was bent on cheating its way to world domination:

“Japan is an adversary that doesn’t play by the rules and has an absolute desire to conquer

the world.”929

However, European-American cooperation against Japan remained limited. 930 The

worries of C. Fred Bergsten, a former Treasury Assistant Secretary for International

Affairs under Carter, about racist transatlantic collusion against Japan remained largely

unfulfilled. 931 Instead of formal cooperation transatlantic cooperation, what we find is

policy coordination. The pattern that emerged was European imitation of American

economic policies, where most Japanese-American economic agreements were followed

by a request from the Economic Community for a similar agreement with Japan. 932

The lack of formal transatlantic cooperation against Japan was due to at least four

factors. First, there was more concern than in the past about avoiding the appearance of

racist collusion against an Asian state.933 Second, powerful ideas of laissez faire

capitalism limited the appeal to US decision-makers of coordinated intervention against

Japanese foreign investment. Third, the US assumed leadership on economic

liberalization at the ongoing Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, which impeded

927
Financial Times, March 30, 1979, p. 1, cited in Cohen 1998, 37.
928
Cited in Wilkinson 1991, 136, 137.
929
Cited in Thurow 1992, 81.
930
Tyson 1992, 7; Mastanduno 1991, 103.
931
Bergsten 1982, 1059.
932
Wilkinson 1991,13.
933
Nanto 1986,34.
293
cooperation with Europe to restrict Japanese foreign investment. Fourth, European states

disagreed over how much restriction against Japanese investment was necessary.

Looking at the future, it will be interesting to see whether Chinese (and Arab)

investment will bring about inflated threat perceptions and more restrictive investment

policy. More recently the proposed takeover of Unocal by China National Offshore Oil

Corporation (CNOOC) and that of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation

Company by Dubai Ports World led to some alarm. Over twenty bills were introduced in

Congress to restrict foreign investment and amend Exon-Florio.934 Since Chinese foreign

direct investment is currently small, China’s impending liberalization of capital flows

will inevitably result in a significant increase of Chinese foreign direct investment.

Reactions in the West will provide another test for the racial theory of threat perception

provided by this dissertation.

934
Graham and Marchick 2006, 2, 31.
294
 Chapter Six: Conclusion

When in 2010 the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum released recordings of

conversations captured by President Richard M. Nixon’s secret taping system in the

White House, race was at the center of attention. The recordings of discussions between

Nixon and his top advisers contained disparaging remarks about racial minorities. In a

conversation on February 13, 1973 Charles Colson, a senior adviser, confessed to Nixon

that he always had “a little prejudice”. Nixon replied that he was not prejudiced, “I’ve

just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.” He then went on to discuss

the traits that different ethnic and racial groups supposedly have. 935

Much has changed since the 1970s in American and international race relations.

There is an African American President in the Oval Office. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is

commemorated by the King National Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Interracial marriages are increasing, racial segregation is decreasing, and (at least

explicit) racial prejudices are declining. At the same time, like Nixon almost forty years

ago, too many still think that they are not prejudiced, but only recognize that “all people

have certain traits”. The occasional racist comments of celebrities and the frequent racial

slurs of sports fans remind us that racial prejudices are still a force to be reckoned with.

935
New York Times, December 10, 2010.
295
Recently in the first decision under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act a judge

concluded that racial prejudice led to a death sentence 18 years ago and changed the

sentence to life in prison without parole. 936 The shooting of unarmed young black males

in America frequently leads to heated debates about racial prejudice.

While racial prejudice is taken increasingly seriously at the domestic level, it is

relatively neglected at the international level. The conventional wisdom in international

politics seems to be that decision makers’ racial prejudices do not bias their foreign

policy decisions. After all, despite his anti-Semitic remarks, Nixon provided Israel with

vital support during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Admittedly, racial prejudice does not

always translate into foreign policy, but when it does, colorblind IR theories are

inadequate. This dissertation presented a racial theory of international politics and

supported it with three empirical cases. It showed that racial prejudices embedded in

racial identities can facilitate cooperation among states with shared racial identity and can

facilitate discord among states with different racial identities. Anarchy may provide

strong incentives to base discord and cooperation on balance of power calculations, but it

does not render race internationally irrelevant.

The concluding chapter is organized as follows. The first two sections discuss the

main findings and contributions of the dissertation. The next two sections identify

limitations and future research avenues. Having read the dissertation, one may wonder

whether racial prejudice and discrimination are inevitable. The fifth section addresses this

936
New York Times, 20 April, 2012.
296
question and argues that they are not. The chapter closes with thoughts on race,

legitimacy and the future of the liberal international system.

Summary of Findings

This dissertation provided a two-step racial theory of discord and cooperation. In

the first step, threat-relevant racial prejudices regarding the body, intentions, rationality,

and morality are activated and shape threat perceptions. Agents perceive those with

shared racial identity as less threatening, because through the lens of racial prejudices

they appear rational, moral, fundamentally similar, and as having good intentions. Agents

perceive those with different racial identities as more threatening, because through the

lens of racial prejudices they appear irrational, devious, fundamentally different, and as

having bad intentions. In the second step, racially shaped threat perceptions generate

behavioral dispositions. Inflated threat perceptions facilitate discord and inhibit

cooperation among agents with different racial identities. Deflated threat perceptions

facilitate cooperation and inhibit discord among agents with shared racial identities. The

upshot is that agents with shared racial identity can cooperate against agents with

different racial identities. Birds of a feather sometimes flock together against birds of

different feathers. When states have dominant racial groups that hold threat-relevant

racial prejudices, when these prejudices are activated, and when threats are ambiguous,

this racial theory will be helpful in explaining patterns of discord and cooperation.

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 Three empirical chapters tested the four hypotheses derived from this racial

theory (for a summary see Table 6.1 below). Chapter 3 explained how race led to the

demise of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902-1923). In the first step, the 1904-5 Russo-

Japanese War and Japanese immigration to the US activated racial prejudices regarding

the body and intentions. Many Americans perceived the Japanese as fundamentally

different and non-assimilable not only culturally, but also biologically. Moreover, they

perceived Japan as having aggressive intentions. Due to racial prejudices related to

fundamental difference and aggressive intentions, the US came to see Japan as a Yellow

Peril and to consider the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as a potential threat. In the second step,

driven by this racially inflated threat perception, the US pushed for the demise of the

alliance. Great Britain, partly for racial and partly for strategic reasons, conformed to

American preferences and facilitated the end of the alliance at the 1922 Washington

Conference. The demise of the alliance opened the way for Anglo-Saxon—Japanese

alienation and German-Japanese rapprochement, which made WWII possible.

Chapter 4 traced how the emergence of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT)

was shaped by race. In the first step, the Korean War activated American racial

prejudices regarding “Oriental” aggressive intentions and irrationality. Through this

racial lens Communist China was perceived not only as a Red Peril, but also as a “Yellow

Peril”. This inflated US threat perception of Chinese efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

In the second step, the US pushed for cooperation with the USSR to inhibit Chinese

nuclear proliferation. Partly for racial reasons, the Soviets cooperated with the US to

298
create the LTBT. Although the LTBT did not preclude the Chinese bomb, it did open the

way for détente and subsequent arms control agreements.

Chapter 5 showed that the Exon-Florio Amendment to the 1988 Trade Act was

influenced by race. In the first step, Japanese-American trade frictions activated

American racial prejudices pertaining to intentions and morality. In light of these

prejudices, Americans perceived the Japanese as aggressive and devious, and Japan

appeared to them as an “economic Yellow Peril”. In the second step, prodded by pressure

from the American public, Congress moved to restrict Japanese foreign direct investment

in the United States. The Executive successfully opposed most Congressional bills, but

eventually had to agree to a watered down version of the Exon-Florio bill. The

Executive’s strong belief in liberal ideas regarding investment and its selective

application of the bill explains why the bill has not undermined US open investment

policy to a more significant extent.

299
Cases Theoretical Expectations Findings

Chapter 3 Threat Perception: Racial prejudices related

Threat Perception: US, but
Race and to the body and intentions inflate threat much less British, threat
Alliances: perceptions among agents with different perceptions of Japan were
the Demise racial identities and deflate threat racially inflated. The US
of the perceptions among agents with shared racialand British threat
Anglo- identities (hypotheses 1 and 2). perceptions of each other
Japanese were racially deflated.
Alliance Behavior: The US and
Behavior: These racially shaped threat Britain cooperated against
perceptions generate cooperation among Japan to end the Anglo-
agents with shared racial identity against Japanese Alliance.
agents with different racial identity.

Threat Perception: Racial prejudices related Threat Perception: US, and

Chapter 4 to intentions and rationality inflate threat partly Soviet, threat
Race and perceptions among agents with different perceptions of China were
Arms racial identities and deflate threat racially inflated. The
Control: perceptions among agents with shared racial superpowers’ threat
the Limited identities (hypotheses 2 and 3). perceptions of each other
Test Ban were somewhat racially
Treaty deflated.
(LTBT) Behavior: These racially shaped threat Behavior: The US and the
perceptions generate cooperation among USSR cooperated to inhibit
agents with shared racial identity against the Chinese bomb through
agents with different racial identity. the LTBT.

Chapter 5 Threat Perception: Racial prejudices related Threat Perception: US and

Race and to intentions and morality inflate threat European threat perceptions
FDI: perceptions among agents with different of Japan were racially
Japanese racial identities and deflate threat inflated. US and European
FDI in the perceptions among agents with shared racial threat perceptions of each
US identities (hypotheses 2 and 4). other were racially deflated.
Behavior: The US passed
the Exon-Florio
Behavior: These racially shaped threat Amendment to restrict
perceptions generate cooperation among Japanese FDIUS.
agents with shared racial identity against Transatlantic cooperation
agents with different racial identity. against Japan remained
modest.
Table 6.1: Summary of Findings

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Contributions

The main contribution of the dissertation is to show that race matters in great

power politics. Patterns of discord and cooperation can be shaped by race, rather than

only material power or regime type. Instead of balancing with weaker states against

stronger states, as balance of power theory would expect, great powers chose to cooperate

with racially similar states against racially different states, even when the racially similar

states were stronger than the racially different ones. Chapter 3 shows that instead of

balancing with the weaker Japan against the stronger Britain, the US chose to cooperate

with the latter against the former. While shared Anglo-Saxon racial identity deflated

American fears of Britain, the different racial identity of Japan inflated American threat

perceptions. Chapter 4 shows that instead of balancing with the weaker China against the

stronger USSR, the US cooperated with the Soviets against the Chinese.

Patterns of discord and cooperation can also follow the “color line” rather than

regime type. In Chapter 4 the Communist USSR cooperated with the liberal democratic

US against the fellow Communist China, albeit only partly for racial reasons. Chapter 5

showed that shared regime type did little to alleviate American fears of Japanese foreign

direct investment and to inhibit Japanese-American economic discord. The demise of the

Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the emergence of the LTBT, and the passage of the Exon-

Florio Amendment are puzzling when looked at from the angle of balance of power

theory or democratic peace theory. The dissertation sheds light on these puzzles through a

racial theory of international politics.

301
 The racial theory presented in Chapter 2 not only challenges, but also works

together with extant theories to provide more comprehensive explanations of

international politics. However, similar to most IR theories, it predicts general patterns of

behavior and remains indeterminate regarding specific outcomes. To account for specific

outcomes that result from racial patterns of discord and cooperation, each chapter traces

how race interacts with other factors such as domestic politics, political ideology, or

strategic calculations. Chapter 3 shows how British strategic calculations interacted with

Anglo-Saxon racial solidarity to facilitate British cooperation with the US to bring about

the demise of the alliance. Chapter 4 traces how American domestic politics and Soviet

strategic calculations interacted with American and Soviet racially inflated threat

perceptions of a nuclear China to bring about the LTBT. Chapter 5 explains how the 1988

Exon-Florio Amendment passed due to interactions between racially inflated threat

perceptions, domestic politics, and liberal political ideology. Each of the empirical cases

illustrates how race can interact with other factors to provide better explanations of

specific outcomes.

In addition to the contributions discussed in Chapter 1, the dissertation makes two

specific contributions. One theoretical contribution is to enrich the literature on threat

inflation with a “color of threat” theory. This “color of threat” theory of threat perception

can both contradict and complement instrumental theories of threat inflation.

Instrumental theories assume that elite threat perceptions are relatively accurate and

explain threat inflation as the result of elites manipulating the masses to maximize

302
various interests under conditions of anarchy and uncertainty. 937 The dissertation

contradicts theories of threat inflation by showing that elites do not always inflate public

threat perceptions instrumentally. Rather than trying to maximize interests, elites may

often inflate public threat perceptions through alarmist statements because they genuinely

believe that existential threats are on the horizon. Their threat perceptions can be

distorted by racial prejudice. The “color of threat” theory also complements instrumental

theories of threat inflation. When elite threat perceptions are accurate and they try to

inflate public threat perceptions for instrumental reasons, this racial theory helps explain

why some threat inflationary arguments may be more persuasive to the public than

others, and why threat inflationary arguments may be more persuasive than threat

deflationary arguments. Arguments aimed at inflating threats may trump those aimed at

deflating threats when the potential threat is posed by racially different agents, because

they resonate with the racial prejudices of the public. Similarly, arguments aimed to

inflate threats which fit with racial prejudices may inflate public threat perceptions better

than threat inflationary arguments that have no racial implications.

Closely connected to the theoretical contributions, the dissertation has two policy

implications. First, understanding the threat inflationary logic of racial difference can

undermine the ability of race to inflate threats and facilitate costly overreactions. This

contribution is particularly timely given fears of Muslim terrorism and the rise of China.

Of course, worries about both are justified, but hysteria is not. Regarding fears of

937
Cavanaugh 2007/08; Cramer and Thrall 2009; Kaufmann 2004; Snyder 2009.
303
terrorism, several scholars make cogent arguments that they are “overblown.” 938 In the

West, Muslim terrorists are perceived as not only having a different religion, but also

having a different racial identity. Perhaps this helps explain why threat inflationary

arguments regarding Iraqi WMDs or Muslim terrorism could be so persuasive. Regarding

the rise of China, much of the debate so far has been conducted in moderate terms. 939 Yet

some, like Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro, arguably are subject to inflated threat

perception when they predict a “coming conflict” between the US and China. 940 As China

increases its military spending and expands its economic clout there is a danger that

alarmist arguments will become more influential. China’s human rights violations, the

undervaluation of the yuan, tensions with Taiwan or neighbors in the South China Sea

could all be used to bolster threat inflationary arguments. If arguments of China as a

“Yellow Peril” hijacked the rise of China debate and influenced decision making, the

consequences could be disastrous. Awareness of the threat inflationary dynamics of racial

prejudices should undercut exaggerated fears of Muslim terrorism, and should make

decision makers and the public on both sides more cautious to ensure the peacefulness of

Sino-American relations.

The second policy implication pertains to what I call the “balance of prejudices”.

Much of social psychology and constructivism recommend diminishing the pernicious

influence of racial prejudices through increased interracial interaction or by redrawing

identity boundaries to include racial others. In addition to undermining racial prejudices

938
Brooks 2011; Mueller 2006.
939
For good summaries of these debates see Christensen 2006; Friedberg 2005. For arguments that China is
a status quo power see Johnston 2003; Ross 1997.
940
Bernstein and Munro 1997.
304
by revealing the logic of their pernicious impact, this dissertation suggests a

complementary way to mitigate the systematic bias of racial prejudices on policy making.

Assuming that different racial groups hold different racial prejudices, increasing the

racial diversity in decision making bodies could result in a “balance of prejudices.” 941

This could mitigate systematic racial biases of decisions and actions and could make

them more fair or impartial. Having more Muslim Americans and Chinese Americans in

positions of power may mitigate the threat inflationary impact of racial prejudices on US

decision making regarding Muslim terrorism and the rise of China. This solution,

however, has limits and could also cause new problems. The prospect of Gary Locke, a

Chinese American, becoming the US ambassador to China was largely welcomed in

China, but not by everyone. Chinese officials offered a warm welcome and the state-run

Global Times cited a specialist who opined that Locke would better understand “the

Chinese way of dealing with issues.” But some ordinary Chinese saw him as a ‘traitor’

and criticized him for not speaking Mandarin Chinese. 942 Assuming that racial identities

correlate with racial prejudices may also be problematic. For instance, racial groups can

internalize prejudices others hold of them. Nonetheless, the advantages of racially diverse

decision making bodies may still outweigh the costs.

941
Because “balance of prejudices” carries the danger of essentializing race and racial prejudices, I wish to
emphasize that this is far from my normative purposes.
942
Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2011.
305
Limitations

The dissertation also has several limitations, three of which I mention here. I

address others in the Future Research section below. The first category of limitations is

the imperfect alignment between the theory and the empirical findings. Although most of

my theoretical expectations were fulfilled, there are two that were only partially fulfilled.

In Chapter 5 both the American and European threat perceptions of Japanese FDIUS

were racially inflated and this produced discord between them and Japan. However,

contrary to the theory’s expectations, transatlantic cooperation against Japan remained

modest. More extensive cooperation to restrict Japanese FDI was obstructed by a host of

factors, including heightened concerns of being perceived as racist, US liberalization

efforts at the Uruguay Round of GATT, liberal economic ideas prevalent in the Reagan

Administration, and European coordination problems. Another case where at least at first

glance theoretical expectations were only partly fulfilled comes from Chapter 3. British

cooperation with the US to end the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was partly racial. However,

while British threat perception towards the US was racially deflated, that towards Japan

was not substantially racially inflated. In this Britain differed not only from the US, but

also from British Dominions such as Australia and New Zealand, all of which held

racially inflated threat perceptions of Japan. In fact, this finding is consistent with

Hypothesis 1 which stresses that racial prejudices related to the body shape threat

perceptions conditional on the proximity of racial others. The more remote Britain did

not experience the wave of Japanese immigration that the other Anglo-Saxon states did

and British racial prejudices were not activated, or at least not to the same extent as

306
elsewhere. The race literature provides substantial evidence that higher concentration of

racial minorities is correlated with more hostile racial attitudes by racial majorities. 943

Nonetheless, one empirical puzzle remains in Chapter 3. It is unclear why US threat

perception towards the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was more racially inflated by Japanese-

American racial difference than it was deflated by Anglo-American racial similarity.

Why did the US perceive the alliance as threatening knowing that its racial kin was part

of the alliance? More research is needed to establish why and when racially inflated

threat perceptions trump racially deflated threat perceptions.

Another shortcoming is normative-political. Because of the methodological

choice made for the sake of tractability, this study ignores the fluidity of racial identities,

as well as difference within racial groups and similarities across them. Therefore, one

may worry that the argument homogenizes agents with shared racial identities and is

prone to a binary “us versus them” thinking which might legitimate the “clash of

civilizations.”944 Because nothing is farther from my intentions, I wish to emphasize that

the normative purpose of the dissertation is to be self-falsifying rather than self-fulfilling.

There is nothing inherent in racial identities that would cause discord across racial

identities. By showing how racial prejudices embedded in racial identities bias threat

perceptions and behavior, I aim to undermine their influence on international politics.

A final limitation or perhaps future challenge to the argument comes from recent

developments regarding race in the US (and perhaps elsewhere). Some race scholars

943
Fossett and Kiecolt 1989; Giles and Buckner 1993; Giles and Evans 1985; Quillian 1995; Taylor 1998.
The relationship between majority racial attitudes and racial minority concentration is not fixed, however,
but can vary across racial groups and can be moderated by interracial contact (Rudolph and Popp 2010).
For limitations of the racial threat hypothesis see Voss 1996.
944
Huntington 1996.
307
herald a new American racial order brought about by immigration, multiracialism,

genomics, and cohort change. 945 Although they think the US will not become colorblind,

they contend that “social relations are arguably becoming less color-constrained.”946 This

potential change is in an incipient phase and the authors are careful to identify blockages

that might stifle it. But if the American racial order changes, it will have important

implications for my argument. If no racial group will be dominant or a non-white racial

group will be dominant in the US, then American patterns of racial discord and

cooperation will be very different. An increasing number of young Americans embrace

multiple racial identities.947 If they also harbor less prejudice, the explanatory power of

this racial theory will be weakened. This would be a welcome development as it would

probably imply a better racial future. One concern, however, is that racial categories and

prejudices will simply change rather than disappear. Prejudices against multiracial

individuals already raise concerns.948 Only time will tell whether the American racial

order will change and what the implications will be. My intuition is that at the very least

the influence of racial prejudices embedded in racial identities will become much more

complex and nuanced.

Future Research

There are at least four research avenues that future work could address. First, I am

planning to extend the theory to cases where shared racial identity facilitated the

945
Hochschild, Weaver, and Burch 2012.
946
Ibid.,131.
947
New York Times, January 29, 2011.
948
Hochschild, Weaver, and Burch 2012, 65.
308
underestimation of significant threats and caused underbalancing. Much of the

dissertation focused on how difference in racial identity facilitated the overestimation of

modest threats and in some cases caused overreactions or overbalancing, neglecting

underbalancing. One possible direction is to assess whether shared racial identities can

provide an alternative explanation for “unanswered threats.”949 Randall Schweller

explains such unanswered threats based on the degree of elite consensus, elite cohesion,

social cohesion, and regime vulnerability. But it may be no accident that his empirical

cases involve states with similar racial identities. It may be fruitful to work through these

cases to assess shared racial identity could help explain some of them.

Second, future work should look more closely at the relationship between emotion

and cognition to expand this racial theory of international politics. Although the

dissertation emphasizes the social cognitive dimension of threat perception and resulting

patterns of discord and cooperation, the affective dimension probably plays an important

role as well. The emerging literature on emotions in IR suggests that emotions can

heavily influence perceptions and actions. 950 One particularly promising direction would

be to explore how trust can shape racial patterns of discord and cooperation. According to

Jonathan Mercer, “Cognition and emotion meet in trust…”951 Trust facilitates

cooperation, which then can feed back into trust, creating a virtuous circle. In Chapter 3 I

looked at how shared Anglo-Saxon identity deflated threat perceptions between the US

and Britain and facilitated cooperation. However, trust based on shared racial identity

949
Schweller 2006.
950
Crawford 2000.
951
Mercer 2010, 6.
309
was important too. I expect that in many other empirical cases racial trust facilitates

cooperation among agents with shared racial identity and racial distrust inhibits

cooperation among agents with different racial identities. A number of studies found that

trust travels better within racial groups than across them. 952 Shared racial identity seems

particularly relevant in facilitating a general trusting disposition. If such generalized trust

facilitates the emergence of diffuse reciprocity underlying qualitative multilateralism, 953

then race may have interesting implications for deep international cooperation.

Third, future research should examine how Asian states perceived potential

threats posed by Western states. Because of language constraints the dissertation looked

only at how Western states (and the USSR) perceived potential threats posed by Asian

states. If the theory is right that difference in racial identity inflates threat perceptions, we

should find that Japan and China saw Britain, the US, and the USSR as a “White

Peril”.954 Indeed, I found several British documents which report that while the West saw

Japan’s rise as a “Yellow Peril,” Japan saw Western economic domination and Anglo-

Saxon solidarity as a “White Peril.” 955 Other scholars have also reported similar

findings.956 More research would likely unearth more recent evidence of the “White

Peril”. Showing how Asian threat perceptions and behavior were also shaped by race

952
Alesina and La Ferrara 2002; Delhey and Newton 2005.
953
Rathbun 2012.
954
This expectation depends on the assumption that the social cognitive processes on which the theory is
based are universal. For an argument that East Asians and Westerners rely on different systems of thought
and perception see Nisbett 2003.
955
Koshiro 1999, 2; Document 210, entitled “Notes by Mr. Hobart Hampden on the Memorandum by the
Secretary in the Political Department, India Office, on Japanese Policy in its bearings on India,” in British
Documents on Foreign Affairs, Part II, Series E, Vol. 2, p. 171; Document 522, Letter from Mr. Alston
(Tokyo) to Sir J. Tilley (Rec’d Nov 11), sent on October 7, 1919, in Documents on British Foreign Policy,
First Series, Vol. VI, p. 763.
956
Duus 1971.
310
would serve as a reminder that although the superiority of Western material power made

white racism more consequential, the West does not have monopoly over racism. Sadly,

other racial groups are subjects to it as well. Japanese exclusionary immigration laws,

Arab enslavement of Africans, post-Mao Chinese discrimination against blacks, interwar

anti-Semitism in Brazil, or the Creole elite’s oppression of Indians in the Andes are only

a few examples of non-white racism. 957

Finally, the argument could be strengthened by diversifying the types of cases

and methods employed. Although the cases show some limits of the racial theory, they

are all essentially positive cases, confirming the bulk of my theoretical expectations. The

dissertation contains no negative cases, that is, cases where race did not shape patterns of

discord and cooperation. I am planning to add a chapter which includes one or more

negative cases. This would allow me to better identify the scope conditions of the theory

and to mitigate concerns about selection bias. Furthermore, the case for race could be

bolstered by adding large N statistical and/or experimental evidence to the dissertation.

Are Racial Prejudice and Discrimination Inevitable?

Having read the dissertation, the reader might wonder whether racial prejudice

and racial discrimination are inevitable. The question is particularly important given the

nature of my racial theory and recent developments in the interdisciplinary race literature.

The theory is structural, where decision makers’ agency is constrained by racial

prejudices and their individuality matters little. New research in evolutionary psychology,

957
Hall 2011; Larson 2004; Lesser 1995; Sautman 1994; Weiner 1994.
311
anthropology, and philosophy argues that racial categories are not simply socially

constructed. Rather, they are the byproducts of innate cognitive properties which

emerged during the evolution of the human species to solve particular problems. 958 In

addition, the implicit racism literature revealed evidence of increasingly subtle racial

prejudices in experimental settings.959 Based on these two bodies of literature it is

tempting to jump to the conclusion that racial prejudice and discrimination are inevitable.

I think this is not warranted.

Whether racial categories are based on innate cognitive tendencies and whether

we all hold subtle racial prejudices are controversial and difficult questions. A detailed

discussion is beyond the scope of this chapter, but there are good reasons to think that

racial prejudices and discrimination are not inevitable. Although human agency is

constrained, it is not irrelevant. Even if we grant that racial categorization has an

evolutionary aspect (and this still needs to be conclusively shown), the variation of racial

categories across time and space suggests that, at most, innate cognitive tendencies

provide boundary conditions for the construction of racial categories, but do not

determine the content of racial categories, the particular prejudices associated with racial

groups, and the behavioral impact of such prejudices. The main point of the evolutionary

approach is not that racism is inevitable, but only that racial categorization is. Yet other

scholars claim that prejudice is an inevitable consequence of categorization 960 and

958
Gil-White 2001; Hirschfeld 1996; Machery and Faucher 2005; Mallon 2010. This literature is unclear
about what these problems were.
959
Correll et al. 2007; Greenwald, Oakes, and Hoffman 2003; Phelps and Thomas 2003; Quillian 2008.
960
Allport 1958 [1954]; Hamilton 1981.
312
suggest that “people will be prejudiced so long as they continue to think.” 961 I would

argue the opposite: people will be prejudiced so long as they continue not to think. The

more they think, the less prejudices will shape their perceptions and behavior.

Experimental evidence suggests that while racial prejudice and discrimination are

widespread, they are not inevitable. The literature on cognitive neuroscience and social

psychology typically distinguishes between automatic and controlled components of

cognitive processing. 962 The automatic component contains racial prejudices, while the

controlled component contains more reflective elements such as anti-racist personal

beliefs. These studies show that the controlled component of the brain can inhibit the

activation of the automatic component (racial prejudices) or at least it can mitigate its

impact on behavior. If individuals with anti-racist personal beliefs repeatedly reject their

automatically activated racial prejudices, over time the cognitive link between the racial

category and prejudices is weakened.963 The upshot is that their racial prejudices will not

necessarily be automatically activated, because they will become less accessible. 964 Even

when it is difficult to avoid the activation of subtle racial prejudices, these do not

inevitably translate into racial discrimination. Individuals with anti-racist personal beliefs

can refuse to act on their prejudices, even when these do get automatically activated.

In sum, although subtle racial prejudice and discrimination are hard to avoid, they

are not inevitable. The more aware of their existence we are, the less they will shape our

961
Billig 1985, 81.
962
Devine 1989; Wegner and Bargh 1998.
963
Hopf 2011, 543; Locke, MacLeod, and Walker 1994; Stangor and Lange 1994; Stephan and Stephan
1993.
964
Lepore and Brown 1997. Weakened prejudices may nonetheless persist with more reflective personal
beliefs, resulting in “dual attitudes” (Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler 2000).
313
perceptions and actions. This argument points to another potential future research avenue.

The dissertation currently neglects variation in racial prejudices across states, groups, and

individuals. Incorporating variation in racial prejudices would make for more fine-

grained theories, which could provide more nuanced racial analyses of international

politics.

Race, Legitimacy, and the Future of the Liberal International System

Let us return briefly to the opening image of the dissertation. If the “Man in the

Moon” of Raymond Buell’s IR textbook peered down on the world today, he would

notice substantial changes. He would still find that the globe is inhabited by people of

“different hues.” However, the “Man in the Moon” would be surprised how much the

modernization gap between the West and the emerging world shrank. In 1925 he saw

“sky-scraper cities, steaming ships, roaring railways, blasting furnaces, soaring airplanes,

honking automobiles, and greasy gas-stations” in the West, and “the more leisurely life of

the shepherd, the farmer, the huntsman and the nomad” elsewhere. The modernization

gap between Western and non-Western states is closing fast and from the Moon it would

be increasingly difficult to notice much difference.

From a racial point of view, the current systemic change is not only one from a

unipolar to a multipolar system, but also one from a “unicolor” to a “multicolor” system.

The power transition from the West to the Rest is one of the biggest changes in modern

history.965 Those who define the system in terms of the distribution of power, typically

965
If one takes a longer term view, it is only a return to the pre-modern normality of Asian dominance.
314
conceive of this change as a shift from American to Chinese hegemony (hegemonic

stability theorists), or from unipolarity to multipolarity (balance of power theorists). Yet

as discussed in Chapter 1, race has also been an important organizing principle of the

international system. The system is defined not only by the distribution of power, but also

by what I call the “distribution of color”. Just as dominant domestic racial groups

determine the racial identity of the state, dominant international racial groups determine

the nature of the system. For much of modern history the international system was

dominated by the white West. The current liberal international system originated in the

West and integrated the rest of the world on unequal terms. After decolonization the

system shifted (at least formally) from racial hierarchy to racial equality. Former colonies

joined the international community as (semi-) sovereign states and gained significant

influence in international politics. Nonetheless, in terms of the “distribution of color,” the

international system remained unicolor in important respects. The West continued to

dominate the governing institutions of the system and, with the exception of China, all

great powers remained white. This is changing.

How will the shifts in the distribution of power and the distribution of color

influence the liberal international system? Buell’s main concern in 1925 was the outbreak

of a devastating global racial war. If he was writing today, his main concern probably

would be the future of the liberal international system. Indeed, this is the question on the

mind of many IR theorists. Is the liberal international system so profoundly Western that

it will not survive the relative decline of the West? Or is it, despite its Western origins, a

system which is universal and will accommodate the rise of the Rest?

315
 Pessimists think that the liberal system is inextricably intertwined with the West.

It was not only born in the West, but it reflects unique Western values and serves

primarily Western interests. As Charles Kupchan put it, “The international order that has

been in place since the early nineteenth century has been not just of the West but also for

the West.”966 Just as the expansion of the system depended on Western power, its

survival does too. These pessimistic arguments are undergirded by the logic of

hegemonic stability theory, where the distribution of power moves in lockstep with the

nature of the system’s governing institutions. 967 Pessimists agree that the decline of

Western power will bring about the end of the liberal order, but disagree about what

follows. Some expect that Chinese hegemony will replace American hegemony and the

racial hierarchic order will change accordingly to reflect Chinese beliefs in the superiority

of the Han race.968 Others think that because non-Western powers agree only that they do

not want Western hegemony, but they do not have an agreed-upon alternative vision of

world order, the “next world will be no one’s world.”969 Instead of supporting the

Western liberal system, they will replace it with a multipolar, fragmented order, which

will reflect their anti-colonial heritage.

Optimists believe that pessimists commit a genetic fallacy, where the origin of

things is taken to determine their nature. Although the liberal system was born in the

West and served Western interests, its current version is not simply a Western order. The

expansion and survival of the liberal system are not dependent on Western power alone,

966
Kupchan 2012, 72.
967
Gilpin 1981.
968
Jacques 2009.
969
Kupchan 2012, 183.
316
but also on the universal appeal of its values. This is why optimists like John Ikenberry

contend that the liberal system will not be the victim of hegemonic transition. As opposed

to other hegemonic systems, the current system is less hierarchical, more open, more

institutionalized, and shares its benefits more broadly. For these reasons, it is a system

that is “easy to join and hard to overturn.”970 Brazil, India and other emerging states

prefer it to available alternatives. The liberal order is undergoing only a crisis of

authority, a struggle over the allocation of privileges and responsibilities within it, not a

crisis of its fundamental principles.

Both camps have important things to say, but the middle ground is the most

convincing to me. Liberalism has been both complicit in racial oppression and provided

instruments of resistance. Pessimists are correct insofar as historically the liberal

international system was structured hierarchically by race, privileging the white West.

Sovereignty, rights, privileges, and obligations have been circumscribed by race. Charles

Mills argued that “we live in a world which has been foundationally shaped for the past

five hundred years by the realities of European domination and the gradual consolidation

of global white supremacy.”971 At the same time, optimists are right that it would be an

oversimplification to reduce the current liberal system to its Western aspects. Liberalism

has always had an anti-racist and anti-imperialist aspect, and provided a valuable

resource against oppression.972 Since decolonization the emerging world has benefited

handsomely from the liberal system and gained increasing influence in it. Nevertheless,

970
Ikenberry 2011, 9.
971
Emphasis in original, Mills 1997, 20; see also Mehta 1999.
972
Pitts 2005.
317
more needs to be done if the current system is to become genuinely universal. Many of

the main institutions of global governance are still led or dominated by the West. Not

surprisingly, some provocatively label the system “global apartheid.”973 According to

Matias Spektor, Brazil believes that “race is a major criteria for deciding who sits and

who decides at the big tables…It is no wonder that Brazilian diplomats in the UN should

refer to the US and Europe (but also allies like Mexico and South Korea) as ‘the whites’.

Much of the drive behind Brazil’s embrace of the BRIC country meetings, the IBSA

summits, and indeed the G20 is to push for global order that looks more like a United

Colors of Benetton ad.”974 I suspect that other emerging states hold similar views. This

may come as a surprise to many Westerners who, as beneficiaries rather than victims of

the racial hierarchic system, can afford to be less color-conscious.

A multicolor system requires multicolor global governance. As power shifts from

the West to the Rest, the disequilibrium between the distribution of power in the system

and the distribution of color in the governing institutions of the system will grow. As

power shifts to the non-White world, the dominance of a white minority in the global

governing institutions will become increasingly untenable. To ensure the legitimacy of

the system, racial diversity in these institutions must be increased to bring them into line

with the underlying distribution of color. The liberal international system is flexible

enough to accommodate the rise of non-Western states. It showed remarkable flexibility

973
Richmond 1994.
974
Spektor 2010, 3.
318
as it was expanded from its European origins to become the first truly global system. 975

But unless it becomes more racially inclusive, it is not likely to survive.

The historical support for racial inclusiveness comes from the period between

1830 and 1940. Pan-Islamic and pan-Asian visions of world order emerged during the

late nineteenth century as a reaction to the West’s turning away from the universal values

of Enlightenment and inclusiveness to embrace a more exclusive racial hierarchic

vision. 976 Between 1830 and 1880 non-Western elites in the Ottoman Empire and Japan

embraced the humanist liberal values of the West and based their domestic reformist

movements on these. However, the Western imperial turn during the late nineteenth

century undermined the legitimacy of Western hegemony and prodded non-Western

elites to develop alternative visions of world order. Making the liberal international order

more racially inclusive might have prevented the challenges posed by the pan-Asian and

the pan-Islamic alternatives.

Racial inclusiveness can increase the legitimacy of governing global institutions

in at least three ways. First, legitimacy could be increased through descriptive

representation. If those who governed the globe were more representative of the racial

composition of the world the legitimacy of global governance would be more likely.

Research on domestic political representation of racial minorities found that descriptive

representation is an important source of legitimacy.977 Second, racial inclusiveness could

increase legitimacy by leading to better outcomes. Under particular circumstances, racial

975
Reus-Smit 2011.
976
Aydin 2007.
977
Phillips 1995; Whitby 1998; Williams 1998.
319
diversity can increase the quality of deliberation and can improve problem solving, while

avoiding the traps of groupthink. 978 Third, racial diversity may increase the legitimacy of

governing global institutions by improving their fairness or impartiality. The dissertation

shows how racial prejudices embedded in racial identities can bias threat perceptions and

ensuing patterns of discord and cooperation. Dominance of global governance by any one

racial group increases the likelihood of systemic racial bias in perceptions and actions.

Racial diversity could undermine such systemic biases and could provide more

impartiality through a “balance of prejudices.”

To be sure, more racial inclusiveness would not be without drawbacks.

Descriptive representation may come at the expense of substantial representation, since

the shared racial identity between representatives and the represented does not guarantee

that the representative would represents one’s interests better than a racially different

representative. Racial inclusiveness at least in some cases would increase the number of

decision makers in global institutions, potentially rendering decision making less

effective. However, given a history of global racial oppression and the shift of power

away from the West, bearing many of these costs would be justified to increase the

legitimacy of the global institutions of the liberal system.

To ensure that the transition from the unicolor to the multicolor system will be

relatively smooth, the West needs to be proactive in making global institutions more

racially inclusive. There are some signs that Western grand strategy is on the right track.

In 2009 the West initiated the replacement of the Western-dominated G8 with the more

978
Mansbridge 1999; Page 2007.
320
inclusive G20 as the main forum for global economic coordination. In 2010 the World

Bank and the International Monetary Fund agreed to increase votes allocated to

developing nations. 979 But other efforts, such as the reform of the UN Security Council,

have remained elusive. If the West makes the necessary adjustments, there is a good

chance that an open, rule-based, and multilateral liberal international system will

accommodate the rise of the Rest. In the ideal case scenario, a re-negotiated liberal order

between the West and the Rest would preclude a fragmented “no one’s world” and would

lead instead to an inclusive “everyone’s world.”

979
Kupchan 2012, 195.
321
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356
 Appendix A: List of Texts Used in Chapter Three Content Analysis Formatting

Newspaper Articles

“Anglo-Japanese Alliance Seen as U.S. Menace: Expert Shows “Teeth” in Tokio’s

Proposals,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 27, 1920; by Thomas F. Millard.
“Anglo-Japanese Alliance: Lord Reiterates that its Purpose is Pacific,” New York Times.
Nov. 7, 1905.
“Japan’s Policies in China,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1915; by Sidney L. Gulick.
“The Anglo-Japanese Mystery,” New York Times, June 24, 1921.
“Japan Retorts with Threats to Northcliffe: Scolds London for Criticism of Ally,”
Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1921; by Walter Wilgus.
“New Anglo-Japanese Treat: Diplomats Think Step Will Be Necessitated by Conclusion
of Pending Arbitration Measure,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 12, 1911.
“Japanese Ambassador to London Recalled: Will Consult with Government on Alliance
with England,” Los Angeles Times, Jun 1, 1920.
“Europe and the Far East,” New York Times. Sep. 23, 1905.
“Hail Compact as Big Step: Spokesman of 9 Powers State Its Advantages from Their
Viewpoint,” New York Times, Dec 11, 1921; by Edwin L. James.
“Japan Seizing Trade: Using Military Force to Block Americans in Siberia,” The
Washington Post, Nov 2, 1919; by Ryley Grannon.

357
“Not a Threat to Others: Lord Landsdowne Reiterates Statement on Anglo-Japanese
Treaty,” The Washington Post. Nov 7, 1905.
“Pact for Asia’s Peace: Terms of New Agreement Between England and Russia,” The
Washington Post, Sep 29, 1907.
“Defend Pact Terms: Capper and Jones, of Washington, Answer Attacks in Senate,” The
Washington Post, Mar 19, 1922; by Albert W. Fox.
“Anglo-Jap Pact Hit: British Traders to Oppose Action,” Los Angeles Times, Jan 3, 1921;
by Arthur S. Draper.
“Gives Warning to the Nation: Powers Hate Monroe Doctrines, Says Mueller,” Los
Angeles Times, Jul 28, 1915.
“China May Make War: Bitter Over Anglo-Jap Alliance,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 12,
1920.
“Treaty Fight Wanes: Opposition Fails to Gain in Attack on Brandegee Reservation,” The
Washington Post, Mar 18, 1922; by Albert W. Fox.
“Senate Mix-Ups,” The New York Times, Mar 20, 1922.
“Removes Sources of Controversy on the Pacific: Means 10 Years of Peace,” The
Washington Post, December 11, 1921; by Albert W. Fox.
“Japan’s Coup a Relief: Will End English Alliance and Help U.S., Says Financier,” The
Washington Post, May 8, 1915.
“Agree to Pact Vote: Senators Will Decide Fate of Robinson Amendment Today,” The
Washington Post, Mar 14, 1922; by Albert W. Fox.
“Kaiser Unmasked as Cunning Trickster Who Plotted for War While He Prated for
Peace,” The Washington Post, Sep 28, 1917; by Herman Bernstein.
“News Summary,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec 14, 1921.
“Senate Consents to Vote Tomorrow Afternoon on First of Proposed Amendments,” Los
Angeles Times, Mar 14, 1922.
“A Far Eastern Opinion: Vigorous Protest Against the Attitude of the Japanese,” New
York Times, Aug 25, 1907; by R.W.
“Enthusiasm in Italy Over Pacific Compact,” New York Times, Dec 11, 1921.
“Moseley’s Remarks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec 5, 1922.
“Anglo-French War League Now Inevitable,” New York Times, Oct 21, 1906.
“Austria-Hungary’s “Red Book” Shows Her Part in Diplomatic Negotiations Preceding
the War,” The New York Times, Feb 28, 1915.
“Eighty-Five Japanese Warships in Wait: Togo’s Great Fleet Assembled in Formosan
Straits to Meet Russians,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1905.
“Hiram Johnson and the Treaty,” Los Angeles Times, Mar 14, 1922.
“Japan and Siberia: No Peril to the Allied Cause in Allowing occupation for Japan “May
Be Trusted to Do What She Agrees to Do,” New York Times, Mar 17, 1918; by
Underwood & Underwood.
“Japan’s Challenge,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Sep 15, 1920.
“Four-Power Treaty Held to Apply to Japan’s Home Land,” New York Times, Dec 15,
1921; by Edwin L. James.
“Japan Tenacious of Rights in China: Believed in Washington That She Is Sure to Seek
Limit on Harding Conference,” New York Times, Jul 18, 1921.
358
“Japan For Open Door: Will Adopt “Favored Nation” Policy in Korea,” The Washington
Post, Aug 25, 1910.
“New ‘Secret Treaty’ Revealed in Russia: Compact with Japan to Keep Any Third Power
from Dominated China,” New York Times, Dec 22, 1917.
“Japan’s Place In The War,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar 31, 1918; by Setsuo Uenoda
“Menace to General Peace: Europe Sees Grave Danger in Renewal of Eastern War,” Aug
27, 1905; The Washington Post.
“Kaiser Plotted with Czar Against England, Secret Notes Revealed,” The Washington
Post, Sep 5, 1917; by Herman Bernstein.
“Letters to the Editor,” New York Times, Dec 25, 1921.
“Kaiser, In Diary, Poses as Lover of Peace and Author of League; Blames War on
London and Paris,” The Washington Post, Mar 20, 1921.
“Tear Up Jap Alliance, Join America,” Plea: Experts War Britain of Pacific Peril”
Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb 26, 1921; by John Steele.
“Peace of Asia is Assured by Pact: Great Britain and Russia Enter Into a Momentous,
Self-Denying Agreement,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Sep 29, 1907.
“French Impressed By Pacific Entente,” New York Times, Dec 12, 1921.
“The ABC’s of Disarmament and the Problems of the Pacific: Attitude of Great Britain
on the Issue of “Freedom of the Seas” and the Japanese Alliance,” New York
Times, Oct 14, 1921; by Arthur Bullard.
“Is the Peace in the East a Truce?” New York Times, Jun 1, 1907; by George R. Bishop.
“America in the Frying Pan,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar 20, 1922.
“Love-making of the Lion,” The Washington Post, Sep 4, 1905.
“Northcliffe Lauds Officials of U.S.: Best Crowd Since Roosevelt, He Declares in Tokyo,
Discussing Arms Parley,” The Washington Post, Nov 3, 1921.

Journal Articles

Latourette, Kenneth S. 1921. Japan and America, The Journal of International Relations
12(1):14-26.
McKim, John C. 1920. The Decline of Militarism in Japan. The North American Review
211(771):212-223.
Miyaoka, Tsunejiro. 1918. The Safeguard of Civil Liberty in Japan. The Virginia Law
Register 4(8):574-589.
Ladd, George T. 1915. Japan in the Orient: Part One: Korea, The Journal of Race
Development 6(2):113-144.
McKim, John C. 1921. Japan and America: Tales and the Interpretation Thereof. The
North American Review 213(785):438-447.
Moore, Frederick. 1922. The Washington Conference and the Foreign Policies of Japan.
The Journal of International Relations 12(4):474-484.
DeForest, J.H. 1908. Is Japan a Menace to the United States? The Advocate of Peace
70(4):81-84.

359
Masaoka, Naoichi. 1915. Review of One of Japan’s Great Problems by George Heber
Jones. The Journal of Race Development 5(3):330-335.
French, Willard. 1907. Japan and To-morrow. The North American Review
184(613):825-832
Russell, Lindsey. 1919. China-Japan: A Brief. The Advocate of Peace 81(7):214-215.
1909. Speeches in Congress in Opposition to the Increase of the Navy. The Advocate of
Peace 71(2):36-41.
Reinsch, Paul S. 1905. Japan and Asiatic Leadership. The North American Review
180(578):48-57.
Reinsch, Paul S. 1911. Intellectual Life in Japan. The North American Review
194(670):403-419.
Brown, Arthur J. 1912. The New Japan. The Journal of Race Development 3(1):82-94.
Hulbert, Homer B. 1916. Japan and Isothermal Empire. The Journal of Race
Development 6(4):441-453.
Jenks, Jeremiah W. 1919. Japan in Action. The North American Review 210(766):312-
322
Iyenaga, Toyokichi. 1912. Japan in South Manchuria. The Journal of Race Development
2(4):373-398
Sale, Charles V. 1911. Some Statistics of Japan. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.
74(5):467-539
Clement, Ernest W. 1916. Constitutional Imperialism in Japan. Proceedings of the
Academy of Political Science in the City of New York 6(3):1-104
Lombard, Frank A. 1919. Japan and the Present Crisis. The Journal of Race Development
9(3):213-218
Zumoto, Motosada. 1909. The Government of Japan. Proceedings of the American
Political Science Association 6:163-169
Kawakami, K.K. 1916. Shall America Prepare against Japan? The North American
Review 203(726):675-689
Mendenhall, Thomas C. 1912. Japan Revisited after Thirty Years. The Journal of Race
Development 2(3):224-235
Low, Maurice A. 1907. The Yellow Press of Japan. The North American Review
185(621):837-847
1922. The Signs in Japan and China. Advocate of Peace through Justice 84(7):270-271
Jones, George H. 1912. An Official Conference on Religion in Japan. The Journal of
Race Development 3(2):224-231
1916. Japan and the US Naval Program. The Advocate of Peace 78(11):334-335
1907. The Talk of War with Japan. The Advocate of Peace 69(8):177-178
Griffis, William E. 1916. Okuma and the New Era in Japan. The North American Review
204(732):681-690
Warren, Charles M. 1912. Some Results of Christian Work in Japan. The Journal of Race
Development 3(1):95-108
Kawakami, K.K. 1919. Japan’s Acts in China. The North American Review
210(768):622-634

360
Iyenaga, Toyokichi. 1912. Japan’s Annexation of Korea. The Journal of Race
Development 3(2):201-223.
Hildburgh, W.L. 1919. Some Magical Applications of Brooms in Japan. Folklore
30(3):169-207
Asakawa, K. 1912. Some of the Contributions of Feudal Japan to the New Japan. The
Journal of Race Development 3(1):1-32
No Author. 1911. Kobe. Destruction of Rats on Lighters. Public Health Reports
26(27):1069
No Author. 1913. Japan’s Faith in the United States. The Advocate of Peace 75(6):121
Sunderland, J.T. 1918. The Alleged Menace of Japan in the Philippines. The Advocate of
Peace 80(4):114-115
1916. Japan’s Finances and Our Fears. The Advocate of Peace 78(8):226-227
Hicks, Charles R. 1918. Japan’s Attitude Towards the World War. The Journal of Race
Development 8(3):346-353
Hildburgh, W.L. 1919. Note on the Gourd as an Amulet in Japan. Man 19:25-29.
Cushing, Sumner W. 1913. Coastal Plains and Block Mountains in Japan. Annals of the
Association of America Geographers 3:43-61.
E.R.S. 1918. Japan, Siberia, and German Propaganda. The North American Review
208(752):152-156
Sakatani, Baron. 1921. War Between the United States and Japan Impossible. Advocate
of Peace through Justice 83(9-10):336-338
Honda, M. 1915. The Reason for Japan’s Demands upon China. The Journal of Race
Development 6(1):1-11
Saunders, Kenneth. 1922. Glimpses of the Religious Life of New Japan. The Journal of
Religion 2(1):70-80
Ladd, George T. 1916. Japan in the Orient: II. Relations to China. The Journal of Race
Development 6(3):237-269
Johnes, Trevor. 1921. Notes on the Social and Economic Transition in Japan. The
Economic Journal 31(121):50-60
No Author. 1917. Documents Regarding the Chengchia Tun Affair Between China and
Japan. The American Journal of International Law 11(3):112-125
No Author. 1911. Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Japan and Great Britain.
The American Journal of International Law 5(3):187-199
Asakawa, K. 1910. Notes on Village Government in Japan after 1600, I. Journal of the
American Oriental Society 30(3):259-300
Asakawa, K. 1911. Notes on Village Government in Japan after 1600, II. Journal of the
American Oriental Society 31(2):151-216

Governmental Documents

United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1906

361
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1907
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1909
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1915
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1917
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1920
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921
United States Department of State, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United
States (FRUS), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, February 7, 1906
Congressional Record, Senate, June 28, 1906
Congressional Record, Senate, December 3, 1907
Congressional Record, Senate, February 5, 1908
Congressional Record, Senate, May 13, 1908
Congressional Record, Senate, May 30, 1908
Congressional Record, Senate, May 26, 1909
Congressional Record, Senate, May 3, 1910
Congressional Record, Senate, July 27, 1912
Congressional Record, Senate, August 24, 1912
Congressional Record, Senate, August 17, 1912
Congressional Record, Senate, May 20, 1913
362
Congressional Record, Senate, August 4, 1914
Congressional Record, Senate, February 22, 1915
Congressional Record, Senate, June 19, 1918
Congressional Record, Senate, February 24, 1919
Congressional Record, Senate, March 22, 1920
Congressional Record, Senate, June 2, 1920
Congressional Record, Senate, January 17, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, February 19, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, April 15, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, May 16, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, July 20, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, December 12, 1921
Congressional Record, Senate, February 22, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, March 9, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, March 18, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, March 27, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, May 16, 1922
Congressional Record, Senate, December 14, 1922
Appendix to the Congressional Record, 1922

Appendix B: List of Texts Used in Chapter Four Content Analysis

Newspaper Articles
“A Pause in Moscow,” The New York Times, Aug 14, 1963, by Max Frankel
“A Test Ban and Communist Aims,” The Washington Post, Jul 25, 1963, by Robert H.
Estabrook
“Absentees Sway Atom-Ban Parley,” The New York Times, Jan 24, 1963, by Seymour
Topping
“Albania Calls Test-Ban Pact ‘Hoax’ in UN,” Los Angeles Times, Sep 28, 1963
“Albania Raps Reds’ Tribute to Kennedy,” Chicago Tribune, Dec 2, 1963
“An Appraisal of Khrushchev by Harriman,” The New York Times, Aug 25, 1963
“Britain Promises India Fullest Aid to Fight Chinese,” The New York Times, Oct 31, 1962
“China Rift Is Key,” The New York Times, Jul 7, 1963; by Seymour Topping
“China Believed Ready to Use A-Propaganda,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 19, 1964; by Ed
Meagher
“China Exploits West’s Doubts,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1964
“China Rails at Soviet ‘Capitulationist Coexistence,’” The Washington Post, Sep 5, 1963;
by Chalmers M. Roberts
363
“China’s Nuclear Device,” The Washington Post, Oct 1, 1964;
“Dean Sees China A-Bomb about 2 Years in Future,” The Washington Post, Aug 28,
1961; by Julius Duscha
“Food Shortage in China Could Intensify Terror,” Los Angeles Times, Mar 23, 1964
“Goldwater Says Change in Soviet Increases Peril,” The New York Times, by E. W.
Kenworthy
“Harriman Says Russians Doubt Early Peking Bomb,” The New York Times, Jul 30,
1963, by Tad Szulc
“Harshest Attack by Soviet Assails Peking ‘Apostasy,’” The New York Times, Apr 3,
1964; by Henry Tanner
“How Red China Looks to Others: Threat and Trade,” Chicago Tribune, Oct 18, 1964; by
Tony Escoda
“Johnson Warns Peking On Nuclear Blackmail,” The Washington Post, Oct 19, 1964;
Julius Duscha
“Kennedy Sees Red China Threat: Hopes Asians Sign Ban and Ease Tension,” Chicago
Tribune, Aug 2, 1963; by Robert Young
“Laos is a Story of Challenge, Response,” The Washington Post, Mar 26, 1961; by
Chalmers M. Roberts
“Moscow-Peking Split,” The New York Times, Jul 21, 1963; by Harry Schwartz Franklin
“Nationalist Envoy Hits Russia on World Plans,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 4, 1963
“New Era of Understanding Needed Between Soviet Union and West,” Los Angeles
Times, Aug 7, 1963; by Walter Lippmann
“Peking Strives to Prove Its Progress,” The Washington Post, Mar 22, 1964; by Stephen
S.Rosenfeld
“Peking Warns the US,” The New York Times, Oct 23, 1964; by Seymour Topping
“The President’s Report on Events in Russia and China,” The Washington Post, Oct 19,
1964
“Red China Exults Over Atom Blast as a Blow at US,” The New York Times, Oct 18,
1964; by Seymour Topping
“Red China Sets Off Atomic Explosion,” The Washington Post, Oct 17, 1964; by Henry
Shapiro
“Red China Unlikely to Explode a Bomb Before 1964,” The Washington Post, Dec 30,
1962; by Leonard Beaton and John Maddox
“Red China Warned on A-Blackmail,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 19, 1964; by Richard
Reston
“Red Chinese Explode 1 st Atomic Bomb,” Chicago Tribune, Oct 17, 1964; by Vergil
Berger
“Report Red Chinese A-Blast Near,” Chicago Tribune, Sep 30, 1964
“Rusk Sees No Change in Red China Hostility,” Los Angeles Times, Dec 29, 1963; by
Don Irwin
“Russia Lesser Evil, Rusk Says,” Chicago Tribune, Dec 17, 1963; by Larry Rue
“Russia Stiffening Policy to West Pending an Accord with China,” The New York Times,
Mar 13, 1963; by Seymour Topping

364
“Shastri Asks Plea to China on Bomb,” The New York Times, Oct 8, 1964; by David
Binder
“Soviet Scornful of China on Eve of Pact Signing,” The New York Times, Aug 5, 1963;
by Henry Tanner
“Soviet Says China Imperiled World,” The New York Times, Aug 17, 1963
“Test Treaty, A ‘Fraud,’ Says China,” The Washington Post, Jul 31, 1963
“Text of Soviet Communists’ Open Letter Replying to Peking Challenge on Policies,”
The New York Times, Jul 15, 1963;
“The Big Three,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 6, 1963; by Louis Fleming
“Premier Eases Tension Over Berlin and Promises a Glorious Communist Future,” The
New York Times, Oct 22, 1961; by Harry Schwartz
“Communists: Ideology from Two Viewpoints,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 7, 1963
“Laos: US, Red China Threaten Showdown,” Los Angeles Times, Jun 14, 1964
“UN Panel Backs Test Ban Debate Sought by West,” The New York Times, Sep 22, 1961
“US, China, Russia A Strange Triangle,” The Washington Post, Oct 18, 1964; by Donald
S. Zagoria
“US Discussed China’s A-Threat With Soviet,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 2, 1964; by
Murrey Marder
“US Is Denounced,” The New York Times, Oct 17, 1964; by Seymour Topping
“US Sees China Ready to Set Off Its First A-Blast,” The Washington Post, Sep 30, 1964;
by Murrey Murder

Journal Articles

Albinski, Henry S. 1961. Australia and the Dutch New Guinea. International Journal
16(4):358-382
Altbach, Philip G. 1964. The International Student Movement. Comparative Education
Review, 8(2):131-137
Armstrong, John A. 1964. The Soviet-American Confrontation. Russian Review
23(2):97-115
Bobrow, Davis B. 1964. Peking’s Military Calculus. World Politics, 16(2):287-301
Bohn, Lewis C. 1962. Whose Nuclear Test: Nonphysical Inspection and the Nuclear Test
Ban. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 7(3):379-393
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 1964. Moscow and the MLF. Foreign Affairs 43(1):126-134
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 1964. Russia and Europe. Foreign Affairs 42(3):428-444
Clemens, Walter C, Jr. 1964. Ideology and Soviet Disarmament Policy. The Journal of
Conflict Resolution 8(1):7-22
Crane, Robert D. 1962. Soviet Atttitude toward International Space Law. The American
Journal of International Space Law 56(3):685-723
Davis. Harold E. 1964. Prompt, Reasonable, and Just Disarmament. World Affairs
127(1):2-5
Ford, Harold P. 1964. Modern Weapons and the Sino-Soviet Estrangement. The China
Quarterly 18:160-173
365
Friedmann, Wolfgang. 1964. Half a Century of International Law. Virginia Law Review
50(8):1333-1358
Gardner, Richard N. 1964. The Soviet Union and the United Nations. Law and
Contemporary Problems 29(4):845-857
Garthoff, Raymond L. 1961. War and Peace in Soviet Policy. Russian Review 20(2):121-
133
Gilpatric, Roswell L. 1964. Our Defense Needs: The Long View. Foreign Affairs
42(3):366-378
Ginsburgs, George. 1964.’Wars of National Liberation’ and the Modern Law of Nations:
The Soviet Thesis. Law and Contemporary Problems 29(4):910-942
Gittings, John. 1964. Co-Operation and Conflict in Sino-Soviet Relations. International
Affairs 40(1):60-75
Goodwin, Geoffrey L. 1961. The Political Role of the United Nations. International
Organization 15(4):581-602
Gordey, Michel. 1964. The French People and de Gaulle. Foreign Affairs 42(4):546-558
Graebner, Norman A. 1961. China and Asian Security. International Journal 16(3):213-
230
Halperin, Morton H. 1961. Nuclear Weapons and Limited War. The Journal of Conflict
Resolution 5(2):146-166
Hsieh, Alice L. 1964. The Sino-Soviet Nuclear Dialogue. The Journal of Conflict
Resolution 8(2):99-115
Hudson, G.F. 1964. The Neutrals and the Afro-Asians. The World Today 20(12):542-548
Ikle, Fred C. 1961. After Detection. Foreign Affairs 39(2):208-220
Joffe, Ellis. 1964. The Conflict between Old and New in the Chinese Army. The China
Quarterly 18:118-140
Lauter, Paul. 1961. Kissinger and Cousins: No Guarantees Exist. The Massachusetts
Review 2(2):362-368
Leifer, Michael. 1964. Cambodia Looks to China. The World Today 20(1):26-31
Leifer, Michael. 1964. Cambodia: The Politics of Accommodation. Asian Survey
4(1):674-679
Lowenthal, Richard. 1961. Diplomacy and Revolution. The China Quarterly 5:1-24
Maggs, Peter B. 1964. The Soviet Viewpoint on Nuclear Weapons in International Law.
Law and Contemporary 29(4):956-970
Martin, Charles E. 1961. The Decade Ahead. Proceedings of the American Society of
International Law 55:41-60
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1964. Modern Science and Political Power. Columbia Law Review
64(8):1386-1409
No Author. 1964. Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International
Law. The American Journal of International Law 58(1):165-187
No Author. 1963. China. Journal of Asian Studies 23(5):22-75
No Author. 1961. Chronology. Middle East Journal 15(4):416-444
No Author. 1964. ANZUS Pacific Security Pact. International Organization, 18(4):872-
873
No Author. 1961. Developments of the Quarter. Middle East Journal 15(1):40-68
366
Osgood, Robert E. 1961. Stabilizing the Military Environment. The American Political
Science 55(1):24-39
Robinson, Joan. 1964. The Chinese Point of View. International Affairs 40(2):232-244
Rose, Peter I. 1963. The Public and the Threat of War. Social Problems 11(1):62-77
Rupen, Robert A. 1964. Peking’s Challenge to Moscow. The High School Journal
47(8):369-382
Schick, F.B. 1961. Space Law and Space Politics. The International and Comparative
Law Quarterly 10(4):681-706
Stone, Julius. 1961. Law, Force and Survival. Foreign Affairs 39(4):549-559
Stone, Jeremy J. 1964. Bomber Disarmament. World Politics 17(1):13-39
Totten, George O. and Tamio Kawakami. 1964. Gensuikyo and the Peace Movement in
Japan. Asian Survey 4(5):833-841
van der Kroef, Justus M. 1964. Indonesian Communism and the Changing Balance of
Power. Pacific Affairs 37(4):357-383
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1964. The Stability of a Bipolar World. Daedalus 93(3):881-909
Whelan, Joseph G. 1961. The US and Diplomatic Recogntiion: The Contrasting Cases of
Russia and Communist China. The China Quarterly 5:62-89
Wohlstetter, Albert. 1961. Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N+1 Country. Foreign Affairs
39(3):355-387
Wood, Marshall K. 1961. The National Security Dilemma: Challenge to Management
Scientists. Management Science 7(3):195-209

Government Documents

United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961-
1963, Volume V, Soviet Union

329. Transcript of Comments by Director of Central IntelligenceMcCone, 11

June, 1963
300. Memorandum From the Executive Secretary of the Department of State
(Brubeck) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs
(Bundy), 1 March, 1963
348. Telegram From Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, 10
August, 1963
259. Memorandum From Carl Kaysen of the National Security Council to the
President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), 31 October,
1962
19. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State,
30 January, 1961
296. Telegram From the Department of State to the Delegation to the Eighteen-
Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva, 21 February, 1963
8. Current Intelligence Weekly Review, 18 January, 1961

367
 134. Transcript of an Interview Between President Kennedy and the Editor of
Izvestia (Adzhubei), 25 November, 1961
268. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State,
27 November, 1962

United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961-
1963, Volume VII, Arms Control and Disarmament

60. Memorandum by the Ambassador to the United Nations (Stevenson), 31

August, 1961
185. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of
DefenseMcNamara, 19 May 1962
229. Message From President Kennedy to Chairman Khrushchev, 15 September,
1962
44. Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State,
28 July 1961
9. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of
DefenseMcNamara, 23 March 1961
119. Letter From President Kennedy to Prime Minister Macmillan, 13 July 1962
243. Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy, 8 November 1962
333. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State,
19 July 1963
371. Circular Telegram From the Department of State to Certain Missions, 15
October, 1963
319. Instructions for the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Harriman),
10 July, 1963
296. Paper by the Deputy Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency (Fisher), 20 June 1963
137. Memorandum of the 497th Meeting of the National Security Council, 27
February 1962
113. Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to
President Kennedy, 29 December, 1961
118. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs (McNaughton) to Secretary of DefenseMcNamara,
12 January, 1962
164. Letter From the Acting Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency (Fisher) to Secretary of Defense McNamara, 22 March, 1962
112. Memorandum of Conversation, 22 December, 1961
304. Memorandum of Conversation, 29 June, 1963
313. Draft Instructions for the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
(Harriman), 5 July, 1963
141. Memorandum of Conversation, 1 March, 1962

368
United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961-
1963, Volume VIII, National Security Policy

139. Memorandum From the Director for Internal Defense in the Office of
Politico-Military Affairs (Maechling) to the Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs (Harriman), 29 July 1963
75. Letter from the Representative to the United Nations (Stevenson) to the
Chairman of the Policy Planning Council and Counselor of the Department of
State (Rostow), 9 April, 1962
10. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to Secretary of DefenseMcNamara, 4
February, 1961
5. Editorial Note
103. Memorandum for President Kennedy, undated
83. Editorial Note
91. National Security Action Memorandum No. 162, 19 June, 1962
36. National Intelligence Estimate, 11 July, 1961
76. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of
DefenseMcNamara, 12 April, 1962
128. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Special Group (Counter-
Insurgency) (Johnson) to President Kennedy, 14 March, 1963

United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961-
1963, Volume XXII, Northeast Asia (China)

76. Draft Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council

16. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant for Special Operations to the
Secretary of Defense (Lansdale) to Secretary of Defense McNamara, 3 April,
1961
146. Letter From the Counselor of the Department of State (Rostow) to the
President's Military Representative (Taylor), 31 July, 1962
132. Memorandum of Conversation, 24 June, 1962
21. Letter From President Kennedy to President Chiang, 17 April, 1961
31. National Intelligence Estimate, 20 June, 1961
68. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Republic of
China, 7 October, 1961
134. Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to PresidentKennedy,
25 June 1962
191. Highlights From Secretary of State Rusk's Policy Planning Meeting, 15
October, 1963
81. Letter From the Under Secretary of State (Ball) to the Director, Food for
Peace (McGovern), 6 December, 1961

Congressional Record, House of Representatives, December 2, 1963

Congressional Record, House of Representatives, May 15, 1963
369
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