Empire of the Setting Sun: American Westward Expansion and China, Past and Present

Abstract

This thesis examines the historical origins and current trajectory of American empire in the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular focus on its westward expansion and entanglement with China. The principal argument is that American foreign and strategic policy in the Asia-Pacific region has always been shaped by broader economic and political concerns centred on China, and that China’s current rise is the most serious challenge to the structure of American empire to date.

The thesis uses interdisciplinary methods to investigate the economic, governmental, and geostrategic factors that have propelled American imperial expansionism, its global triumphs and more recent decline. It is written in three sections. The first traces the development of American empire building from the pre-independence period to the eve of the First World War. It is argued that the new empire was primarily driven by commercial interests, oriented towards the China market, and pursued through consistent westward expansion. Section two investigates the shifts in global power, resource politics, and international economic structures that saw the United States transition from one of several imperial powers to the world’s sole superpower over the course of the 20th Century. The final section charts the decline of American empire since its brief period of unipolarity in the 1990s, and explains the new pressures and challenges posed by the rise of China.

It concludes with a reflection on the classic problem of how empires manage their decline. Three possible futures of the American empire are sketched: the continued pursuit of liberal empire, with less relative American wealth, influence, and power undergirding it, and increased geopolitical opposition and domestic social and political contradictions; the conversion of the declining empire into an exploitative hegemony, attempting to shore up America’s global dominance, largely dependent on military means, but with fewer resources, emboldened opponents, and declining support among its allies; or a new effort to craft a post-imperial foreign policy, embedded within the economic realities of the 21st century, that works to repair the damaged fabric of American social and political life, and provides a long-term stable foundation for national security and the wellbeing of its citizens.