This past week, a number of students, professors, pastors, and policy experts gathered in Washington at Providence’s Christianity and National Security conference. Listening to the wide range of speakers, I noticed one theme that continued to stand out—the necessity for the United States to cultivate allies in order to counter our adversaries
Adjacent to this theme was the warning that those adversaries (namely China and Russia) seek to sow mistrust between nations within the rules-based order to weaken and contain American alliances. China recently signed agreements with Vietnam on security and economic cooperation despite continuing to violently harass Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea. Vietnam is not an American ally, but has committed to challenging China’s attempts to control disputed islands in the South China Sea. The United States and Vietnam have a common strategic interest in the region, but China has managed to convince Vietnamese leaders that cooperation with their northern neighbor, despite its bullying and bluster, is in their best interest.
China now possesses more warships than the United States and continues to build them at a much higher rate, making cooperation with China’s neighbors like Vietnam and the Philippines increasingly important as the PLA Navy escalates its military exercises around Taiwan. The United States must find a common set of values that China’s adversaries can agree on. Fortunately, the United States can look back at its own early history in the Pacific to see how building a common good between distant nations can protect mutual interests from an aggressive imperial power.
The history of the United States in Hawai’i is often only remembered for the coup and annexation brought on by American planters in the last decade of the nineteenth century. But long before the dreams of an overseas empire seduced Americans to violate Hawai’i’s sovereignty, the island nation and the U.S. enjoyed a friendly relationship dating back to the arrival of Congregationalist missionaries in 1820.
As part of a regular patrol to protect American merchants and whalers in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy sent a ship to Hawai’i every few years beginning in 1824. These Navy captains served as both military officers and diplomats, since the U.S. government lacked a formal diplomatic presence in the region. They cultivated a high trust relationship with the Hawaiian royal court by respecting national differences (the Hawaiian government was Christianizing its nation right as the United States had been disestablishing its various state churches), keeping American merchants in check in their efforts to exploit the Hawaiian government, and emphasizing mutual respect and protection for each nation’s citizens, especially through Hawaiian aid for shipwrecked American crews in the vicinity.
However, Hawaiian-U.S. relations soon provoked the ire of Great Britain and France. Hawaii’s strategic central location in the Trans-Pacific trade made it a haven for ships crossing the ocean and marked Hawai’i as a target for annexation. In 1838, a dispute between the established Church of Hawai’i and Jesuit missionaries gave the French a pretext to force Hawai’i into its sphere of influence, sending a warship to Oahu. Its captain demanded that the Hawaiian government legalize Catholicism, build a Catholic church in Honolulu at their own expense, and pay France a lump sum for its trouble or face a declaration of war. Without a U.S. warship in port, the Hawaiian government had little choice but to accede to French demands, though President John Tyler’s administration extended the Monroe Doctrine to Hawai’i in response to the French and British threat.
Capitalizing on Hawaiian military weakness, a British Navy captain used a property dispute between Americans and British in Hawai’i to forcibly annex the islands in for five months 1843. Britain sought not only to use Hawai’i as a base for their own operations, but also to deny the United States unfettered access to the islands for trade and resupplying. The fortuitous arrival of two U.S. warships enabled the enforcement of Tyler’s Hawaiian Monroe Doctrine. The British, not willing to risk a war over the islands, ended their occupation and Hawai’i remained independent.
The French returned in 1849 and briefly occupied Honolulu before withdrawing, demanding more favorable trade terms and better treatment for French nationals. Then, in 1851, they again attempted to extort the country, but this time the U.S. warship Vincennes was there. King Kamehameha III trusted U.S. goodwill so completely that he offered to allow the United States to annex the islands to prevent the French from making any further encroachments. The Americans agreed to a temporary annexation and proceeded to threaten the French with war if they persisted with their demands. The French backed down and no nation would again challenge Hawaiian sovereignty until the United States’ own policy changed decades later.
This historical example offers several lessons for American policy in the Pacific today. First, the presence of long-term diplomats interested in local affairs (missionaries and merchants, in this case) provided a baseline of trust between the two nations when crises arose. The U.S. foreign service is lacking numbers in many places in the Pacific where China is expanding its sphere of influence. An increased U.S. diplomatic presence would help build this needed trust.
Second, the presence of the U.S. Navy twice proved to be decisive in protecting Hawai’i from aggressive foreign imperialism. The U.S. Navy of this time was significantly weaker than its French and British counterparts, and war meant a very real possibility that these American sailors would not make it home. Nevertheless, the Navy called the Europeans’ bluff, knowing that no British or French officer would want to be responsible for starting a major war with another Western power.
The modern Navy’s status as the most powerful in the world should embolden U.S. policymakers to increase its presence in and around the South China Sea. The PLA Navy isn’t likely to assault Filipino or Vietnamese fishermen when U.S. warships are nearby. China is not currently prepared for a major naval confrontation with the United States. Establishing a hard line in the South China Sea will signal to all nearby countries that the United States is serious about contesting China’s claims and will further build trust with these nations.
The United States and Hawai’i forged a relationship based on mutual respect, protection for each other’s citizens, and freedom of navigation in the Pacific. In contrast, China’s Nine-Dash Line claim violates the sovereignty of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. That means the U.S. should be looking to build favorable ties and support these nations, both because it is in our national interest and because it is the right thing to do.