The term informal empire describes the spheres of influence which a polity may develop that translate into a degree of influence over a region or country, which is not a formal colony, protectorate, tributary or vassal state of empire, as a result of its commercial, strategic or military interests.
In a 2010 article, Gregory Barton and Brett Bennett defined informal empire as:
An informal empire may assume a primarily economic guise, or it may be enforced by gunboat diplomacy. Strategic considerations or other concerns may bring about the creation of an imperial influence over a region not formally a component of empire.
The city-state of Athens exerted control over the Delian league through an informal empire in the 5th century BCE. [1] According to historian Jeremy Black, the role of chartered companies such as the Muscovy Company, the Levant Company, the East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, who operated beyond official state channels, were a forerunner to the concept of "informal empire". [2]
The term, "informal empire" is most commonly associated with the British Empire, where it is used to describe the extensive reach of British interests into regions and nations which were not formal parts of the Empire, in that they were not colonies and were not directly administered by the British government. [3] Among the most notable elements of the British informal empire was the trade relationship it maintained with China, along with British commercial interests and investments in South America, including Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. [4]
The informal empire consisted primarily of three elements: extraterritoriality, a trade systems which heavily favored the Western powers, and interventionist tools such as military force and the informal power exerted by diplomats. In China, the most significant source of informal control was the Shanghai Municipal Council, which although theoretically under lease from the Chinese government, was effectively unaccountable to them and saw most positions filled by Britons backed by British diplomatic influence. Several unequal treaties were signed between China and Western powers, and concessions were established in Chinese port cities, such as the Shanghai International Settlement. Imperial financial presence was established through war indemnities in the aftermath of various Sino-foreign wars, legally immune foreign banks with government links and near-oligopoly in China, seizure of Chinese government revenues, loan agreements stipulating cession of profits, government revenues, mining rights, foreign engineering or administrative control, and above-market-price supply contracts. This system broke down after the fragmentation of China by the era of the Warlords in 1916 and the First World War, causing most Western powers (with the notable exception of Japan which attempted to expand direct control) to be unable to effectively enforce their privileges in mainland China. [5] Challenges to British informal control in China from other European powers, as well as the United States, led to a shift from more informal to more formal control at the turn of the century, with the establishment of more concessions and the assumption of greater control of the Chinese economy. These were returned during the Second World War so that China would continue resisting Japan. [6] Black claimed that the British military intervention in the Russian Civil War on behalf of the White Army was motivated in part by a desire to establish an informal empire of political influence and economic ties in Southern Russia, to deny Germany access to these assets and block their passage to British colonies in Asia. [7]
Informal empire, like many imperial relationships, is difficult to classify and reduce to a prescriptive definition. In the instance of the British informal empire, the character of the relationship varied widely. The Chinese intensely opposed any foreign control over China or its economy, and both the First and Second Opium Wars were fought between China and several Western powers, resulting in Chinese defeat and the increase of both formal and informal foreign power. [8] South American governments were often willing partners in the extension of British commercial influence, but military action was sometimes taken against those who tried to apply protectionist policies (see for example, the Anglo-French blockade of the River Plate). Informal empire is an important concept required to adequately explain the reach and influence of empire, and in the case of the British Empire, is vital to any holistic account of the British imperial experience and intrinsic to describing the interests and purposes of the Empire as a whole. Informal empire, far from being distinctive and separate from formal empire, is often bound up with formal imperial interests. For example, the British informal empire in China was a product of Company rule in India, as the East India Company used its Indian territories to grow opium, which was then shipped to Chinese ports. By 1850, the Chinese opium trade accounted for up to 20% of the revenue of the entire British Empire, serving as the most profitable single commodity trade of the 19th century. [9] As Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi write of opium trade, “The British Empire could not survive were it deprived of its most important source of capital, the substance that could turn any other commodity into silver.” [10]
In the economic sphere, the British informal empire was driven by the free trade economic system of the Empire. In the so-called "Imperialism of Free Trade" thesis, as articulated by historians Ronald Robinson and John "Jack" Gallagher, the British Empire expanded as much by the growth of informal empire as it did by acquiring formal dominion over colonies. [11] Furthermore, British investment in empire was to be found not only in the formal Empire, but also in the informal empire – and, by Robinson and Gallagher's account, was indeed predominantly located in the informal empire. It is estimated that between 1815 and 1880, £1,187,000,000 in credit had accumulated abroad, but no more than one-sixth was placed in the formal empire. Even by 1913, less than half of the £3,975,000,000 of foreign investment lay inside the formal Empire. [12] British historian David Reynolds has claimed that during the process of decolonisation, it was hoped that as an alternative to the declining formal empire, informal influence, marked by economic ties and defense treaties would hold sway over the former colonies. Reynolds suggested that the establishment of the Commonwealth was an attempt to maintain some form of indirect influence over the newly independent countries. [13]
U.S. foreign policy from the late 19th century onward, under Presidents such as Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and New Deal leaders, has been described as "informal empire". [14] 20th century U.S. policy of establishing international influence through friendly regimes, military bases and interventions, and economic pressure, has drawn comparisons with the informal empires of European colonial powers. The fundamental elements involved a clientelistic relationship with the elite, sometimes established forcibly, effective veto power over issues pertaining to the Great Power's interests, and the use of military threats, regime change, or multilateral pressure to accomplish diplomatic aims. The policy is intended to create an international economic order that benefits the Great Power by creating markets for export and investment, improving the profitability of their capitalists. This commitment to open economy is selective and applied only when it benefits their producers. Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and Chile are examples of this policy being implemented. [15]
The policy was summed up by Secretary Bryan as having “opened the doors of all the weaker countries to an invasion of American capital and American enterprise.” [16] Under informal empire, the U.S. relationship with countries which supplied them raw materials became highly imbalanced, with much of their wealth being repatriated to the U.S. This also disproportionately benefited the (often authoritarian) pro-American rulers of these countries at the expense of local development. [17] The U.S. chose to switch from formal to informal imperialism after the Second World War not because of lack of desire among Americans for colonialism (there was strong public support for seizing colonies from the vanquished Japan, as well as a continued belief in colonies' incapability to govern themselves) but rather because of a changed international landscape. Since most of the world was already organised into colonies, US policymakers chose to utilise preexisting colonial empire networks instead of establishing new colonies. The US also had to adapt themselves to rising anti-colonial nationalist movements so as to acquire allies against the Soviet Union. [18]
French interventions in Mexico (1838, 1861) and elsewhere in Latin America such as Argentina and Uruguay have also been described as "informal empire". [19] France did not intervene with the intent to seize territory, instead, the imperial relationship was governed by treaty. Intervention was based on significant segments of the local population who looked to French ideals and French power as a means of self-advancement. [20] The decolonisation of Africa led to the conversion of many former colonies into client states under a French informal empire known as Françafrique . Chief of Staff for African Affairs Jacques Foccart was the figure instrumental in creating collaborative networks between the French government and the new African elites. The purpose of the network was to aid capital accumulation for France. [21]
In the 19th century the leadership of the German Empire, which had formed in 1871, sought to acquire a colonial empire, yet observed that in most parts of the world, British commercial influence already existed. While the German Empire did conquer various colonies that became the formal German colonial empire, efforts before 1914 were also made to establish an informal empire based on the British model. German trade and influence in South America was a major factor in this projected informal empire. [22] Informal empire attempts preceded the German Empire, including the Rhenish Missionary Society. [22] During most of the 1800s, Karl von Koseritz was one who advocated for a "Greek colonization" of Germans in Brazil. [22] [23] Ultimately amounting only to German immigration to the Brazilian Empire, it was perceived as a form of colonial space. [23] German firms played a significant role in the industrialization of Argentina, and German banks competed with British ones in South America, while building infrastructure was seen as a way to extend the informal empire. [22] [24] Germany invested in the Anatolian and Baghdad railroads in the Ottoman Empire, which led to tension with Britain and Russia who were in their own Great Game of formal and informal empire in Asia. The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 led by Britain and Germany was another attempt at expanding spheres of influence. [25]
Japanese diplomacy and military intervention in China from 1895 to the outbreak of the Second World War has also been described as an informal empire. Japan was forced into concealing their territorial ambitions under informal terms as they lacked the strength to overcome Western objections to Japanese territorial gains. The Japanese advanced their own special privileges in China through promoting Western interests alongside their own. Japan profited immensely from the informal empire in China and Japan's first multinational manufacturing firms were initiated in China rather than Japan's formal colonies due to China's vast internal market and raw material supply. Chinese popular pressure to drive out Japanese imperial institutions led to the Japanese attempting to switch from informal to formal imperialism to protect their profits, beginning the Second World War in Asia. [26]
The Russian Empire under the Romanovs, in addition to a formal empire that expanded rapidly, also developed an informal empire. Examples included Russian influence in Qajar Iran [27] [28] and leased concessions in China. [29]
After the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchay, Russia received territorial domination in Iran. With the Romanovs shifting to a policy of 'informal support' for the weakened Qajar dynasty — continuing to place pressure with advances in the largely nomadic Turkestan, a crucial frontier territory of the Qajars — this Russian domination of Qajar Persia continued for nearly a century. [27] [30] The Persian monarchy became more of a symbolic concept in which Russian diplomats were themselves powerbrokers in Iran and the monarchy was dependent on British and Russian loans for funds. [27] In 1879, the establishment of the Cossack Brigade by Russian officers gave the Russian Empire influence over the modernization of the Qajar army. This influence was especially pronounced because the Persian monarchy's legitimacy was predicated on an image of military prowess, first Turkic and then European-influenced. By the 1890s, Russian tutors, doctors and officers were prominent at the Shah's court, influencing policy personally. [27] [31] Russia and Britain had competing investments in the industrialisation of Iran including roads and telegraph lines, as a way to profit and extend their influence. However, until 1907 the Great Game rivalry was so pronounced that mutual British and Russian demands to the Shah to exclude the other, blocked all railroad construction at the end of the 19th century. [28] : 20 In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, the Russian Empire and British Empire officially ended their rivalry to focus on opposing the German Empire. In the Convention of 1907, Russia recognized Afghanistan and southern Iran as part of the British sphere of influence, while Britain recognized Central Asia and northern Iran as part of the Russian sphere of influence. Both parties recognized Tibet as a neutral territory, except Russia had special privileges in negotiating with the Dalai Lama, and Britain had special privileges in Tibetan commercial deals. [32]
The Russian Empire had also acquired several concessions in China including the Liaodong Peninsula (chiefly Port Arthur and Dalian) and the Chinese Eastern Railway. [33] This part of Russia's informal empire was officially thwarted by the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, [29] after which most of the Russian concessions in China became part of Japan's informal empire. [34]
Scholar Sally N. Cummings argues that while "Russian imperialism was never primarily commercial" and "was less often able than the British to control an informal empire beyond its state borders", several imperialistic relationships existed with elements of indirect rule. She cites that the Siberian "fur empire" of the early Tsardom of Russia, before the complete conquest of Siberia, heavily resembled the French fur trade empire in New France. She also states that the 19th century Russia's conquest of Central Asia used as an economic model the cotton industry in British Egypt, and as a territorial model Britain's suzerainty over the princely states that dotted the Raj. [35]
Various scholars have described the Soviet Union's international relations as a Soviet empire, where the Soviet Union dominated the states in its sphere of influence, contrary to the Soviet Union's formal aim of opposing nationalism and imperialism. The notion of "Soviet empire" often refers to a form of "classic" or "colonial" empire with communism only replacing conventional imperial ideologies such as Christianity or monarchy, rather than creating a revolutionary state. Academically the idea is seen as emerging with Richard Pipes' 1957 book The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923, but it has been reinforced, along with several other views, in continuing scholarship. [36] : 41 In a more formal interpretation of "Soviet empire", this meant absolutism, resembling Lenin's description of the tsarist empire as a "prison of the peoples" except that this "prison of the peoples" had been actualized during Stalin's regime after Lenin's death. [36] : 41–42
Another view, especially of the non-Stalinist eras, sees the Soviet empire as constituting an "informal empire" over nominally sovereign states in the Warsaw Pact due to Soviet pressure and military presence. [37] The Soviet informal empire depended on subsidies from Moscow. [38] The informal empire in the wider Warsaw Pact also included linkages between Communist Parties. [39] Some historians consider a more multinational-oriented Soviet Union emphasizing its socialist initiatives, such as Ian Bremmer, who describes a "matryoshka-nationalism" where a pan-Soviet nationalism included other nationalisms. [36] : 48 Eric Hobsbawn argued that the Soviet Union had effectively designed nations by drawing borders. [36] : 45 Dmitri Trenin wrote that by 1980, the Soviet Union had formed both a formal and informal empire. [40]
The informal empire would have included Soviet economic investments, military occupation, and covert action in Soviet-aligned countries. The studies of informal empire have included Soviet influence on East Germany [39] and 1930s Xinjiang. [41] [42] After the Sino-Soviet conflict (1929), the Soviet Union regained the Russian Empire's concession of the Chinese Eastern Railway and was held until its return in 1952. [43] In the 1920s the Soviet empire had come to include satellite People's Republics such as Mongolia and Tannu Tuva, the latter of which was later annexed. The Comintern influence over Asian communist parties was seen as a potential stepping stone to extend the Soviet informal empire. [44]
Alexander Wendt suggested that by the time of Stalin's Socialism in One Country alignment, socialist internationalism "evolved into an ideology of control rather than revolution under the rubric of socialist internationalism" internally within the Soviet Union. By the start of the Cold War it evolved into a "coded power language" that was once again international, but applied to the Soviet informal empire. At times the USSR signaled toleration of policies of satellite states indirectly, by declaring them consistent or inconsistent with socialist ideology, essentially recreating a hegemonic role. Wendt argued that a "hegemonic ideology" could continue to motivate actions after the original incentives were removed, and argued this explains the "zeal of East German Politburo members who chose not to defend themselves against trumped-up charges during the 1950s purges." [39] : 704
Analyzing the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Koslowski and Kratochwil argued that a postwar Soviet "formal empire" represented by the Warsaw Pact, with Soviet military role and control over of member states' foreign relations, had evolved into an informal suzerainty or "Ottomanization" from the late 1970s to 1989. With Gorbachev's relinquishing of the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1989, the informal empire reduced in pressure to a more conventional sphere of influence, resembling Finlandization but applied to the erstwhile East Bloc states, until the Soviet fall in 1991. By contrast "Austrianization" would have been a realist model of great power politics by which the Soviets would have hypothetically relied on Western guarantees to keep an artificial Soviet sphere of influence. The speed of reform in the 1989 to 1991 period made both a repeat of Finlandization and Austrianization impossible for the Soviet Union. [45] [46]
One view on Ottoman suzerainty, stated that the loose control that the Ottoman Empire had in their later years, especially on distant territories, was more of an informal empire than a formal one. This model become advocated by some scholars studying the late Soviet Union's sphere of influence and comparing it to conventional historiography on the Ottomans. [45]
The Ottomans had both formal and informal imperial relations over subjects and subject states. [47] Meanwhile, the manner in which the British Empire and other European colonial empires had made intrusions into the Ottoman Empire, such as British Egypt, can also be grouped in informal empire at the expense of the Ottomans. [48] However, British attempts to support the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century have also been considered a form of informal empire in an influence sense. [49]
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th century, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.
Colonialism is the pursuing, establishing and maintaining of control and exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group of people. Implemented through the establishment of coloniality and possibly colonies, this colonization keeps the colonized territory and people socio-economically othered and subaltern to the colonizers and the metropole. While commonly advanced as an imperialist regime, colonialism can take the more particular and potentially autonomous form of settler colonialism, when colonial settlers pursue a more complete colonization of the land and people, often towards a replacement and possibly even genocide of the native populations.
Imperialism is the practice, theory or attitude of maintaining or extending power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power and soft power. Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire. While related to the concepts of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.
The influence and imperialism of Western Europe and associated states peaked in Asian territories from the colonial period beginning in the 16th century and substantially reducing with 20th century decolonization. It originated in the 15th-century search for trade routes to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that led directly to the Age of Discovery, and additionally the introduction of early modern warfare into what Europeans first called the East Indies and later the Far East. By the early 16th century, the Age of Sail greatly expanded Western European influence and development of the spice trade under colonialism. European-style colonial empires and imperialism operated in Asia throughout six centuries of colonialism, formally ending with the independence of the Portuguese Empire's last colony Macau in 1999. The empires introduced Western concepts of nation and the multinational state. This article attempts to outline the consequent development of the Western concept of the nation state.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki, also known as the Treaty of Maguan in China and Treaty of Bakan in the period before and during World War II in Japan, was an unequal treaty signed at the Shunpanrō hotel, Shimonoseki, Japan on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and Qing China, ending the First Sino-Japanese War.
In historical contexts, New Imperialism characterizes a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States, and Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The period featured an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. At the time, states focused on building their empires with new technological advances and developments, expanding their territory through conquest, and exploiting the resources of the subjugated countries. During the era of New Imperialism, the European powers individually conquered almost all of Africa and parts of Asia. The new wave of imperialism reflected ongoing rivalries among the great powers, the economic desire for new resources and markets, and a "civilizing mission" ethos. Many of the colonies established during this era gained independence during the era of decolonization that followed World War II.
Pax Britannica was the period of relative peace between the great powers. During this time, the British Empire became the global hegemonic power, developed additional informal empire, and adopted the role of a "global policeman".
The term "Soviet empire" collectively refers to the world's territories that the Soviet Union dominated politically, economically, and militarily. This phenomenon, particularly in the context of the Cold War, is also called Soviet imperialism by Sovietologists to describe the extent of the Soviet Union's hegemony over the Second World.
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity.
The Open Door Policy is the United States diplomatic policy established in the late 19th and early 20th century that called for a system of equal trade and investment and to guarantee the territorial integrity of Qing China. The policy was created in U.S. Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899, and circulated to the major European powers. In order to prevent the "carving of China like a melon", as they were doing in Africa, the Note asked the powers to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis and called upon all powers, within their spheres of influence to refrain from interfering with any treaty port or any vested interest, to permit Chinese authorities to collect tariffs on an equal basis, and to show no favors to their own nationals in the matter of harbor dues or railroad charges. The policy was accepted only grudgingly, if at all, by the major powers, and it had no legal standing or enforcement mechanism. In July 1900, as the powers contemplated intervention to put down the violently anti-foreign Boxer uprising, Hay circulated a Second Open Door Note affirming the principles. Over the next decades, American policy-makers and national figures continued to refer to the Open Door Policy as a basic doctrine, and Chinese diplomats appealed to it as they sought American support, but critics pointed out that the policy had little practical effect.
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Turks, and Arabs.
In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began around 1800 and, depending on the author, either ended with the beginning of contemporary history in 1945, or includes the contemporary history period to the present day.
The "century of humiliation" is a term used among the Sinosphere to describe the period in Chinese history beginning with the First Opium War (1839–1842), and ending in 1945 with China emerging out of the Second World War as one of the Big Four and established as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, or alternately, ending in 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China. The century-long period is typified by the decline, defeat and political fragmentation of the Qing dynasty and the subsequent Republic of China, which led to demoralizing foreign intervention, annexation and subjugation of China by Western powers, Russia, and Japan.
The territorial conquests of the Empire of Japan in the Western Pacific Ocean and East Asia began in 1895 with its victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Subsequent victories over the Russian Empire and German Empire expanded Japanese rule to Taiwan, Korea, Micronesia, southern Sakhalin, several concessions in China, and the South Manchuria Railway. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, resulting in the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo the following year; thereafter, Japan adopted a policy of founding and supporting puppet states in conquered regions. These conquered territories became the basis for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1940.
This article covers worldwide diplomacy and, more generally, the international relations of the great powers from 1814 to 1919. This era covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), to the end of the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920).
Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is opposition to imperialism or neocolonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment typically manifests as a political principle in independence struggles against intervention or influence from a global superpower, as well as in opposition to colonial rule. Anti-imperialism can also arise from a specific economic theory, such as in the Leninist interpretation of imperialism, which is derived from Lenin's 1917 work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. People who categorize themselves as anti-imperialists often state that they are opposed to colonialism, colonial empires, hegemony, imperialism and the territorial expansion of a country beyond its established borders.
The foreign policy of the Russian Empire covers Russian foreign relations from their origins in the policies of the Tsardom of Russia down to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917. Under the system tsarist autocracy, the Emperors/Empresses made all the main decisions in the Russian Empire, so a uniformity of policy and a forcefulness resulted during the long regimes of powerful leaders such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. However, several weak tsars also reigned—such as children with a regent in control—and numerous plots and assassinations occurred. With weak rulers or rapid turnovers on the throne, unpredictability and even chaos could result.
The history of Japanese foreign relations deals with the international relations in terms of diplomacy, economics and political affairs from about 1850 to 2000. The kingdom was virtually isolated before the 1850s, with limited contacts through Dutch traders. The Meiji Restoration was a political revolution that installed a new leadership that was eager to borrow Western technology and organization. The government in Tokyo carefully monitored and controlled outside interactions. Japanese delegations to Europe brought back European standards which were widely imposed across the government and the economy. Trade flourished, as Japan rapidly industrialized.
Russian imperialism includes the policy and ideology of power exerted by Russia, as well as its antecedent states, over other countries and external territories. This includes the conquests of the Russian Empire, the imperial actions of the Soviet Union, as well as those of the modern Russian Federation. Some postcolonial scholars have noted the lack of attention given to Russian and Soviet imperialism in the discipline.
The Scramble for China, also known as the partition of China or the scramble for concessions, was a concept that existed during the late 1890s in Europe and the United States for the partitioning of China under the Qing dynasty as their own spheres of influence, during the era of "New Imperialism". However, the United States Secretary of State created the Open Door Policy in 1899 which sought to prevent the European powers from trying to carve up China into colonies and proposed that all interested powers had equal access to China. The policy was gradually accepted by the major powers so that the concept of the partitioning of China generally lost favor by the early 20th century.
Hong Kong island became British in 1841, and an 'informal empire' operated in China by way of British treaty ports and the great trading city of Shanghai.
And for Wilson, as for his predecessors and successors, the Open Door Policy was America's version of the liberal policy of informal empire or free-trade imperialism.
leader who concluded that his society needed overseas markets and was determined to find them. He fully intended, however, to do so in such a way that order and stability would be assured, a protestant peace secured and preserved, and the backward nations protected from rapacious foreigners while being led along the path of progress by the United States. Confident that Wilson was a man with the same goals, Bryan could without any reservations praise the President, in May 1914, as one who had "opened the doors of all the weaker countries to an invasion of American capital and American enterprise." Candidly asserting America's "paramount influence in the Western Hemisphere," Bryan's objective was to "make absolutely sure our domination of the situation."
major consequence of New Deal trade philosophy was the way it sustained, and even deepened, the pattern of free trade imperialism or informal empire that had evolved out of British economic policy in the nineteenth century. America's relationship with the chief suppliers of raw materials became economically and politically ever more imbalanced in its own favor.
The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which began in 1891, became emblematic of railway imperialism, which involved the acquisition of extraterritorial possessions instead of direct annexations. Saint Petersburg ensured the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) concession in 1896 and the Guandong (Kwantung) Leasehold in 1898.
Before the Second World War, the Bolsheviks' new imperialism extended the informal empire only to Mongolia and Tuva... Mongolia and Tannu-Tuva became the first stable entities in the informal Soviet empire.
