Stars and stripes over the Orient : U.S. occupation of China 1900-1932

Modern scholarship on US military history covers the 20th century extensively, but the role and actions of the US military in China between 1900-1932 are covered unevenly at best. Service in China came to mean different things to the US Army and Marine Corps. In this paper, I examine US diplomatic and military objectives during this period as well as contemporary accounts of the soldiers and Marines who served in China to examine the origins of this historical blindspot. Each service was shaped by the new roles placed on them by growing US global power and influence during the early 1900s. As the US became increasingly involved in the Pacific and in safeguarding Chinese sovereignty, the Marine Corps and US Army were integral parts of that mission. I argue that while both soldiers and Marines were critical to US objectives in the region, each service’s unique priorities and self-perceptions meant that they interpreted the period and its importance through a different lens. Because their role in China reinforced institutional identity, contemporary Marines were not only quick to advertise their role in China; subsequent generations of Marines would carry on that history to the modern day. In contrast, US Army operations in China served as competition for the service’s priorities in modernization and reformation. As a result, service in China and the soldiers that performed it were increasingly marginalized until they ceased to be represented in Army institutional histories. Marine and Army recollection during this period serves as a case study for how the services inadvertently censor their institutional histories as events perceived as less important or peripheral recede from the collective history.