Benevolence or Pretext: An Exploration of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward China in the Early 20th Century from the Perspective of Social Darwinism

Applying Darwin’s principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest to human society, social Darwinists in the late nineteenth century proposed the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race. Based on the social Darwinism theory, this paper looks into the United States overseas expansion, especially its foreign policy toward China in the early 20th century. It further argues that the alleged American “protection” for China in military, diplomatic and cultural domain was just an embodiment of racial superiority in U.S. foreign policy, which was a justification for the United States to invade and enslave other countries and establish world hegemony.