Chinese/latin Problem
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If, during this period, the Chinese ambassador to the United States had said to a Latin American ambassador to the United States, “We have a common problem between us,” what do you think this might have meant and what would his response have been?
In the years following the civil war, the United States was not interested in foreign policy concerning Europe, but had a growing interest in Latin America and the Far East. Economic developments, especially shifts in foreign commerce resulting from industrialization, strengthened this interest with each passing year. Since China and Latin America piqued the interests of the United States, they both had the common problem of dealing with America and its rush to create a sphere of influence around them.
Both in China and Central and Southern America, whenever European powers came to establish a sphere of influence, America intervened. During the Civil War, France had established a protectorate over Mexico and installed Archduke Maximillian of Austria as emperor. This in turn caused secretary of state, William H. Seward to demand the French to withdraw. Eventually, the archduke was forced out of power and executed. Another time the United States intervened in a Latin American country was when it chose to use armed forces to drive the Spanish out of Cuba, in what was the precipitating factor in the Spanish-American War. The same occurred when President Grover Cleveland ordered secretary of state Richard Olney to send a near ultimatum to the British. By occupying the disputed territory between Venezuela and British Guiana, Olney insisted, Great Britain was invading Venezuela and violating the Monroe