166 ChaPter 3
came to power. Still, the U.S. could not take advantage of the changes in
China to any real degree because Japan stood in the way.
Japan had long maintained that it should have a primary role in Chinese
affairs, both because it was close and because they shared a cultural heritage
in the fight against “white supremacy.” Mostly, however, the Japanese wanted
China’s resources and markets, just like everyone else. In 1915, Tokyo issued
“21 Demands” of China, essentially taking control of China by confirming its
seizure of ports and railways, mines and metallurgy industries, and taking
control over its finances and police, while forbidding the Chinese from having
economic relations with other countries. Just two years later, in the “Lansing-
Ishii Agreement,” the U.S. and others had to acknowledge Japan’s “special
interests in China,” meaning its domination. So, with its goals in China
beaten back, the U.S. began expanding its economic interests in Japan. Ford
set up factories and built the first autos made in Japan. Americans invested
in Japanese companies in the chemical and electronic industries, and provided
utilities and phone services to many Japanese cities. Ultimately, the U.S.
invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Japan, but would continue to look
for ways to get into the markets of China, and this would eventually lead to
the events of December 7th, 1941.
If the term had been used at the time, Latin America and Asia would have
been called “emerging markets,” meaning they were still in the process of
industrializing, banking, and trade, but had the potential for serious econom-
ic growth in the future. That term certainly would have applied to the oil-rich
Middle East as well. The petroleum industry began in the U.S. under the direc-
tion of John D. Rockefeller in the 19th Century, and it became the most
important global commodity—needed for both commerce and military oper-
ations—by the time of the Great War. Yet geologists were concerned that the
world supply of oil was “precarious” by the 1920s. While U.S. companies still
produced about two-thirds of the world’s oil, other nations, like Britain and
The Netherlands, were competing against American firms and gaining new
markets, which would seriously damage the establishment of the open door;
and no area was as important on this issue as the Middle East. After the Great
War, the British gained an upper hand in the oil trade, and made agreements
with Kuwait and Bahrain that shut out American oil companies. The U.S.
government, working as expected as an agent for private corporations, spon-
sored geological surveys [searches for oil fields] on behalf of Exxon, Texaco,