American foreign policies based on imperialism in 1895-1920th Essay

During the time period of 1895-1920, as the United States entered the 20th century, America based its foreign policies on imperialism and the spreading to other nations. Inquiries on whether the nation should operate its power and influence beyond the North, became the essential topic of national discussion and debate. Although anti-imperialists argued that America was freaking the republican ideals of the nation's founders, advocates of imperialism argued that the United States had an obligation to promote democracy, civilization, and free trade in the world. Cases such as the Spanish-American War, china, and Panama demonstrated that when it came to negotiating with other nations, the United States government often started from an idealistic position, but self-interest was the ultimate in tension.
The change in American foreign policy occurred when the Spanish-American War of 1898 started. This war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain in February 1895. And Spain's brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed to the U.S. public by several sensational newspapers, and American sympathy for the rebels rose. All changed after the unexplained sinking in Havana harbour of the battleship USS Maine, which had been sent to protect U.S. citizens and property after anti-Spanish rioting in Havana. Spain announced an armistice on April 9 and speeded up its new program to grant Cuba limited powers of self-government, but the U.S. Congress soon afterward issued resolutions that declared Cuba's right to independence, demanded the withdrawal of Spain's armed forces from the island, and authorized the President's use of force to secure that withdrawal while renouncing any U.S. design for annexing Cuba. Self-interest then became the primary objective of the US government after knowing that it could obtain Cuba and expand it's power being it's own borders. The United States' entry into it's war with Spain started crying of liberty for the Cuban people, but ended with the hostility occupation of the Philippines, and the chains of the Platt Amendment that established the eight conditions which the Cuban Government had to agree before the withdrawal of the U.S. forces and the transfer of sovereignty would begin. With the Treaty of Paris, Spain renounced all claims to Cuba, and ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States, and transferred sovereignty over the Philippines to the United States for $20,000,000. (Document A, C).
In 1900, in what became known as the Boxer Rebellion, a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led a rebellion in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there. The rebels, referred to by Westerners as Boxers, because they performed physical exercises they believed would make them able to withstand bullets, killed foreigners and Chinese Christians and destroyed foreign property. From June to August, the Boxers besieged the foreign district of Beijing, China's capital, until an international force that included American troops subdued the uprising. By the terms of the Boxer Protocol, which officially ended the rebellion in 1901, China agreed to pay