By 1839 trade tensions have created the first OPIUM WAR between CHINA and BRITAIN, with British deploying thousands of Indian soldiers brought in from their colony in India.

A former American president, John Quincy Adams, sides with British position, denouncing Chinese refusal to trade as “un-Christian, Immoral...” (1841)

In America, a New York Theater in 1834 has placed, Afong Moy, the first known Chinese woman in the United States, on display on a stage as a living exhibit /curiosity /spectacle for New Yorkers to come by and see.

Yet this commonplace ORIENTALIST distancing of Chinese people co-exists during the same 1830s when Chinese seamen arriving in New York, sometimes intermarry and settle into families with Irish women.

China, defeated in the Opium War is forced to sign Treaty of Nanjing, 1842 (China/Britain), opening China to foreign penetration by Western powers and later Japan. China, in defeat, also has to sign the Treaty of Wanghsia, (US/CHINA) two years later in 1844, thereby ceding much the same powers and rights to the US as well.