Trans-Pacific intellectual and political interactions: The Carnegie Endowment, legal internationalism, and Sino-U.S. relations, 1912–1925

Abstract

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, established in 1910, promoted the concept of legal internationalism, supported the spread of American legal experience, and developed international law in order to build international order and protect world peace. Post-1911 China was looking for revolutionary change, providing a perfect opportunity for the United States to promote its legal and political models. With the coordination of Endowment trustee and former Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot, the Carnegie Endowment sent U.S. experts Frank J. Goodnow, William F. Willoughby, and Westel W. Willoughby to serve as legal advisers to the new Republic of China and participate in the design of China’s constitution and foreign policy. These intellectual elites traveled across the Pacific, demonstrating the transnational history of legal internationalism, promoting intellectual and political exchange between China and the United States, and significantly influencing republican China’s politics, Sino-U.S. relations, and the international order in East Asia.