Trade between the U.S. and China began in 1794 and the two future superpowers saw their first military engagement several decades later, when American Marines provided periodic protection for merchants in Chinese treaty ports. Then, in 1900, the United States joined the International Relief Expedition in rescuing foreign delegations in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion.

It launched a half-century of American military occupation, security operations, and conflict in the country, and set the stage for the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Geoff Babb, a military historian at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, looks at this critical period from 1900 to 1950. A retired Army special forces officer, he trained in Hong Kong and Beijing (modern-day Peking) as a China foreign area officer and, among other assignments, served with the Defense Department’s Joint Staff.