Threats and promise run through history of Alaska and East Asia

Recent news from East Asia presents Alaska with threats and promise. The promise is found in a recent ADN headline: "Salmon prospects bright among China's growing middle class." In recent years, Alaska has exported more goods to China, Japan and South Korea than to neighboring Canada.

The threat comes from North Korea, which has, or is close to having, a missile that can reach Alaska.

[U.S. says North Korea likely tested ICBM; experts say Alaska within range]

This news is hard to digest Outside, where perceptions of Alaska are shaped by popular literature and reality shows. No one wants to think of moose-packed Alaska being bombed.

Of course, Dutch Harbor was bombed during the Second World War, and the Aleutian island of Attu was briefly absorbed by the Japanese Empire — a story recounted in books like Nick Golodoff's "Attu Boy" and Mary Breu's "Last Letters from Attu." But few Americans know about this, and while most can understand why East Asians would want to buy Alaskan fish (among other things), it's harder to picture our northern paradise of puffins and birch syrup going up in flames.

These themes — threat and promise — can be traced to America's beginning in Alaska.

Among the things advocates of Alaska's purchase from Russia said was that it would make the U.S. an Asian power. Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner noted that the Aleutian Range, "starting from Alaska, stretches far away to Japan, as if America were extending a friendly hand to Asia." And the hand would be active in trade.

In a sense, the purchase of Alaska in 1867 continued what began with Portuguese and Spanish explorer-traders more than three centuries before. Columbus wanted to get to Asia; Sumner said that an "aspiration of commerce" was at the heart of the desire to unite "the east of Asia with the west of America."

[Governor says Alaska LNG is on world leaders' radars as he pursues partners]

This outlook is illustrated by a coin from the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. On the left is East Asia holding a ship. On the right is America, holding a train. In the middle is Alaska holding a large gold nugget and bringing East and West into contact.

America also has a hand on an image of William Seward, architect of the Alaska Purchase. If Seward had access to recent reports about Alaska's trade with East Asia, he would be justifiably proud.

But there was also a story of international tension. Indeed, strained relations between Britain and Russia helps to explain why Russia sold Alaska to the U.S., for Alaska tied to Canada would only make Britain's empire all the greater. And the U.S. needed to acquire territory in Asia to compete economically with other Western powers. In 1898, the U.S. would move into the Philippines and Guam at Spain's expense, but Alaska was the first move.

When Japan rose to build an empire of its own, tensions grew. In the early 1900s, the Nome Nugget worried that one day "a Japanese cruiser might easily sail into Nome harbor… and sail away with the whole result of the winter's clean-up (of gold). What is to prevent such a performance? … . The citizens could do nothing."

A sense of Alaska's vulnerability persisted through the 1930s. Anthony Dimond, Alaska's delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, repeatedly warned about the external threat Alaska faced.

At that time, the threat came from Japan. In the war that ensued — as illustrated by a souvenir pillow case made during WWII — Japan got the worst of it.

The pillow case has an Alaskan bear hurling missiles at Japan. The current concern is over the possibility of a different East Asian country hurling missiles the other way. Alaskans feel this threat.

Meanwhile, trade between Alaska and East Asia continues. As it was in the beginning, threats and promise keep company.

Preston Jones is a professor of history at John Brown University in Arkansas. He has published books about Nome, Anchorage and Alaska during the First World War with University of Alaska Press.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.