Other diplomatic efforts by the Roosevelt administration in the years 1907-08 led to the so-called „gentlemen`s agreement“ between the United States and Japan. The essence of the agreement was embodied in a Japanese note of February 24, 1907, in which Japan promised to withhold the passports of workers wishing to emigrate to the United States and the American right to refuse entry of Japanese immigrants with passports initially issued to travel to another country. It was not until February 18, 1908 that a Japanese note served as the basis for an effective limitation of immigration. To compensate for all Japanese assumptions that the U.S. concessions in the Far East were a fear of Japan, Roosevelt sent most of the U.S. Navy on a world cruise from December 16, 1907 to February 22, 1909, showing that the United States is now the world`s second-largest maritime power (Japan became fifth). The successful implementation of this agreement temporarily satisfied American supporters of the restriction and no restrictive legislation was passed against the Japanese. [15] At first, the Chinese were enthusiastically welcomed because labour was scarce, but soon American workers viewed them as competitors with hostility. The fact that the Chinese were content with low wages and were willing to perform human tasks inevitably penalized white workers. Despite growing anti-Chinese sentiment on the Pacific coast, where most Chinese immigrants had settled, the United States negotiated the Burlingame Treaty with China in 1868, which granted the Chinese the right to emigrate to the United States. In 1869, on the occasion of the completion of the transcontinental rail link at Promontory Point, Utah, a gold tip was propelled to maintain the last rail, and about 10,000 Chinese were expelled from work in a labour market that had increasingly depressed a development that would be aggravated by the influx of about 160,000 Chinese workers between 1868 and 1882. Due to competition with American labor, anti-Chinese unrest on the Pacific coast intensified in the 1870s, one of the most notable events being the „Sandlot Riots“ in July 1877 in San Francisco, the most concentrated city in China.

President Rutherford B. Hayes then appointed a commission to negotiate a new treaty with China. The result was the Treaty of November 17, 1880, which allowed the United States to „regulate, limit or suspend“ but not to ban the entry of Chinese workers. [3] Concessions were agreed in a note that, a year later, consisted of six points. The agreement was followed by the admission of Japanese students to public schools.