Open Door Policy

The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century that would allow for a system of trade in China open to all countries equally. It was used mainly to mediate the competing interests of different colonial powers in China. In more recent times, the term 'Open Door policy' also describes the economic policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to open up China to foreign businesses that wanted to invest in the country. This later policy set into motion the economic transformation of modern China. The late 19th century policy was enunciated in Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899 and dispatched to the major European powers. It proposed to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, keeping any one power from total control of the country, and calling upon all powers, within their spheres of influence, to refrain from interfering with any treaty port or any vested interest, to permit Chinese authorities to collect tariffs on an equal basis, and to show no favors to their own nationals in the matter of harbor dues or railroad charges. Open Door policy was rooted in the desire of U.S. businesses to trade with Chinese markets, though it also tapped the deep-seated sympathies of those who opposed imperialism, with the policy pledging to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity from partition. It had little legal standing, and served in the main the interests of competing colonial powers without much meaningful input from the Chinese, creating lingering resentment and causing it to later be seen as a symbol of national humiliation by Chinese historians. In the 20th-century and 21st-century, scholars such as Christopher Layne in the neorealist school have generalized the use of the term to applications in 'political' open door policies and 'economic' open door policies of nations in general which interact on a global or international basis. As a theory, the United States' Open Door Policy originated with British commercial practice as reflected in treaties concluded with the Qing dynasty China after the First Opium War (1839–42). The Open Door concept was first seen at the Berlin Conference of 1885, which declared that no power could levy preferential duties in the Congo. As a concept and policy, the Open Door Policy was a principle, never formally adopted via treaty or international law. It was invoked or alluded to but never enforced as such. Starting with the 1931 Japanese seizure of Manchuria and the creation of Manchukuo, however, the policy was broken with impunity and with increasing frequency. Technically, the term Open Door Policy was only applicable before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. After Deng Xiaoping took office in 1978, the term referred to China's policy of opening up to foreign business that wanted to invest in the country, setting into motion the economic transformation of modern China. During the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China faced imminent threat of being partitioned and colonized by imperialist powers such as Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany and Italy. After winning the Spanish–American War of 1898, with the newly acquired territory the Philippine Islands, the United States increased its Asian presence and was expecting to further its commercial and political interest in China. It felt threatened by other powers' much larger spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the country be partitioned. As a response, William Woodville Rockhill formulated the Open Door Policy to safeguard American business opportunities and other interests in China. On September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China. The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese market. In reply, each country tried to evade Hay's request, taking the position that it could not commit itself until the other nations had complied. However, by July 1900, Hay announced that each of the powers had granted consent in principle. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to the Open Door Policy, competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated.