Open Door Policy Spheres of Influence

China China had been opened to trade with western countries. Great Britain France Germany Japan These countries already had established trade and corporate investments with China

The U.S. and China The U.S. established refueling stations in Hawaii and the Philippines. Next step was to establish trade with China Secretary of State, John Hay wrote a policy known as the Open Door Policy Created around 1900, it would allow multiple Imperial powers access to China, with none of them in control of that country.

In 1898, the United States had become an East Asian power through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and when the partition of China by the European powers and Japan seemed imminent, the United States felt its commercial interests in China threatened. U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, 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 European nations, and the United States, could trade with China.

This cartoon has an interesting interpretation of the Open Door Notes, as well as the historically complex relationship between China and the U.S.  The Chinese in the picture are portrayed as clearly happy that their friend Uncle Sam is protecting them from these other foreigners who wish to dominate their country.  But there is a racist assumption in this picture; that being that the U.S. should be the key holder for these people who are to weak to do it themselves (a Social Darwinist assumption).  Of course, when the Chinese did fight back against foreign influence (as in the Boxer Rebellion), the Chinese were called savages.