Open Door Policy

The policy was created in U.S. Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899, and circulated to the major European powers.

[1] In order to prevent the "carving of China like a melon", as they were doing in Africa, the Note asked the powers to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis and called 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.

In July 1900, as the powers contemplated intervention to put down the violently anti-foreign Boxer uprising, Hay circulated a Second Open Door Note affirming the principles.

After winning the Spanish–American War of 1898, with the newly acquired territory of the Philippine Islands, the United States increased its Asian presence and expected to further its commercial and political interests in China.

As a response, William Woodville Rockhill formulated the Open Door Policy to safeguard American business opportunities and other interests in China.

[4] On September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia) to ask them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and they would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports in their spheres of influence in China.

The effect of the policy was partly diplomatic, but it also reflected what the historian Michael Hunt calls a "paternalistic vision" of "defending and reforming China."

[13] In finance, American efforts to preserve the Open Door Policy led in 1909 to the formation of an international banking consortium through which all Chinese railroad loans agreed in 1917 to another exchange of notes between the United States and Japan.

There were renewed assurances that the Open Door Policy would be respected, but the United States would recognize Japan's special interests in China (the Lansing–Ishii Agreement).

[2][15] Special Economic Zones (SEZ) were set up in 1980 in his belief that to modernize China's industry and boost its economy, he needed to welcome foreign direct investment.

The SEZs were strategically located near Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan but with a favorable tax regime and low wages to attract capital and business from these Chinese communities.

[20] In 2013, China overtook the United States and became the world's biggest trading nation in goods, with a total for imports and exports valued at US$4.16 trillion for the year.

[21] On 21 July 2020, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping made a speech to a group of public and private business leaders at the entrepreneur forum in Beijing.