Was the “Open Door Policy” of 1900 - 1910 Beneficial to China?
The Policy is not as Effective as had been Thought
When the “open door policy” wasinitially enforced by John Hay’s open door notes, the policy wasessentially doomed from the start. “The world of internationalaffairs has thus laid down the lines of an Open Door Era, or conflict,with America in the breach, and with problems in the solution of whichthere are no guiding parallels” (McCormick). Many of theother national powers involved such as Great Britain, Germany, Russia,France, and Japan all were hesitant and reluctant to agreeing withHay’s proposals (Secretary). Most of the powers evaded giving ananswer of agreement or disagreement by claiming they would only sign ifthe others planned on complying as well (Answers.com). As a result, thisled John Hay to have to send out separate notes to the involved powers,telling them everyone had complied to the agreement in order for theother countries to follow the policy (Answers.com). However, the complianceof the countries would soon be found as superficial and the looseloyalties they held to this policy was the main factor as to why the“open door policy” was ineffective, leading to manydisastrous results for China.The Policy is not as Effective as had been Thought
The largest problem of the policy itself was thatthere was little done to enforce the regulations the policy haddeclared regarding preserving the trade equality and “territorialand administrative integrity” (Secretary) in China. Because thepowers claimed a superficial loyalty to the policy’s regulations,they were more prone to breaking the rules per say, and the number onecandidate that was the most guilty of this charge was none other thanJapan. The ineffectiveness of the Powers to enforce the “opendoor policy” led to many of the main causes leading up to theBoxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and causes for World War I(McCormick and Answers.com). The former of the three has beenexplained quite thoroughly as well as its detrimental consequences onChina, however the other two deserve some elaboration.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was essentially afight between the two eastern powers of Russia and Japan over Manchuria- which is northeast China - and Korea dominance in those areas. Thevictor of the war to everyone’s surprise was the Japanese, whoafter the battle had been recognized as the dominant power in Asia atthe time (Answers.com and McCormick) As with any war, there arealways casualties and destruction from people caught in the crossfiresuch as the Chinese people in Manchuria, not to mention it wasterritory belonging to a completely separate government than the twonations fighting over the influence in that area. It was the Treaty ofPortsmouth that ended the feud and declared that China still retainedsovereignty yet Japan was to have control of certain ports that wereoriginally Russia’s as well as control over Korea (McCormick). This was the first violation against the open door policyin that Russia and Japan were competing for territory and influence inan area of China which disagreed with the policy’s rule ofkeeping China’s territorial integrity preserved.
As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, othertreaties and policies went in place among the Powers so they couldensure their investments in China were not at stake. On the U.S. end,they wanted to keep their investments in the railroads in those areassafe, so they signed the Taft-Katsura and Root-Takahira Agreements tohelp with American-Japanese relations indicating the U.S. hadacknowledged Japan’s influence in Korea and that the “opendoor policy” was still intact regarding Chinese territory(Answers.com). However, by 1915 Japan had secretly sent a letter enlistingtwenty-one demands to the Chinese government involving giving theJapanese control of various aspect of China’s economy, territory,and military (Twenty-One). In response, since the “open doorpolicy was nothing more than a name” (McCormick), the U.S.reinforced the policy by creating the Nine Power Treaty of which Japanhad agreed to by gving up most of its demands, but the U.S. hadappeased some of them (Answers.com). Finally in 1931, Japan boldly advancedand overtook Manchuria, renaming it Manchukuo in the early1930’s, essentially dissolving the “open door policy”for a long time (Answers.com). The fact that the U.S. had to re-establishand create new treaties to support the “open door policy”rules indicated the treaty was falling apart in itself, with no helpfrom Japan blatantly disregarding the policy with no actual consequenceuntil the end of the World War II. The “open door policy”would not be revived again until Deng Xiaoping’s rule in Chinaafter the fall of Mao and his Cultural Revolution.
