The Chinese factor in the formation of the American foreign policy doctrine of "open doors" (1899-1900)

Abstract

The article examines the formation of one of the foreign policy doctrines of expansionism, which became the main instrument of US foreign policy in the twentieth century. The theory of "open doors", the essence of which is to provide equal opportunities to all interested parties on the basis of unlimited economic freedom and unhindered penetration of capital, was proclaimed by Secretary of State J. Hay in 1899 in relation with China, which was considered as a potential market for the sale of industrial goods and a profitable object of capital investment. Having opposed the division of China by the European powers, the American ruling elites proposed to replace individual control over individual parts of the country, according to the concluded agreements on "spheres of influence", with the establishment of a collective system of external supervision over its entire territory. By putting external expansion in the form of international agreement, they wanted to force competitors stronger in military and political terms to play by the proposed rules, transferring power rivalry to the trade and economic area, where their commercial superiority was undoubted. The nationalist movement of the Yihetuans, which began in the autumn of 1898, aimed at expelling foreigners out of the country, jeopardized the idea of implementing the doctrine of "open doors". After much thought, the White House abandoned the widely disseminated peacefulness and approved the participation of the expeditionary force in the joint intervention of European powers in China. Interference in the internal political affairs of a formally sovereign state meant that the United States was involved in its violent redistribution. Later, Washington continued to follow its course around the world, creating an arsenal of new political and economic methods, officially formalized as a generally accepted international principle in the 1922 treaty of the Nine Powers.