Open Door Policy facts for kids
The Open Door Policy was a policy between China, the United States and several nations in Europe. It opened equal trade with China to each of these nations. Prior to that, China was a closed country. Europe was about to fight a war to open up China by force.
The Open Door Policy was established in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was declared in US Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note on September 6, 1899 and circulated to the major European powers.
The Note asked the powers to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, in order to prevent them from "carving of China like a melon," as they were doing in Africa.
The policy had no legal standing or enforcement mechanism. In July 1900, as the powers considered intervention to put down the violently anti-foreign Boxer uprising, Hay circulated a Second Open Door Note affirming the principles. Over the next decades, American policy-makers and national figures continued to refer to the Open Door Policy as a basic doctrine, and Chinese diplomats appealed to it as they sought American support, but critics pointed out that the policy had little practical effect.
The term "Open Door" also describes the economic policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to open China to foreign businesses that wanted to invest in the country. The policy set into motion the economic transformation of China.
Images for kids
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Uncle Sam (United States) rejects force and violence and ask "fair field and no favor," equal opportunity for all trading nations to enter the China market peacefully, which became the Open Door Policy. Editorial cartoon by William A. Rogers in Harper's Magazine (New York) November 18, 1899.
See also
In Spanish: Política de puertas abiertas para niños
