...is a concept in foreign affairs, which usually refers to the United States policy in late 19th century and early 20th century that would grant multiple international powers equal access to China. On paper, the policy was aimed at safeguarding Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity from partition. In fact, it was mainly used to mediate competing interests of the colonial powers.
Formulation of the Policy
After its devastating defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China faced the imminent threat of partition and colonization by imperialist powers such as Britain, France, Russia, Japan and Germany. After acquiring the Philippine Islands at the conclusion of the the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States increased its Asian presence and was anxious to further its commercial and political interests in China. It felt threatened by other powers' much larger spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the country be partitioned. As a response, William Woodville Rockhill formulated the Open Door Policy in order to safeguard American business opportunities and other interests in China. U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, 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. These nations maintained significant physical and commercial presences in China, and were protective of their spheres of influence and trading privileges in Asia. The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese market.
In reply, each country tried to evade Hay's request, taking the position that it could not commit itself until the other nations had complied. In July 1900, in the absence of overt rejection of the Policy, Hay announced that each of the powers had granted consent in principle. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to the Open Door Policy, competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated.
Subsequent Development
In 1902, the United States government protested that Russian encroachment in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion was a violation of the Open Door Policy. When Japan replaced Russia in southern Manchuria after the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) the Japanese and U.S. governments pledged to maintain a policy of equality in Manchuria. In finance, American efforts to preserve the Open Door Policy led in 1909 to the formation of an international banking consortium for Chinese railroad loans, though in 1917 the United States recognized Japan's special interests in China (the Lansing-Ishii Agreement). The Open Door Policy was further weakened by a series of secret treaties in 1917 between Japan and the Allied Triple Entente, which promised Japan German possessions in China on successful conclusion of World War I. The subsequent exposure of this promise in the Versailles Treaty of 1919 angered the Chinese public and sparked the protest known as May Fourth Movement.
Guangxu
Returning to the capital in January 1902, after the withdrawal of the allied powers, Guangxu spent the next few years working in his isolated palace with watches and clocks, some say in an effort to pass the time until the death of Empress Dowager Cixi. He also read widely and spent time learning English from Dowager Empress Cixi's western-educated lady-in-waiting, Princess Der Ling.
Death
Under highly suspicious circumstances, Guangxu died on 14 November 1908, a day before Empress Dowager Cixi. He died relatively young, at the age of 37. Most historians are inclined to maintain that Guangxu was poisoned by Cixi or by Yuan Shihkai, for on his deathbed, Guangxu had left explicit instructions to execute Yuan Shikai. Medical records kept by Guangxu's physician indicate the emperor suffered from "spells of violent stomachache," and that his face would turn blue, typical symptoms of arsenic poisoning. On 4 November 2008, forensic tests revealed the level of arsenic in Guangxu's remains was 2,000 times normal.
The Guangxu Emperor was succeeded by Empress Dowager Cixi's choice as heir, his three-year-old nephew Puyi, who took the regnal name "Xuantong." Guangxu's consort, who became the Empress Dowager Longyu, signed the abdication decree as regent in 1912, ending two thousand years of imperial rule in China. Empress Dowager Longyu died childless in 1913.