<P> During the First Sino - Japanese War in 1895, China faced imminent threat of being partitioned and colonized by imperialist powers such as Britain, France, Russia, Japan and Germany . After winning the Spanish--American War of 1898, with the newly acquired territory the Philippine Islands, the United States increased its Asian presence and was expecting to further its commercial and political interest 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 to safeguard American business opportunities and other interests in China . On September 6, 1899, 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 . The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese market . </P> <P> 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 . However, by July 1900, 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 . </P> <P> On October 6, 1900 Britain and Germany signed the Yangtze Agreement, providing that they would oppose the partition of China into spheres of influence . The agreement, signed by Lord Salisbury and Ambassador Paul von Hatzfeldt was an endorsement of the Open Door Policy proposed by the United States for free trade in China . However, Germany's failure to keep up the agreement led to the Anglo - Japanese Alliance of 1902 . </P> <P> 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--05) 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 (1909) to the formation of an international banking consortium through which all Chinese railroad loans would agree (1917) to another exchange of notes between the United States and Japan in which there were renewed assurances that the Open Door Policy would be respected, but that the United States would recognize Japan's special interests in China (the Lansing--Ishii Agreement). The Open Door Policy had been further weakened by a series of secret treaties (1917) between Japan and the Allied Triple Entente, which promised Japan the German possessions in China on successful conclusion of World War I . The subsequent realization of such promise in the Versailles Treaty of 1919 angered the Chinese public and sparked the protest known as May Fourth Movement . The Nine - Power Treaty, signed in 1922, expressly reaffirmed the Open Door Policy . </P>

How did the open door policy affect the us economy