The Open Door Policy and Geopolitics, 1890-1910

The Open-Door policy in China during the turn of the nineteenth century was a cornerstone moment for United States foreign policy in Asia, and several scholars have cited economic and political reasons for its adoption. Little has been written concerning the role of geopolitics in this respect, offering a new perspective on Sino-US relations which could help explain some of the activities occurring today, e.g. the One Belt One Road policy, the creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea, and Chinese efforts to claim the Spratly Islands. The main purpose of this thesis was to establish a connection between the new geopolitical ideas that emerged in the 1890’s, US foreign policy and the Open-Door policy. It also mapped three key developments in US foreign policy in Asia from ca. 1776 to 1890, and identified the main geopolitical ideas that were popular during the early nineteenth century. To prove this connection, two main sets of qualitative data were analysed, these being the Foreign Relations of the United States papers and the Presidential papers. Furthermore, the operationalization of the definition of geopolitics by Saul Bernard Cohen was used to establish this connection. A qualitative content analysis of the sources was made, paying attention to any mention of how geopolitics and how geography was influencing the US foreign political process. In addition to this, the sources were analysed to establish a connection between the geopolitical ideas present at the time and US foreign policy. There were roughly three periods concerning American foreign policy in Asia, these being from ca. 1776 to 1850 which sought to establish trade in Asia and more specifically China. The second period was from ca. 1850-1860 with focus on Japan. The final period sought to expand trade with Asia and to create an informal empire in the region. The main geopolitical ideas relevant at the time came from Admiral A. T. Mahan and his ideas on naval power and H. J. Mackinder’s ideas on land power, as well as ideas under the so-called “New Manifest Destiny.” The sources showed that there was no explicit connection between the newly published geopolitical ideas, US foreign policy and the adoption of the Open-Door. While these results showed a negative correlation, they did display elements of geopolitics under Cohen’s definition. On several occasions did Chinese geography and the control of it influence the foreign political process in the United States. Not only that, there were four distinct categories where there was a clear connection between geopolitics and US foreign policy. These categories being; railroads, trade, naval power and missionary activity. These results have shed late on the debate around the Open-Door policy and analysed it in a new perspective, hopefully prompting further research into the vast yet lightly explored realm of geopolitics and foreign policy in a historical context.