The Open Door Policy

This cartoon is about China opening its doors to other countries. The cartoonist is trying to say that the other nations including the United States want to come into China to expand their influences as well. Other people’s opinions like the Anti-Imperialist League on this cartoon would be how the United States and the other countries are forcing China to open their doors just for the benefit of getting goods and expanding each of the countries’ sphere of influence. Some of the techniques used in the cartoon to make it persuasive is the symbolism in the cartoon. The symbolism is shown in the cartoon because of the door representing the Open Door Policy. It stands for the concept of how China never really “opened up” to other countries and it impacted the influences China had with other nations. Also, since Uncle Sam was kind of putting his hand on the “Door” and he was almost gesturing the Chinese in a way to come out and spread their influences among them. The people around Uncle Sam are probably also the representatives from the other countries that are involved in the Open Door Policy and joining the United States to get the Chinese to open their door. This cartoon supports my position of anti-imperialism because the outside countries like the United States and the European countries should not be intervening into China. It looked like that China did not even want to open up to the rest of the world yet and that is why the people in China were angry. For example, if some country went to intervene into the United States because of wanting to expand their influences, would the United States accept that? I would believe the United States would be angry exactly like how China was; that is also what caused the Boxer Rebellion. For those reasons, I think that this cartoon definitely supports my position on anti-imperialism.

“The Open Door Policy” Chappell, Caitlin. Blogspot.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2016. <http://cchappell2.blogspot.com/>.