While the international expedition was gathering its forces, he announced in a circular note that "the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." To this position he requested the powers to assent.
Again Hay had hit upon a formula which no self-respecting power could deny.

Receiving from practically all a statement of their purpose to preserve the "integrity" of China and the "Open Door" just when they were launching the greatest military movement ever undertaken in the Far East by the western world, he made it impossible to turn punishment into destruction and partition.

The legations were saved and so was China.
After complicated negotiations an agreement was reached which exacted heavy pecuniary penalties, and in the case of Germany, whose minister had been assassinated, a conspicuous and what was intended to be an enduring record of the crime and its punishment.

China, however, remained a nation--with its door open.
Once more in 1904 the fate of China, and in fact that of the whole Far East, was thrown into the ring.

Japan and Russia entered into a war which had practically no cause except the collision of their advancing interests in Chinese territory.