"(4) To refrain from taking advantage of conditions in China in order to seek special rights or privileges which would abridge the rights of subjects or citizens of friendly States, and from countenancing action inimical to the security of such States." China on her part accepted fully the principle of the open door, and pledged herself for the first time to respect it. Pledges to respect the open door in China have been made by foreign powers upon various occasions in the past and broken as often as made. The expression "equal opportunity for the commerce and industry of all nations" is not new. It occurs in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, in the Root-Takahira agreement of 1908, and in numerous other documents. In recent years, however, the United States has been the only power which has tried to preserve the open door in China. Most of the other powers have regarded the Chinese situation as hopeless, and have believed that the only solution was to let foreign powers come in and divide and rule the territory of the empire. In view of the new treaty the open door is no longer merely an American policy, but an international policy, and responsibility for its enforcement rests not on the United States alone but on all nine parties to the treaty. The agenda or program of the Conference offered as one of the subjects to be considered the status of existing commitments in China. When Secretary Hughes brought this subject up before the Far Eastern Committee, Japan entered an emphatic objection to its consideration, and the matter was dropped immediately without argument. The treaty, therefore, is not retroactive, for it recognizes the status quo in Manchuria and to a less extent in other parts of China. The saving clause of the new agreement is, however, a resolution providing for the establishment of an international board of reference, to which questions arising in regard to the open door may be referred.