The American annexation of the Philippines resulting from the Spanish–American War stimulated a growing American interest in China for both commercial and humanitarian reasons. The Philippines served as a convenient way point for trade with the Qing China, and would be of use in the protection of American interests in the Pacific. The dominant problem in China at the end of the nineteenth century was its threatened partition by the Great Powers. Both the United States and the British opposed this, and in September 1899 the United States announced it had secured agreement from the interested powers for maintenance of an Open Door policy in their relations with China.