Amy Landers
HIST 313: History of China II: Ch’ing
Critique on The Boxer Uprising, 1900 (pg. 387-406)

In the introduction the chapter starts out with The Coup d’état of 1898, which put power back into the hands of the Manchus and with this the Empress Dowager wasn’t going to make any more exceptions to foreign powers. In February 1899 she took a hardline against the foreigners starting with the Italians who demanded the cession of the Sanmen Bay in Chekiang. The Empress ordered the governor of Chekiang to fight enemy landings without hesitation; her hard line view of refusing to deal with foreigners was made clear when the Italians backed down in October. On November 21, 1899 Dowager instructed the provincial authorities to entertain no more fantasies of peace and so began a fervent antiforeign movement, which would turn very bloody.
The Chinese people had dealt with half a century of foreign humiliation due to forced opening of trade after the loss in the opium wars, which resulted in unequal treaties and the Treaties of Tientsin in 1858 and with loss in the Sino-Japanese war. One of the factors for the uprising the text talks about is the Antipathy Toward Christianity. The Chinese people were ingrained with the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Christianity was greatly resented due to the fact that The Treaties of Tientsin in 1858 “allowed free propagation in the interior and with the Conventions of Peking in 1860, which granted the missionaries the right to rent and buy land for the construction of churches.” The gentry thought that the Christian religion was socially disruptive, delusive, heterodox sect. The Christian religion does allow to worship idols nor any other beings dead or alive, so the fact that the converts did not kowtow to the idols, nor did they follow Confucian religion or worship their ancestor. The converts also did not participate in the festivals honoring the spirits. All of these things that were now forbidden by Christianity and this greatly irritated the gentry. So Christian faith in China became a focus on antiforeignism.
There was a growing Public Anger over Imperialism, which caused a more reactions of wanting death to foreigners. Another factor was the Hardship of life as a result of foreign economic domination. After the Opium War a flood of foreign imports created extreme hardship for those who were dependent on income from their household handcrafts. Many workers could not make a living and became unemployed. Not only were there difficulties with work, but the Chinese people also had to deal with widespread famine and starvation and the text states “destitute people became bandits, vagrants, or troublemakers. While many of those in extremity at first blamed their misfortune on the Taiping’s, they ultimately transferred their hatred to foreigners for having inspired the rebels with the alien Christian ideology.” With the increasing foreign domination China’s trade deficit increased to 69 million taels in 1899, thus bring the deficit down the court increased taxes and solicited for provincial contributions in which the burden fell mainly on the people. Also adding to the economic crisis came another factor, which was a series of natural disasters. The Yellow River flooded frequently after 1882 after shifting course from Honan to Shantung in 1852, which affected more than a million people. In most of North China in 1900 a sever draught followed. The text states that victims of these disaster and superstitious scholars and official’s directed the blame toward the foreigners whom they thought had offended the spirits by their religious beliefs which prohibited the worship on Confucius, idols and ancestors. The text gives these extenuating circumstances for reasons the antiforeign riots broke out in 1900.
In the discussion of The Origin of the Boxers the text states why they were named “Boxers” because this “was a name given by foreigners to a Chinese secret society called the I-ho Ch’uan, or the ‘Righteous and Harmonious Fists’. Since members of this organization practiced old-style calisthenics.” In the 1890s this secret society took on an antiforeign sentiment and “vowed to kill foreigners and their Chinese collaborators.” The Boxers primary appeal was to the superstitious populace, was the practice of magic arts, by which they claimed “immunity to bullets after a hundred days of training, and the power to fly after four hundred days of work.” They also used charms, incantations and rituals to invoke the supernatural powers. The Boxers shunned the use of guns preferred old-style swords and lances.
In the section The Court Patronage of the Boxers it says that the Boxers were active under the name Big Sword Society in Shantung where they received encouragement form the reactionary governor, Li Ping-heng. Li shielded their incidences by recommending a policy of pacification rather than suppression. In 1897 two German missionaries were killed the court was pressured by the German minister to dismiss Li. This incident gave the Germans an excuse to occupy kiaochow, this touched off the other powers to scramble for concessions. In March 1899 Yu-hsien took over the governorship of the Shantung province and he was just as antiforeign as Li was. He continued to support the boxers and ordered the prefect and district magistrates to ignore the petitions and complaints of the missionaries and converts. The governor subsidized them and invited them to set up training centers to teach his soldiers. There were more than 800 centers concentrating in the area west of the Grand Canal where people suffered most from floods. Encouraged with official support the Boxers stepped up their attacks on the missionaries and converts.
In December 1899 foreign pressure forced the court to remove Yu-hsien. Yu-hsien went to Peking praising the Boxers and condemning any act of suppression as hurting China’s interest. PrinceTuan, Prince Chuang and Grand Secretary Kang-I recommended the use of the boxers to the empress dowager. In her frustration with the foreigners, embraced the idea. In May 1900 the court comtemplated organizing the Boxers into a militia. On May 28 rising antiforeignism alerted the foreign diplomats in Peking to the precautionary measure of calling in the legation guards for the ships off Tientsin harbor. The Tsungli Yamen tried ot limit the number of such guards to thirty for each legation. “However the first detachement that arrived in Peking on June 1 and 3 consisted of 75 Russian, 75 British, 75 French, 50 Americans, 40 Italians and 25 Japanese.” The situation grew out of hand after the Boxers cut the railway between Peking and Tietsin on June 3. The British minister sent for reinforcements to Admiral Seymour at Tientsin.

5. Independence of Southeast China 6. The Peace Settlement 7. Russian Occupation of Manchuria 8. Repercussions of the Boxer Uprising

Works Cited

Hsu, Immanuel C.Y. The Rise of Modern China. Vol. 6. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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[ 1 ]. Ibid., 388
[ 2 ]. Ibid., 389
[ 3 ]. Ibid., 390
[ 4 ]. Ibid., 391
[ 5 ]. Ibid., 391
[ 6 ]. Ibid., 393