Boxer Rebellion
The infamous Boxer Rebellion. But what was it? Ultimately, it was a war between China and virtually the rest of the world’s powers. Guess who won. Hint: it wasn’t China.
The Boxer Rebellion started off as sort of the opposite of the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion began as an uprising by a somewhat irrational Christian sect and was fought mainly in southern China. The Boxer Rebellion began as an uprising against Christians by a somewhat irrational secret society and was fought mainly in northern China. A group named the Righteous and Harmonious Fists arose in northern China in the latter half of the 19th century. It was comprised of athletically disciplined, often impoverished rural men. (The Boxer Rebellion, just like the Taiping Rebellion, was preceded by natural disasters that resulted in desperation by the poor.) They believed that their training and discipline would make them invincible and able to fly. Due to the Fists’ practice of martial arts, Westerners called them “Boxers”.
By the 1890s, thanks to the rights granted by the treaties that ended the Second Opium War, China was overrun with missionaries and other (primarily Christian) foreigners. Christianity went against the traditional conservative beliefs of the Boxers. Furthermore, the Chinese people had begun to fear that the various port concessions to Europeans was just the beginning. They were afraid (perhaps with reason) that the entire country was going to be divided up among the foreign powers. Then there was the resentment about the opium being shipped into China by the British. In 1898, the Boxers had had enough and began to kill missionaries. By 1900, anti-reform conservatives in the imperial court, philosophically aligned with the Boxers, convinced the Qing to stop suppressing and start supporting the Boxers. With the effective approval from the government, the Boxer persecution of Christians and all foreigners in general increased in scope.
As you can imagine, the foreign powers weren’t about to let this harassment continue, especially knowing how weak the Qing Dynasty had grown. In came military forces from 8, EIGHT, countries: Britain, Russia, Japan, France, US, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. Fighting was brutal. As in the Second Opium War, the emperor fled Beijing as the invading forces entered the imperial city. Massacres of missionaries and Chinese converts to Christianity were widespread throughout northern China. Once the allied nations successfully occupied northern China, savage retaliatory atrocities were committed by the foreign forces. Unabashed raping and pillaging went on. Russia took advantage of the chaos, invading and occupying Manchuria, obliterating the Qing homeland.
In September of 1901, the Chinese signed a peace treaty under the condition that the Qing Dynasty would be allowed to continue to reign and China would cede no further territory. Nonetheless, yet another huge sum was to be paid, this time over 39 years, with interest. The total paid through 1939 was equal to about $61 billion. The treaty stipulated the execution of several high-ranking Chinese officials. Somehow, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands also got in on the deal. It seems that nearly the entire world was having a feeding frenzy at China’s expense. (It also seems that Portugal was happily minding its own business all this time down in Macau.)
Because of the backlash suffered at the hands of the Chinese, the western powers finally decided that dealing with directly the Chinese government–rather than Chinese merchants and other civilians, as had been the case–was the way to go. They ended their desires for further colonization of China. Chinese farmers had begun to produce vast quantities of opium, so the opium trade was no longer a big deal to the British. The big winner was Japan, which continue to grow in power and influence throughout Asia. The Qing, barely hanging on, renewed their reform and modernization efforts. But after a disastrous century, north vs south antagonism, which had flared up during the Taiping Rebellion, worsened. Anti-Qing revolutionary nationalists in the south had had it with the Manchu-led imperial north. The 20th century had arrived, and it was bringing BIG changes.
[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]
Leave a Reply