The Boxer Uprising Flashcards
Scramble for Concessions (1898-9)
1898 - Britain consolidated its hold on Hong Kong, which consisted of three distinct areas: Hong Kong island, Kowloon and the New territories. In 1898, Britain took over the rest of the Kowloon peninsula. Britain also claimed possession of the port of Weihaiwei in Shandong province. This was motivated by a wish not to create a colony, as in Hong Kong, but to establish a naval base and coaling station as a means of protecting British interests against Russia and Germany in the China seas. The agreement granting Weihaiwei to Britain stated that it would remain in British hands as long as Russia held Port Arthur.
(1898-1899) Germany took over the port of Qingdao in Shandong province and claimed the right to control the railways in the region.
Not to be outdone, France in the same period obliged the Chinese government to recognise French special interests in areas in an arc of southern provinces in China; Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan.
USA ‘Open Door’ Policy
Through secretary of State, John Hay in 1899, the US warned off the other imperial powers. In diplomatic but not ambiguous terms, Hay informed them that America was not prepared to see China’s economy fall under their control. No country was entitled to force the Chinese to grant it preferential tariffs; China must be left free to develop its trade and commerce with whomever it chose. Although few of the powers were happy with the ‘open door’ doctrine, which they knew was formulated primarily to promote American interests rather than Chinese, none was prepared at this stage to challenge the USA directly over it.
100 Days Reform
Emperor Guangxu driven reform based upon Western models to deflect criticism directed at China for the powerlessness in the face of foreign demands
Major modifications of the civil service
Innovations in education
Extensive industrial reorganisation
Aim of these reforms to buy off government’s Chinese critics with failure to prevent scramble for concessions and performance in Sino-Japanese war 1895
Empress dowager Cixi conservative faction outmanoeuvred the emperor and his supporters. Cixi took over the government. Guangxu was obliged to retract his former support of the reformers, all of whom were dismissed, many of them being executed or imprisoned.
Failure of the 100 days showed the lack of cohesion among advocates of reform and strength of conservatism in Chinese politics.
Cixi, whose distaste for reform was matched by her detestation of foreigners, now attempted to use the national feelings that the 100 days had generated to launch a nationwide campaign against ‘the foreign devils.’ She gave her support to the Boxers who began a series of violent attacks on Chinese christians and foreign missionaries in Shandong (1898.)
The Boxers
The boxer movement as it developed was an alliance of three main groups
Peasants and workers. During the 1890s, a series of harvest failures and a mixture of droughts and floods combined with the defeat in the Sino-Japanese war (1895) made the peasants more precarious. They regarded the natural disasters that destroyed their crops, a result of spells and curses cast on the Chinese by the ‘foreign devils.’
Section of the Chinese gentry who felt increasingly humiliated by having their professional status stolen by the barbarous foreigners who denied them position and office
Reactionary Qing government wager to reclaim its independence from Western control and recover from its loss of prestige over China’s defeat by Japan in 1895 and the scramble for concessions.
Boxers defined their targets as ‘hairy men’
‘First-type hairy men’: foreign Christians
‘Second-type hairy men’: Chinese Christians
‘Third-type hairy men’: Chinese who worked for the Westerners
The “Shining Red Lanterns’
A remarkable feature of the Boxer movement was the presence of special women’s units. This was one of the first times in Chinese history that women had played such an organised and significant collective role as a social force.
Uprising
The Boxers began their attacks on the ‘hairy men’ in 1898 in Shandong, a province in which resentment of the ‘foreign devils’ was particularly marked.
The large number of foreigners in the province
The large amounts of territory that had been taken over by non-Chinese
The spread of railways and mines which had offended local sensitives
The interference in local customs and traditions by missionaries
Having gained a high degree of control over Shandong by 1900, massacring thousands in the process, Boxers set their sights on Beijing. The capital was reached in the summer of 1900, at which point Cixi, now assured that the movement was not anti-Manchu, announced the government’s support for the Boxers, declared war on the foreign nations in China and ordered an attack on the international settlements in Beijing. Her appeals to the regional governments to send troops to Beijing to form a Chinese army were largely ignored. The reality was that the government in Beijing had neither the strength to enforce compliance from the provinces in the south and south-east nor the prestige to attract their help. It was a clear sign that loyalty to the Manchu was confined to the northern provinces. Without provincial support, Cixi’s war on the foreign powers had no chance of succeeding. Indeed, rather than assist the government, a number of provincial leaders made common cause with the foreigners by promising to protect Western nationals.
Formation of the 8 national alliance where there were over 50,000 troops.
Once they reached Beijing, they had difficulty in breaking the siege of the legations.
The boxer army crumbles before it. Cixi and the emperor fled for their lives south to Xian in Shaanxi province.
Reasons for Failure
Boxers attracted only limited support within China and movement was restricted to the northern provinces and made little impact elsewhere. Southern provinces showed their dislike of the government in the North by refusing to cooperate and ignoring the Manchu’s call for resistance, choosing to cooperate with foreign powers by protecting their nationals against the boxers.
The boxers lacked a sense of common purpose. Their movement was made up of separate groups with little to unite them, save for a common hatred of foreigners. (The 8 national alliance overcame them with ease)
The movement failed to acquire inspiring leadership. The manchu were fearful of a peasant rebellion and supported the Boxers for expediency not conviction.
The Chinese gentry unwilling to contemplate the Chinese masses’ encroaching on their traditional privileges, declined to give the Boxers their full backing
China did not possess the firepower to match the military strength of the foreign armies.
Boxer Protocol (1901)
Western occupiers imposed severe penalties in a settlement known as the Boxer Protocol
China had to pay £68m in reparation. ( Austria-Hungary 1%, USA 7%, Italy 7%, Japan 8%, Britain 11%, France 16%, Germany 20% and Russia 29%)
Chinese arsenals and fortifications to be destroyed
Foreign troops were to be permanently stationed in and around Beijing
Foreign powers were entitled to defend their legations with their own military forces.
Legation areas were to be reserved for exclusive habituation and use of foreign personnel.
Captured Boxer leaders were to be punished by execution or deportation
Cixi declared a war criminal
Chinese governments erect a number of monuments commemorating prominent foreigners who died during the uprising.
Chinese gentry were punished by having the traditional state exam suspended for 5 years.
Damage to regime
After the Boxer protocol had been signed the Manchu government was allowed to continue and the war-criminal charge against Cixi was withdrawn. Events had destroyed what little prestige she still had. When the emperor and Xici returned to Beijing in 1902, there was little sympathy for them. Those who were prepared to fight for their nation’s freedom from foreign control regarded events as proof that the imperial government was incapable of leading the people to liberation.
