September 7, 1901 – Boxer Rebellion: The Boxer Protocol is signed, ending hostilities
On September 7, 1901, the Eight-NationAlliance, togetherwith Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands, and the Qinggovernment signed a peace treaty called the Boxer Protocol,which officially ended the conflict. Among the treaty’s provisions were that China would pay war reparationsto the foreign powers over a 35-year period; that ten high-ranking officialswould be executed and hundreds of others would be punished with exile orimprisonment; that China was barred from importing weapons, ammunition, andmaterials to manufacture armaments for a period of two years, subject to atwo-year extension; that anti-foreign organizations would be outlawed; that thecivil service examinations would be suspended for five years in areas whereforeigners were massacred or subject to atrocities; and that China would extenta formal apology to German and Japan for the murders of their envoys, and amemorial arch would be built by the Chinese government on the spot where theGerman diplomat was killed.
(Taken from Boxer Rebellion – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia: Vol. 5)
BackgroundBy the 19th century, China,a great and ancient nation with a civilization spanning 4,000 years, wasweakening from internal and external pressures. Internally, the Qing Dynasty, which hadruled China since 1644, hadexperienced many regional uprisings, including the Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873), Dungan Revolt (1862-1877) Nian Rebellion (1851-1868), andthe catastrophic Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), where 20-30 million people werekilled and the most fertile regions of China were devastated. During the 19th century, Chinawas hit with many major famines that caused more than 120 million deaths. China also had experienced a rapidpopulation growth, and by the early 19th century, some 300 millionChinese were competing for land in an overwhelmingly agricultural economy,generating social unrest and discontent. Furthermore, most Chinese had few opportunities, as the Qing courttightly regulated other industries and external trade. The government itself was plagued withcorruption, ineptitude, and power struggles.
But the greatest challenge to China in the 19th century, and onethat threatened its existence, came from outside its borders, namely theEuropean powers, United States,and Japan. Throughout its history, China saw itself as the center ofthe civilized world under a mandate from haven, and that all people outsidethis realm were “barbarians” with inferior cultures and civilizations.
Medieval Europe’s interests in Chinacentered on trade, and Chinese products such as silk, tea, and porcelain werehighly valued in the West, and formed a central role in the multi-continentalland and sea complex network of trade routes known as the Silk Road (110 B.C.-1450 A.D.). With the decline of the Silk Road, thePortuguese discovered a maritime passage to the Far Eastvia the African continent. Europeantrade with Chinathen experienced a resurgence.
By the 18th century, Portugal had been joined by Spain, France,Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark,Sweden, and the United States. The reclusive Qing government, distrustful offoreigners, restricted trade to the southern portof Canton (present-day Guangzhou), through aprivate monopoly arrangement called the Canton System (1757-1842). One European nation, Russia,had for centuries traded with China. Thus, the two countries shared deeperrelations. They also shared an undefinedand disputed frontier, which was resolved by border agreements in the 17thcentury.
In the last decades of the 19thcentury, Japan had tradingand economic interests in China;it also had political and territorial ambitions there. Japan had only recently (in 1854) awakenedfrom its own centuries-long period of self-isolation. Starting in the 1860s, it launchedwide-ranging modernization and industrialization programs using the Western modelto transform itself into a modern, affluent nation. Within a span of one generation, Japanbecame an economic and military powerhouse.
The extent of China’s military backwardness firstbecame apparent in 1842, when Chinese forces were defeated by the British inthe First Opium War. In the treaty that ended the war, the Qinggovernment yielded to many British demands, including paying war reparations,ceding territory (Hong Kong), granting British nationals in China exemption from Chinese laws(extraterritoriality), and allowing more Chinese ports to be opened totrade. Thereafter, in similar treaties, China also granted the same privileges to France and the United States. The First Opium War became the first of manyunsuccessful wars that Chinaexperienced during the 1800s. Wars andthe threats of wars forced the Qing government to agree to other demands byforeign powers.
These imposed agreements, which laterChinese historians called “unequal treaties”, occurred inthe period called the “century of humiliation” (1839-1949) when China suffered a series of defeatsin wars. China then was forced to submitto the foreign powers, and agreed to the opening of more than 80 ports to trade(so-called “treaty ports”), and cede territories (called “concessions”) to theforeign powers in 19 major cities and urban centers, including Beijing,Shanghai, Canton (present-day Guangzhou), and Tianjin. As a result of the Second Opium War(1856-1860), foreign powers were allowed to establish diplomatic legations in Beijing.
Chinaalso lost its tributary states, Indochina, Korea, and Formosa(Taiwan),to foreign powers. By the late 19thcentury, Britain, France, Germany,Russia, and Japan had established spheres of influenceinside China(Figure 25) itself. The foreign powersowned or controlled concessions and treaty ports, where they applied their ownlaws, deployed their own police and military forces, and imposed their owncultures. And by 1898, China appeared on the verge ofbeing partitioned by the foreign powers.
Foreign spheres of influence in China in the early 1900sDuring the Self-strengthening Movement(1861-1895) and the Hundred Days Reform (June-September 1898), the Qinggovernment attempted to implement reforms to modernize China to the level of the West and Japan. These reforms failed as a result of theopposition of hard-line conservative Qing officials, and especially of EmpressDowager Cixi, who was the de facto ruler of China.
In the late 19th century, asecret society called the ““Righteous and Harmonious Fists” (Yihequan) was formed in thedrought-ravaged hinterland regions of Shandongand Zhili provinces. The sect formed inthe villages, had no central leadership, operated in groups of tens to severalhundreds of mostly young peasants, and held the belief that China’s problemswere a direct consequence of the presence of foreigners, who had brought intothe country their alien culture and religion (i.e. Christianity).
Sect members practiced martial arts andgymnastics, and performed mass religious rituals, where they invoked Taoist andBuddhist spirits to take possession of their bodies. They also believed that these rituals wouldconfer on them invincibility to weapons strikes, including bullets. As the sect was anti-foreign andanti-Christian, it soon gained the attention of foreign Christian missionaries,who called the group and its followers “Boxers”in reference to the group’s name and because it practiced martial arts.
The Qing government, long wary of secretsocieties which historically had seditious motives, made efforts to suppressthe Boxers.In October 1899, government troops and Boxers clashed in the Battle of SenluoTemple in northwest Shandong Province. In this battle, Boxers proclaimed the slogan“Support the Qing, destroy the foreign” which drew the interest of somehigh-ranking conservative Qing officials who saw that the Boxers were apotential ally against the foreigners. Also by this time, the Boxers had renamed their organization as the “Righteous and Harmonious Militia (Yihetuan)”, using the word “militia” tode-emphasize their origin as a secret society and give the movement a form oflegitimacy. Even then, the Qinggovernment continued to view the Boxers with suspicion. In December 1899, the Qing court recalled theShandongprovincial governor, who had shown pro-Boxer sympathy, and replaced him with amilitary general who launched an anti-Boxer campaign in the province.
