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TURN of the CENTURY IMPERIALISM
Turn of the Century Imperialism
The Boxer Rebellion
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain, France, Russia, Japan and Germany controlled parts of China. The British had led the way in forcing themselves onto the Chinese, with the others not far behind. Foreign powers controlled much of China's economy. Russia had built railways across Manchuria and had taken possession of what the English called Port Arthur by leasing the peninsula there from the Chinese. China had conceded other "treaty ports" which the foreigners were using as naval stations. The imperial powers had forced China to open trade with them and to admit foreign enterprises, including railways and mining companies. China was obliged to accept Christian missionaries -- about 2000 of them. China was forced to accept special privileges for Chinese converts to Christianity, and it was forced to accept "extraterritorial" rights for foreigners -- in other words, obedience to their own laws rather than to Chinese laws.
Common Chinese had been upset with their country's humiliation since it was defeated by the Japanese in 1894 -- a war over influence in Korea. It upset their vision of foreigners as inferior barbarians, including the Japanese, whom they labeled "dwarf pirates." In 1899 in a few locations across China, groups encouraged by China's Dowager Empress, Cixi, went into the streets displaying slogans such as "protect the country," "justice on behalf of heaven," and "destroy the foreigner." At least half of them were youths. They wore red belts and a red cloth around their head. They were known as Boxers, and among them was the belief that their government had declared war on the foreigners. They believed that they had acquired immunity to the white man's bullets, and they feared magic created by the Christians. Filled with religious fervor, they began attacking and killing Christian missionaries and Chinese converts to Christianity. They saw Chinese Christians as likely spies, collaborators and traitors and as a danger in time of war. They called on Chinese Christians to renounce their faith.
In early 1900, Westerners and frightened Chinese Christians fled to European legations in China's capital, Beijing. Encouraged by its successes, the Boxer rebellion spread. The Boxers burned three villages within a hundred miles of Beijing, and they killed sixty Chinese Christians. In the treaty ports and in Beijing, more Christians sought refuge from the Boxers. From among the U.S., Japanese, German, Austrian, British and French ships in the treaty port of Tianjin (Tientsin), a force of 2,000 started for Beijing to relieve the people trapped in the legations. The Boxers had cut the rail line to Beijing, and for two weeks the troops from Tianjin fought and defeated the Boxers at various points along the way. In Beijing, Germany's representative in China was attacked and killed when he ventured into the street. Meanwhile, China's governor to Manchuria had joined the revolt by declaring war against Russia's presence in Manchuria. In the Manchurian city of Mukden, a Roman Catholic bishop took refuge in a cathedral, and with others he was burned alive. By now, the Boxers across China had murdered about 250 missionaries, fifty of their children, and 32,000 Chinese converts to Christianity.
In July and August, 1900, a substantial number of troops arrived from abroad -- a cooperative effort, with no power willing to trust any of the other powers to quell the rising on its own. A force of 5,000 Russians, 10,000 Japanese, 300 British, 2,000 Americans and 800 French liberated the people in the legations in Beijing. Filled with vengeful wrath, the next day the troops moved through Beijing, attacking those they believed were Boxers. They injured and pillaged the property of innocent Chinese. The Dowager Empress, on September 7, 1901, signed an agreement with the Western powers, formally ending the rebellion. And leaders of the Boxer rebellion, other than the empress, were condemned to death. The Empress Dowager, a Manchu and viewed as a foreigner by the Chinese, was allowed to continue her rule. But the peace created by Western powers and the Japanese was to prove only temporary. Chinese nationalism would continue to disturb the early decades of the twentieth century. And into the century what would be called the Boxer Rebellion in the West, the Chinese would call the "Invasion of the Allied Armies."