In the summer of 1900 members of a secret society roamed northeastern China in bands, killing Europeans and Americans and destroying buildings owned by foreigners. They called themselves I-ho ch'uan, or “Righteous and Harmonious Fists.” They practiced boxing skills that they believed made them impervious to bullets. To Westerners they became known as the Boxers, and their uprising was called the Boxer Rebellion. Most Boxers were peasants or urban thugs from northern China who resented the growing influence of Westerners in their land. They organized themselves in 1898, and in the same year the Chinese government—then ruled by the Ch'ing Dynasty—secretly allied with the Boxers to oppose such outsiders as Christian missionaries and European businessmen. The Boxers failed to drive foreigners out of China, but they set the stage for the successful Chinese revolutionary movement of the early 20th century. Foreigners had entered China during an era of imperialism. In the late 1800s Great Britain and other European nations, the United States, Russia, and Japan scrambled for spheres of influence there. In some cases they seized Chinese territories, but usually they only sought the riches of trade and commercial enterprise. At the same time, Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries tried to convert the Chinese to Christianity. These outsiders were resented and feared by the Chinese, who saw Western religion and business practices as a threat to their traditional ways. By May of 1900, Boxers were wandering the countryside and attacking Western missionaries and Chinese converts to Christianity. In June an expeditionary force, made up of Russian, British, German, French, American, and Japanese troops, was organized to proceed to Peking (now Beijing), put down the rebellion, and protect Western nationals. The Chinese dowager empress Tz'u-hsi, the aunt of Emperor Kuang-hsu, ordered her troops to block the advance of this expedition. The foreigners were turned back. Meanwhile, Boxers were rampaging in Peking, burning down churches and the houses of Westerners, and killing Chinese Christians. Foreign troops then seized Chinese coastal forts to insure access to Peking. Enraged, the dowager empress ordered the death of all foreigners in China. The German minister to China was assassinated, and Boxer rebels began an eight-week attack on the walled foreign compound in Peking. (See also Tz'u-hsi.) In response, the allied foreign governments sent some 19,000 soldiers to Peking, capturing the city on Aug. 14, 1900. The invaders looted the city and routed the Boxers, while the empress and her court fled to the north. By the time the rebellion ended, at least 250 foreigners had been killed. It took a year for the parties to the conflict to agree on a settlement, which was entitled the Peace of Peking. This protocol, which was signed in September 1901, was dictated by the Western powers and Japan in such a way as to humiliate China. Heavy fines were levied against the Chinese government, and existing commercial treaties were amended in favor of the Western powers. The foreign coastal defenses were dismantled. The failure of the Boxer Rebellion to eject the West and the humiliation of the Chinese by the terms of the Peace of Peking generated more support for nationalist revolutionaries. In 1911 the Ch'ing Dynasty collapsed. Revolutionaries led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen then took over the Chinese government, ending more than 2,000 years of monarchy. |