Boxer Rebellion

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The Boxer Rebellion was an antiforeign and antimodern upheaval at the beginning of the twentieth century in north China. It was initiated in the late 1890s by the Chinese martial arts groups known as Yihe Quan ("Boxers United in Righteousness") and reached its climax in 1900 with the support of the central government of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Suppressed by a foreign relief army in late 1900, the uprising stands as the strongest and most violent reaction to the escalation of Western aggression in China.

The martial arts tradition had a long history in north China. In the 1890s, some martial arts groups in Shandong province, such as Yihe Quan, Dadaohui ("Big Sword Society") and Shen Quan ("Spirit Boxers"), became especially active and began to be known collectively as Yihe Quan. The belief system of the Boxer movement was loose and inclusive, drawing largely from folklore and popular religion. Although many hold that it was an offshoot of the White Lotus sect, there is not sufficient evidence to establish such a connection. Under the supervision of their masters, the Boxers practiced martial arts by altars or in boxing grounds; they believed their training would render them invulnerable to bullets. Charms and spells were also used to achieve the same purpose. The Boxers were mainly enlisted from peasants, craftsmen, dismissed soldiers, laborers, and jobless drifters. Although the Boxer masters commanded high respect from their followers, no uniform leadership in the Boxer movement existed. Each master could form his own group and create his own tenets.

As the Western powers intensified their imperialist expansion in China after the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the Boxers in Shandong, Zhili, and Shanxi provinces became increasingly antiforeign. Meanwhile, a series of natural calamities hit north China and deprived many peasants of their livelihood, exacerbating an already tense situation. Believing that the Western presence and the introduction of modern facilities such as railroads and telegraph lines played a role in causing those natural disasters, the Boxers staged a fierce antiforeign upheaval, attacking foreigners and Chinese Christians, and destroying their properties and churches. This brought them into conflict with the Qing local authorities. But some conservative, xenophobic officials sympathized with the Boxers and tried to recruit them for semiofficial local militia. The local officials changed Yihe Quan to Yihe Tuan ("Militia United in Righteousness"), which served as an endorsement for the Boxer movement. The Boxers also changed their slogan from "oppose the Qing and destroy the foreign" (fan Qing mie yang) to "support the Qing and destroy the foreign" (fu Qing mie yang).

The Qing central government, headed by the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908), also began to change its policy toward the Boxer movement. Annoyed by the suspicion that the Western powers had attempted to remove her from power, Cixi decided to make use of the antiforeign fanaticism of the Boxers. She ordered the Qing local officials to stop suppressing the Boxers and invited them to Beijing, the capital of the Qing dynasty, to teach martial arts. With the support of the Qing central government, the Boxer movement rapidly spread in the northern and northeastern provinces. Tens of thousands of Boxers entered Beijing from the northern provinces. Their altars mushroomed in Beijing and other northern cities. Women's martial arts organizations, chief among which wasHongdengzhao ("Red Lanterns"), were also formed and joined the Boxers.

In June 1900 Cixi ordered the Boxers and Qing soldiers to attack the foreign legations in Beijing and subsequently declared war on the Western powers. The siege of the foreign legation district lasted for about two months. During the disturbance, hundreds of foreigners, including the German minister Clemens von Ketteler (1853–1900), and thousands of Chinese Christians were killed and numerous churches were destroyed. Qing provincial officials in the south and southeast did not join in the central government's support for the Boxers. Under the excuse of maintaining order, they ensured that the foreigners in their respective jurisdictions were protected and that no antiforeign activity was carried out.

Western powers responded resolutely to the escalation of antiforeign tumult in north China. In June 1900 eight countries (Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria) formed an international relief army (the Allied forces). In July, they attacked and captured Tianjin, a major coastal city in north China. The Allied forces fought the Boxers all the way to Beijing. Refusing to use Western weapons and relying solely on their martial art, the Boxers' resistance soon collapsed. On 14 August 1900 the Allied forces occupied Beijing. Cixi led her court to take refuge in Xi'an, a provincial capital in the northwest. The German general Alfred Waldersee (1832–1904), who was appointed the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in August, requested reinforcements and continued to suppress the Boxers in the north. Tens of thousands of Boxers, Qing soldiers, and civilians were massacred. By the end of 1900, the Boxer Rebellion had been suppressed.

In December 1900 the Allied forces proposed a truce to the Qing dynasty. In September 1901, the Qing representatives Yikuang (1836–1918) and Li Hongzhang (1823–1901) and those from eleven countries concluded the Boxer Protocol to settle the incident. This treaty stipulated that China pay 450 million taels of silver to the countries that were affected by the Boxer uprising; that the Qing government apologize to those countries and punish the officials who encouraged the antiforeign actions; and that China allow foreign armies to be stationed at strategic points in north China. The Qing dynasty underwent a radical change in policy toward the West after this incident. To mend the damage the Boxer uprising had done to her reputation and to regain endorsement by the Western powers, Cixi launched a radical reform movement starting in 1901, which would eventually have led China to a constitutional monarchy but which was interrupted by the 1911 Revolution. Having been re-created in literature, art, and folklore, the Boxer Rebellion remains the most terrifying chapter in the relationship between China and the West, and an enduring inspiration for nationalistic agitation in China.

Qing Dynasty

Buck, David D. (1987) Recent Chinese Studies of the Boxer Movement. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

——. (1991) "The 1990 International Symposium on the Boxer Movement and Modern Chinese Society." Republican China 16, 2 (April): 113–120.

Cohen, Paul A. (1997) History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press.

Esherick, Joseph W. (1987) The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Preston, Diana. (2000) The Boxer Rebellion: the Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900. New York: Walker & Company.

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