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Boxers
Rebellion (01) :
The Boxer Uprising
(Traditional Chinese: 義和團起義,
Simplified Chinese: 义和团起义,
pinyin: Yìhétuán Qǐyì; literally "The Righteous and
Harmonious Society") or Boxer Rebellion (義和團之亂
or 義和團匪亂)
was a Chinese rebellion from November 1899 to September 7, 1901
against foreign influence in areas such as trade, politics, religion
and technology that occurred in China during the final years of the
Qing Dynasty. By August 1901, over 230 foreigners, tens of thousands
of Chinese Christians, an unknown number of rebels, their sympathizers
and other innocent bystanders had been killed in the ensuing chaos.
The uprising crumbled on August 14, 1900 when 20,000 foreign troops
entered the Chinese capital, Peking (Beijing).
Anti-Foreign
movement
In 1839, the First Opium War
broke out, China was defeated by the United Kingdom. In view of the
weakness of the Qing government, the United Kingdom and other nations
such as France, Russia and Japan started to exert influence over
China. Due to their inferior army and navy, the Qing Dynasty was
forced to sign many agreements which became known as the "Unequal
Treaties". These include the Treaty of Nanking (1842), the Treaty
of Aigun (1858), the Treaty of Tientsin (1858), the Convention of
Peking (1860), the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), and the Second
Convention of Peking (1898).
 Such
treaties were regarded as grossly unfair by many Chinese, as
foreigners received special treatment compared to Chinese. Rumours
circulated of foreigners committing crimes as a result of agreements
between foreign and the Chinese governments over how foreigners in
China should be prosecuted. In Guizhou, local officials were
reportedly shocked to see a cardinal using a sedan chair decorated in
the same manner as one reserved for the governor. The Catholic
Church's prohibition on many Chinese rituals and traditions were
another issue of contention. Many Chinese 'Christians' used the cloak
of foreign protection to mask criminal activity. When pursued by
Chinese authorities these 'Christians' conveniently hid in foreign
enclaves, escaping the hand of Chinese law. Thus in the late 19th
century such feelings increasingly resulted in civil disobedience and
violence towards both foreigners and Chinese Christians.
The rebellion was initiated by
a society known as the Righteous Harmony Society or in contemporary
English parlance, "Boxers", a group which initially opposed,
but later reconciled itself to, China's ruling Manchu Qing Dynasty.
The Boxer rebellion was concentrated in northern China where the
European powers had begun to demand territorial, rail and mining
concessions. Imperial Germany responded to the killing of two
missionaries in Shandong province in November 1897 by seizing the port
of Qingdao. A month later, a Russian naval squadron took possession of
Lushun, in southern Liaoning. Britain and France followed, taking
possession of Weihai and Zhanjiang respectively.
The
Rebellion
Boxer activity developed in
Shandong province in March 1898, in response to both foreign influence
in the region and the failure of the Imperial court's "self-strengthening"
strategy of officially-directed development, whose shortcomings had
been shown graphically by China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War
(1894-1895). One of the first signs of unrest appeared in a small
village in Shandong province, where there had been a long dispute over
the property rights of a temple between locals and the Roman Catholic
authorities. The Catholics claimed that the temple was originally a
church abandoned decades previously after the Kangxi Emperor banned
Christianity in China. The local court ruled in a favor of the Church,
angering the villagers who claimed they needed the temple for various
rituals and had traditionally used it to practice martial arts. After
the local authorities seized the temple and gave it to the Catholics,
villagers attacked the church under the leadership of the Boxers...
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