1900

The Boxers, China and the World

An international conference
Brunei Gallery,
School of Oriental and African Studies,
London,
22 June to 24 June 2001
Selected abstracts
Not for citation or circulation without the written permission of the authors
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David Atwill
Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA
Boxers Beyond the Pale: Re-positioning Antiforeign and Antichristian Hostility
in Southwest China, 1875-1902.
Abstract
This paper will examine how the geopolitical, historical and multi-ethnic context
of Yunnan province substantially altered the nature of antiforeign and antichristian
disturbances. Specifically, I explore in the essay how Yunnans intricate ethnic
landscape and competing visions of sovereignty fundamentally muted a fuller
manifestation of the Boxer movement in Yunnan. This is not to say that the Yunnan did
not experience upheaval similar to that of Shandong and Zhili for numerous Christian
missionaries and Chinese Christians were attacked, in the provincial capital, Kunming,
several Christian Churches were set ablaze, and Qing provincial officials clearly
attempted to fan popular hostility against foreign officials and missionaries living in the
province.
My paper, however, traces these events not just as isolated elements of the
Boxer Rebellion but seeks to position them within a more regional context. In this
manner, the events of Yunnan while part of the Boxer metanarrative challenge
traditional conclusions espoused in more orthodox studies of the event. This is
imperative, I think, for although the hostilities of Shandong/Zhili are the focal point of
the Boxer narrative, regional variations of this event were grounded in a quite distinct
set of events even putting into question term Boxer itself (though Europeans
employed the term at the time). In the case of Yunnan, the hostilities of 1900 were
clearly shaped by the legacy of the Panthay Rebellion and Margary Affair, late 19
th
century Christian conversion strategies (which tended to focus on the non-Han
populations of the province), and Frances ambivalent imperialistic aspirations toward
Yunnan.
Much of the text of this paperas it stands right nowfocuses on the series of
anti-foreign attacks, the subsequent diplomatic maneuverings and the ethnic politics of
the region, as seen from the imperial standpoints of Beijing and Paris as well as the
local standpoints of Hanoi and Kunming. The source backbone of the piece consists of
local Yunnan gazetteers, memorials and personal writings of Qing officials posted to
Yunnan, and the firsthand accounts provided by French missionaries (some of whom
had lived in the province since the 1860s) and officialsparticularly those of Auguste
Franois who served as consul in Kunming during the Boxer hostilities and whose
photos lend a strong sense of immediacy to the events. But the paper also includes
colonial French newspaper accounts, and travel narratives (e.g. Gervais Courtellemont,
Archibald Little. G.E. Morrison, E. Colbourne and Henry R. Davies). Finally the paper
also utilizes excerpts published in the multivolume collections of interviews carried out
by Chinese scholars among the largest of Yunnans ethnic groups (Yunnan Huizu,
Baizu, Yizu, Miaozu Shehui Lishi Diaocha). This source is often overlooked for the
period in question and when used judiciously offers important insight into local and
indigenous perspectives.
There are several background issues against which this paper is conceived.
The first is the tendency in histories of late imperial Yunnan to shrink away from a
historical narrative that accentuates the multi-ethnic and multiple peripheral nature of
Yunnan, and the propensity of modern histories to perpetuate this bias. In the case of
the Boxer Rebellion as it manifested itself in Yunnan this is particularly important since
many of the imperialistic tensions between China, Britain, and France in the region
were over frontier areas that were often only nominally under Qing authority. The
multi-ethnic backdrop of the paper is a significant reminder that antiforeign in the
Yunnan context was a highly relative term when one considers that the non-Han
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population was estimated by Qing officials to represent 50-60% of the total population.
Thus, this paper seeks to highlight the Yunnans unique circumstances as a frontier
province with a volatile past of ethnic strife which defies the stark bipolar duality of
Chinese-Foreign portrayed in many accounts of this period.
In its present form, the paper takes the murder of Augustus Margary in 1875 as
a starting point of a new era Yunnan. An era typified by increasingly virulent antiforeign
antagonisms and ever more intrusive maneuverings of France, Britain and China along
Yunnans external (and internal) frontiers. The paper then traces the various
undulations of violence culminating in the Gejiu Mine Uprising, attacks on several
French missions, and the Kunming Incident of 1900 (involving siege of the small
European community led by Franois). Thus, the contours of the rebellion as it was
played out in Yunnan were shaped by the patterns of the interplay between a complex
nexus of issues.
In the months prior to the conference, I will bend the locus of the piece to the
Boxer event and themes. As well, the interim period will give me time to include
material that I have acquired at libraries and archives in France this past summer which
I would like to include. Structurally, though I think this article has all the themes the
conference wants: the strategizing of court and provincial officials, the reaction of
Europeans living in the province, and most crucially the strong veins of antichristian
and antiforeign sentiment particularly among the Han Chinese population. The fact
that the paper covers a slightly larger chronological period seems helpful, as many of
the disputes, connections, and tensions leading up to the Boxer events had long
histories that deviate from that of northeastern China.
Lucie Bernier
National Chung Cheng University
Pierre Lotis Les Derniers jours de Pkin (1900) and the Boxer Uprising
Abstract
Foreign Invasion and the Qing Dynasty's capitulation policy after the Sino-Japanese
War of 1894 are the main reasons for the Boxer Uprising. The Yihe organisation that
staged the revolt that broke out in the year1900 was a masse's movement of resistance
against the foreign powers' aggression. The Yihe's movement caused a heavy blow to
the foreign power. The latter formed an alliance of Eight to join force and launch a large
scale war of invasion in China thus suppressing the Boxer Uprising. In July and August
1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forceslaunched an attack against Beijing which fell
August 14. The Eight slaughtered, plundered and destroyed China's Cultural and
historical treasures.
In September 1900, shortly after the uprising, Pierre Loti, a Marine Officer and a
well-known writer, arrived in Beijing as a part of the punitive forces against China. From
first-hand experience and his French perspective, Loti describes in details the attack of
the Allied-Forces. He depicts how, through the still smoking ruins of the city, he enters
to the Forbidden City, sleeps in the imperial beds, uses the Empress dresses to warm
himself. In his view, his (mis)deeds and those of the other soldiers of the joined forces
were justified because of the Chinese cruelty toward missionaries and other foreigners.

In this paper, we shall show how, in a perspective of exoticism and alterity, Loti's novel
contributed to the propagation of clichs on the xenophobia, treachery and cruelty of
the Chinese, so that the novelist, through his depiction, and the readers joined forces to
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condemn the Chinese and to glorify France and her soldiers. Thus it reinforced the
French identity against the infidel Chinese.
Lewis Bernstein
Assistant Command historian, US Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas
After the Fall: Tianjin under foreign occupation, 1900-1902
Abstract
After the siege and battle, Tianjin was occupied and administered by an allied
military government, the Tianjin Provisional Government (TPG). Its ruled the city for 25
months and changed its physical appearance. Its activities are a neglected chapter in
Tianjin's administrative history, attracting some attention in the 25 years after its
demise, but completely ignored since 1927.
The TPG's activities and conduct are important because it (1) drastically
changed the physical shape of Tianjin, (2) showed the Imperial government how cities
could be money machines using modern administrative methods and (3) was one of
the few times the Treaty Powers temporarily occupied, governed and returned territory
to China. Its history is scattered through many sources, the most accessible the work of
H. B. Morse. Practically everything written about it since then has been drawn from his
summary, whose main source, the "Procs Verbaux des Sances du Conseil du
Gouvernement Provisoire de la Cit de Tientsin," was "given to the author by the
Secretary General," Charles Denby, Jr. This document has disappeared, but other
sources do exist and the TPG's history may be pieced together from them.
The paper will be divided into six parts: (1) Imperialist Rivalry in North China
and the Expansion of the Tianjin Concessions, (2) Reasons for the TPGs Formation,
(3) TPG Organization, Personnel, Power and Jurisdiction, (4) TPG Accomplishments,
(5) Tianjin Retrocession Negotiations and (6) Final Judgements of the TPGs Work.
Cord Eberspcher
University of Oldenburg
Germans to the Front: The German navy and the Boxer Uprising
Abstract
The navies of the western powers played a crucial role in relations between China and
the West far into the 19th century. In the classical age of gunboat diplomacy, warships
were launched when diplomacy failed, and everey major western power kept warships
in Chinese waters as a self-understood part of foreign policy. Accordingly the
operations of the western powers during the Boxer uprising started as a part of
normal gunboat diplomacy, with the entire first phase of intervention carried out by
naval troops. Only after the failure of the Seymour expedition did the international
operations shift from the level of gunboat diplomacy to a state of war, which was
symbolized by the transfer of command from the admirals to the generals.
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For the German naval units in Eastern Asia, the main theatre of operations next moved
south, to the Yangtze valley. In the summer of 1900 the question arose among the
western powers as to who would supervise the units of the Chinese navy in the
Yangtze Delta. As soon as the British volunteered, the Germans quickly offered
assistance, apprehensive that Great Britain might claim special rights from performing
police functions in an area already considered to be a British sphere of interest.
Germany had sent a whole squadron of battleships on its way who now became the
German watch on the Yangtze. By the time the western powers had amassed their
largest concentration of troops and ships, the troubles in northern China had abated
and, following the relief of Beijing, international cooperation had ended. The rivalry in
the Yangtze valley between mainly Great Britain and Germany became a welcome
excuse for the German navy to keep a massive fleet in Chinese waters once the
Boxers seemed no longer to pose a threat. The goals of the German cruiser squadron
were to protect German interests in the Yangtse valley (as the economically most
promising region of China), continue to play a part in the operations against the Boxers,
eventually even to occupy the lower Yangtze including the Chinese fortifications, and
thus to justify the enormous concentration of ships stationed in Chinese waters.
The expedition of German troops and ships should be viewed from the perspective of
national prestige in the context of German Weltpolitik and through the preservation of
interests overseas through military power. China at this point was merely the stage
upon which was performed this power struggle for the key positions in the Yangtze
valley.
Jane Elliott
The greatest unsung heroes of all time: Qing soldiers, summer 1900
Abstract
Posterity in the shape of professional historians in China and the West has roundly
condemmed the Imperial Chinese army in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century
on the basis of little more than (for the Chinese), the fact that Japan won the war in
1894-95 (Germany won a war against France in 1870 but the literature does not
condemn the French army wholesale in a manner comparable with the Chinese case)
and the fact that some battalions of the Imperial Chinese army fought and killed the
Boxers. For Western Scholars, analysis of the performance of the Imperial Chinese
army at this time amounts to no more than sweeping generalisations that the soldiers
were "opium sodden" and "inept" and led by "corrupt" and "ignorant" officers. Those
Western scholars who hold such views do so on the basis of no acceptable historical
evidence.
This paper opens to question what was appropriate behaviour for a patriotic Chinese
loyal to his country in North China in 1900. It agues that by mid-May, the Boxers were
taking towns and destroying the railway in an effort to assume control and prevent the
army from moving in a way that had nothing whatever to do with their anti-foreign or
anti- Christian platforms. They were behaving like any other group of rebellious
peasants in Chinese history who wanted to secure a power base for their rebellion.
A detailed study of the correspondence of General Yang Mushi will establish the
leadership qualities, the political acuity and the patriotism of a Chinese military leader
in 1900. Moreover, in an environment in which Boxers were killing soldiers, soldiers
were being ordered to treat Boxers like "the children of the Imperial house", soldiers
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were defecting to the Boxers, and pro- and anti-Boxer soldiers were fighting each
other, we can read between the lines of General Yang's correspondence and see that
the rank and file of the former Tenacious Army led by General Nie Shicheng had been
moulded into a group of fighting soldiers who followed their officers in military situations
of an order of difficulty far greater than that in the fighting experience of the officers and
men of any of the eight invading armies. They demonstrated not only that the on-going
modernisation of the Chinese army was being successful, not only that both men and
officers had learnt from their experience in the Sino-Japanese war, but also that they
had achieved something extraordinary; they had imbibed Western military training and
grafted it successfully onto Chinese military thinking.
Both in 1900 and today in all domains and in all disciplines, the Chinese try to select
from Western knowledge while retaining their perception of what constitutes Chinese
culture. The soldiers who fought under General Nie Shicheng were heroes, they were
patriotic Chinese, they were the nec plus ultra of professional soldiers and they were
modern in their thinking. Their achievement is to be lauded.
James A. Flath
Dept. of History
University of Western Ontario
Liu Mingjie - a modern peasant?: Viewing the Boxer Uprising through nianhua
print
Abstract
Liu Mingjie (1857-1911) was a peasant and part-time print maker in Yangjiabu - a
Shandong village famous for printing nianhua (New Year woodblock prints). Among
his many colleagues, Liu Mingjie's art stands out as the first known instance in which a
Yangjiabu printer broke from symbolic representation and chronicled contemporary
political events. His contributions to visual culture show that by the turn of the century
residents of the North China village had begun to accept that an 'event' could have a
visual expression distinct from the ritual and theatre that had always dominated
nianhua print.
It is no coincidence that the key 'events' portrayed by Liu Mingjie dealt with the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894-95, and the Boxer Uprising of 1900. These two occurrences,
which were closely linked in the popular consciousness, galvanized public opinion and
created a market for printed commentary. Liu Mingjie capitalized on these sentiments
by reproducing the events in the form of graphic nianhua print. Liu Mingjie's case,
therefore, provides a rare insight into the connection between popular action and the
development of popular media, the Shandong peasant's comprehension of the Sino-
Japanese war and Boxer Uprising, and the propagation of the event through print.
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Henrietta Harrison
Leeds
Village Politics and National Politics: The Boxers in Central Shanxi
Abstract
This paper looks at the events ofthe summer of 1900 in four counties in central
Shanxi. By examining the dates and locations of rumours I show that the ideas that
started the Boxer activities arrived in Shanxi along the main route into Zhili province
and not from Governor Yu Xian in Taiyuan city. Rumours of Christian sorcery and that
Christians were poisoning wells led to panic, the guarding of wells, and the occasional
murder of people suspected of being Christians. They did not at forst constitute a
general attack on Christians in the province: indeed the people suspected of being well
poisoners were often merely vagrants. In some areas where there was strong local
government Boxer activities never went beyond these sporadic murders.
However, two of the counties studied, Taiyuan and Xugou, had sizeable and
longstanding Catholic populations and weak administrative control. In these counties
Boxer groups formed armies of several hundred men who attacked Catholic villages,
burned churches and massacred villagers. In response Catholic villagers armed
themselves and hired mercenaries from outside the province. Several full scale battles
took place with one village, Dongergou, holding out succesfully against assaults by four
different Boxer forces. An examination of events in these villages suggests that we may
need to rethink the current consensus that conflicts between Christians and non-
Christians arose primarily within the village setting over such issues as communal
prayers for rain or levies raised for opera performances. Major Boxer violence in rural
Shanxi did not involve fighting within any single village, but rather attacks by large
numbers of people from one village on the Christian population of another. Indeed
non-Catholic villagers were sometimes suspected of trying to protect their Catholic
neighbours. Land Reform and the consequent debate about the existence of class in
rural China before 1949 has too often blinded us to the importance of power
relationships between village communities rather than within them. In this paper I argue
that the way in which the Boxers organised and the villages they chose to attack
suggest that the primary problem with Catholicism in rural China was that the presence
of the missionaries and of church structures disrupted the existing hierarchy of
relationships between villages that was organised and negotiated through the
management oftemple rituals.
Finally I argue that the events of the summer of 1900 show the beginnings of
the collapse of what Prasenjit Duara has called the "cultural nexus of power". It has
been all too readily assumed that the Boxer slogan of "Support the Qing and Destroy
the Foreign!" was a simple statement of support for the government. In Shanxi this
statement was always accompanied by another: "Implement the Way for Heaven!" The
implication ofthe two slogans together is that the government has failed to "implement
the Way". Ambiguities within the central government over the need for reform versus
the need to resist the foreigners were reflected at local level. Local magistrates who
sympathised with the Boxers' aim of enforcing the previously accepted cultural
legitimation of power were in a weak position when Boxer groups mocked officials and
undermined the officials' own power. This weakness and their consequent failure to
investigate the murders of Christians by Boxers marked the beginning of a complete
collapse of the legal system which lasted for at least three years. The indemnities
which followed the Boxers killings were imposed at a local level as fines for supporting
what had been a popular government policy. Along with the collapse of the legal
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system, the imposition of the foreign indemnities, played a major part in destroying the
legitimacy ofthe Qing dynasty within rural communities.
James L. Hevia
University of North Carolina
Plundering Beijing, 1900-1901
Abstract
During and after the "relief of the legations" at Beijing, the eight armies in north China,
along with Christian missionaries and members of the diplomatic corp, engaged in what
one observer described as a "carnival of loot." Private homes of imperial princes, the
compounds of wealthy residents of Beijing, and imperial palaces were all sacked. The
looting continued well into the occupation of the city in the following year. Although the
plundering itself had much in common with the Anglo-French joint expedition into the
same area in 1860, there were a number of significant differences between the two
episodes.
This paper will explore those differences by addressing a number of overlapping
developments. After providing a brief overview of the characteristics of plunder in 1860
and some obvious contrasts with 1900, I will focus on developments in European,
North American, and Chinese art markets between 1860 and 1900; the changing
attitudes in Europe and North America toward plunder in times of warfare; the
circulation and representations of Qing imperial objects in Western museums and
private collections; and the growth of new knowledge about Chinese art. The results of
these explorations will then be brought to bear to address questions about the patterns
of looting in and around Beijing in 1900. From this, it will be possible to draw certain
conclusions not only about the general nature of plunder in the age of European
empire, but the specific meanings or significance it had for the participants.
Richard Horowitz
California State University, Northridge
"The Architecture of a Modern State: The End of the Zongli Yamen and the
Origins of Ministerial Government in China"
Abstract
This paper deals with the transformation of the Six Boards, and similar organizations
like the Zongli Yamen into the more familiar European ministerial/cabinet structure
during the Xinzheng reforms. Where the Qing system before the Boxer uprising tended
to spread authority into many hands, the ministerial system was perceived by Qing
reformers as a way to more clearly assign roles, and establish individual responsibility
of ministers to accellerate the reform process. It was also, very significantly, a way of
making the Qing state conform to Western expectations of what state institutions
should look like, necessary to regain foreign respect for the Qing government.
The real turning point in the organization of the late Qing state was the Boxer uprising
and the response by Qing authorities to its humiliating conclusion. The 1901
transformation of the Zongli Yamen into the Waiwubu (Bureau of Foreign affairs) is
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normally seen as a symbolic reaction to foreign pressure. I argue that while this is
true in part, it was also related to an emerging domestic critique of the limitations of the
old central bureaucracy. Moreover, this reform was not simply a change of name and
change of position on the government's protocol list. The 1901 transformation involved
a significant internal restructuring of the Zongli Yamen to establish a clear
organizational hierarchy with a single responsible president on top. Over the next few
years the bureau's role was narrowed to focus on diplomatic relations, and many of
economic and financial roles previously held by the Zongli Yamen are shifted to other
agencies. The process transformed the Zongli Yamen, an office with extraordinarily
broad areas of activity, into a much more narrowly defined foreign office along
European lines.
The 1906 central government reforms extended these developments to the rest of the
central state bureauclcy by explicitly duplicating the waiwubu's organizational structure
in each of the other central government ministries. In doing so, the Qing state moved
dramatically in the direction of the European Ministerial/Cabinet model.
These reforms are particularly significant in that they outlasted the Qing dynasty. The
governments of the early Republic, the Guomindang and the PRC perpetuated the
ministerial/cabinet system and continues to the present. In a short, the adoption of the
ministerial system in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising marks the end of the late
imperial system, and the beginning of China's internalization of foreign norms of state
organization.
Frank H H King
University of Hong Kong
Heritage of the Boxer Uprising -- the Boxer Indemnity and related consequences
Abstract
The Boxer Uprising has been variously interpreted, but it has also been used as a
historical point of reference, a dividing point, without causal factors being necessarily
ascribed. The Boxers faded into the North China scene, but they left China to the
wrath of the Powers and an uncertain economic heritage perhaps best characterized
by the Boxer Indemnity. In his only published collection, These from the land of Sinim
Sir Robert Hart might plead for moderation and understanding based on his expert
presentation of the facts, but the Powers ignored him bent on infamy of their own.
Imposing a demand for HkTs450 million gold equivalent on an Empire which was
already struggling to meet foreign debt payments, they insured that the name Boxer
would be remembered not necessarily for what it was but what people would make of it
from evidence always immediately before them.
The Uprising was over, the Protocol signed, and relations back to normal.
Attention might now focus on Chinas modernization, on Asias future, but for one
obstacle. China could not pay the indemnity, not in one payment so that it was all over.
Instead the question of payment, of the Boxer Indemnity itself, survived even through
World War II. Passing through various stages, including recalculations, remissions,
remittance, postponements, and various forms of both foreign and Chinese end-use
controls, the Boxer Indemnity remained a partly misunderstood but emotion-packed
irritant, frustrating foreign reformers and Chinese nationalists alike.
If the Indemnity is the thread holding the theme of this paper, reinforcing in their
consequences were the fates of companies in the private sector. We shall focus on the
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story of the Pekin Syndicate, caught at the point of issuing shares to capitalize the
apparently wealthy concessions in Shansi and Honan. Fear of the Boxers left the
shares to the underwriters, the later sell-off resulted in eventual French control, and the
whole balance of post-Boxer financial arrangements among the Powers came under
threat. With control of the Syndicate, French interests were ready to challenge the
international China consortium, placing the Franco-Chinese Banque Industrielle in a
position to destabilize the plans designed to retain Chinas credit-worthiness despite
the burden of the Indemnity.
The two themes Indemnity and Pekin Syndicate lock together post war as the
bank collapses in scandal and the French attempt to salvage both the bank and their
prestige with funds from the Boxer Indemnity.
Between 1908 and 1925 various of the Powers, embarrassed by the excesses
of the Indemnity in relation to actual damage sustained, sought to reduce the burden
on China. But there was no uniform pattern or timing; each negotiation had its own
hesitation or ulterior motive interwoven with a genuine desire to benefit China. The
French and then the Italians had their banks, the British had their supervisory
committees, and the Americans looked over the Chinese shoulders from far off. Even
the beneficiaries themselves carried the name; they were Boxer Indemnity scholars,
and my own university benefited from a Boxer grant. So confused did the situation
become that Chinas most unpopular debt became Chinas preference for repayment
should funds be lacking to meet all scheduled requirements.
To the extent that Boxer Indemnity payments became an uncommitted income
flow, they could also provide credit for a new series of loans, new controversies, and
new defaults. The official China Consortium, which the Chinese made every effort to
thwart, was finally undermined by, of all the unexpected, promised payment of the
Boxer Indemnity.
A complete study would include the fate of individual businessmen of the early
1900s, of other companies diverted by the events, the failure of China investment to
interest Europe except in a context of the political control which the Open Door policy,
given urgency by the Boxers, had intended to avoid. This paper, while referring briefly
to these last mentioned items, will take out of the maze the changing fate of the Pekin
Syndicate and the actual course of the Indemnity to illustrate the lasting impact of the
Boxer Uprising. In PR terms, Boxer had name recognition, it was known by its
indemnity, it remained before the public to reinterpret and to mould to many political
purposes.
Dr. Susanne Kuss
(Freiburg, Germany)
Elements of a War of Extermination during the Boxer Urprising: German and
English Soldiers in China
Abstract
By definition the main aim of a war of extermination is not victory but the complete
annihilation of the enemy. This includes large scale killings of soldiers as well as
civilians, murdering prisoners of war, purposefully starving the population, and partisan
warfare - by far extend the purely military aims of the war itself.
It is often argued that in any war there is always the possibility of the situation
getting out of hand so that the difference between fighting, and killing, the enemy and
random atrocities gets blurred. Even if this argument seems to describe a part of
human nature it does nothing to explain the term extermination war from the point of
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view of historical research. On the contrary, extermination is far from being a self-
evident by-product, a deplorable escalation of normal warfare. Instead, the term
implies explicit military orders from above as well as the individual soldiers willingness
to carry out those orders. Extermination means wilfully crossing the threshold of mans
natural physical and psychological inhibitions to kill.
Basically, German warfare in China was not crueller than the one of the other
foreign troops. What makes the difference, however, is the fact that it started only after
China was defeated and the Boxer troops were dissolved. For the German Kaiserreich
as a newcomer much more was at stake than simply crushing the Boxer movement.
Unlike England with its long experience as a colonial power that knew how to deal with
small wars - the Boer War taking place in South Africa at the same time - Germany felt
the pressure to make a stand as a colonial power itself. So there was normal colonial
war business on the one side and the necessity to overcome the Chinese challenge
successfully on the other side. What with the increasing tensions between England and
Germany in those days the following points might be of interest:
1) The significance of the Boxer Uprising as a colonial War for Germany and England:
'Small War' and 'First War'
2) Colonial warfare in China: Ideology and mentality
3) Atrocities: Law, orders, and legitimacy
4) Relevance of the Chinese experience: Theory and practice
Dr Monika Lehner
Vienna University
The Austro-Hungarian perception of the shifting alliances after the international
Intervention to suppress the Boxer-Movement
Abstract
The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary had always been focussed on European affairs
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to deal primarily with Germany and Russia, the
two neighbours, while Italy, France and Great Britain, let alone the United States,
China and Japan, were less important. But at the same time the ongoing affairs in other
parts of the world and especially in East Asia, where the network of legations and
consular offices had been improved in the late 1890s were closely observed,
focussing on possible repercussions on European affairs.
In my paper I will show that the main interest of Austria-Hungarys engagement in the
Allied operations to suppress the Boxer Movement was not to broaden her influence in
Asia, but to secure her position in Europe. The other European Powers (France, Great
Britain, Russia and Germany) did not consider Austria-Hungary a rival in the Struggle
for Concessions and because of this the Austro-Hungarian ministers often had first-
hand informations on projects of the other powers.
I will therefore discuss the Austro-Hungarian perception and her reaction on various
conventions/treaties signed between 1901 and the end the Russo-Japanese war, e.g.:
- The Boxer-Protocoll (Sept. 7, 1901)
- The Russian impact in Manchuria (various agreements/treaties 1901/1902)
- The Anglo-Japanese Treaty (Jan 30, 1902)
- The Convention of Lhasa between Great Britain and Tibet (Sept 7, 1904)
- The Treaty of Portsmouth (Sept. 5, 1905)
These examples will be used to demonstrate the strategic considerations concerning
European developments: e.g. How will the Russo-German rapprochement influence
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their position towards Austria-Hungary? How will Russia react on the Anglo-Japanese
treaty?
My paper will show the enourmous effects of the Allied intervention in China (the first
multi-national intervention abroad) in re-shaping the interplay of forces in European
politics.
Lu Yao,
Shandong University
The Boxer Movement and the Secret Sects (minjian mimi jiaopai)
(Abstract)
At the height of the Beijing Boxer Movement (Yihetuan yundong) in July 1900, the
so-called three persecutions of the heretics received great attention from all levels of
society. It was even then said that the Boxers were really betraying their predecessors
by persecuting the White Lotus Sect (Bailianjiao), because they were thought to have
derived from the Eight Trigrams Sect (Baguajiao), and thus shared a common root with
the White Lotus Sect. This perception gives rise to some interesting questions: Were
the persecutions really conducted by the Boxers? Were the victims really the followers
of the White Lotus Sect? Is it really true that the Boxers shared a common origin with
the White Lotus Sect?
To answer the question whether the Boxers and the White Lotus Sect came
from the same root (or whether the Boxers originated from the White Lotus Sect), we
should first have a look at the development of the White Lotus Sect itself. Established
in the early Southern Song dynasty, the White Lotus Sect, the most notable secret sect
(minjian mimi jiaopai) in Chinese history, had experienced development over a long
time. Its founder, the Buddhist monk Mao Ziyuan (d. 1166), set up the White Lotus
Penance Hall (Bailian chantang) near Dianshan Lake, Jiangsu, and called himself
"Mentor of the White Lotus" (Bailian daoshi). Having introduced a vegetarian regime,
he was also known as "Bailiancai". Since the sect venerated the Ancestor of the Lotus
Tradition (the famours monk Huiyuan of the Eastern Jin dynasty), it was later also
called the White Lotus Sect. However, by the end of Yuan dynasty, the sect's
teachings had been completely modified. Instead of Mituo (Buddha Amitabha) it now
worshiped Mile (Buddha Maitreya), and advocated overthrowing the old government in
the name of the "sage king". Thus, while the original teachings, together with the old
White Lotus Sect, had disappeared almost entirely out of sight, many new sects
appeared in northern China in mid-Ming to early Qing, such as the Luojiao and the
Wumingjiao. These new sects, differing greatly from the old White Lotus Society in both
their worship and their teachings, are frequently referred to as the "neo-popular sects of
the Ming and Qing dynasties". On the other hand, though in decline after middle Ming
Dynasty, some the teachings of the old White Lotus Sect persisted in the new sects,
such as the "idea of Maitreya" and the "sage king". Still, there were many other sects
that did not share these ideas. But as the rulers at that time could not tell which was
which, they were generally assumed to be part of the White Lotus Sect which
accordingly became synonymous with secret sects.
Can the Boxers, therefore, be considered the remnants of the White Lotus Sect?
The predecessor of the Boxers, the Yihequan, was an amalgamation of such martial
units as the Amour of the Golden Bell (Jinzhongzhao), Plum Flower Boxers
(Meihuaquan), Red Fists (Hongquan), Spirit Boxers (Shenquan), etc. Some of them
served as the martial branches of sects, while others were merely associated with a
sect. Accordingly, the latter martial arts groups cannot be equated with the Eight
Trigrams Sect or the White Lotus Sect. It was only after some martial groups
1900: Abstracts
13
headed by the "qian" and "kan" had moved into the central and southeastern parts
of Zhili province, including Beijing and Tianjin, that they assumed some of the
characteristics of a sect. Since the "kan" derived from the Kan Trigram Sect (Kangua
jiao), and the "qian" from the Li Trigram Sect (Ligua jiao), they can be regarded as the
remnants of the Eight Trigrams Sect. At the same time, the teachings of the Eight
Trigrams Sect contained the secret "true words" Maitreya our Lord, which were indeed
a remnant of the White Lotus teachings. It was, therefore, acceptable for the common
people to call them a remnant of the White Lotus Sect.
As to the three groups of heretics that had suffered the persecutions in Beijing in
1900, two of them, according to evidence in the First Historical Archives, belonged to
the Teachings of Saints and Sages (Shengxian dao); while the third one, in the
absence of concrete evidence, can be deduced also to have come from that sectarian
tradition. The Shengxian sect had come from one of the two Ligua sects, namely Liu
Gong's branch which first appeared in 1813, and which had gradually replaced the
Eight Trigrams as the leading sectarian group in North China. Liu Gong's Ligua sect
and its various branches, all based on the principle of "the separation of the kingdom"
proposed by Liu Gong, imitating the imperial system, and thus furthered their steps
towards feudalization. In contrast with the Boxers idea of "supporting the Qing
government to fight against the foreigners", the Shengxian sect fought against Qing
government, not the foreigners.
During that period, there was also a Nine Mansions sect (Jiugong dao) in action.
It was established in 1867, and derived in fact from Liu Gong's Teachings of Saints and
Sages. One of its striking features was that it tended to disguise itself as Buddhism.
Before the fall of Tianjin, its leading monk, Puji, was appointed to use his magic to
destroy the fleet of the foreign invaders. And though he failed, he still secured his
promotion from the Qing government. The Shengxian sect and the Jiugong sect were
born from the same root, and both were important organizations in Northern China in
late Qing Dynasty. But their destinies were quite different, with one honored and the
other extinguished. Among these historical facts, one thing is certain: neither of these
two sects would cooperate with the Boxers.
The three persecutions had in fact been conducted by the feudal government, that
is, the Office of the Gendarmerie. The first group of victims included 10 eunuchs as
well as some officials. They were handed over to the Gendarmerie by Zailan (Duke
Lan) as soon as he found them in his own palace. Immediately, many of the leaders of
the sects were arrested outside the Yongding Gate by the Beijing Gendarmerie, and
the Boxers, who were at that time in charge of the Chongwen Gate, were appointed to
arrest the heretics there. The reason why Zaiyi (Prince Duan) and Zaixun (Prince
Zhuang) arrested the secret sect may be twofold. First, they wanted to show their
loyalty toward the Empress Dowager; second, it had something to do with the Boxers'
punishment of the official Qingheng. By arresting members of the Shengxian sect they
gave the Boxers a warning for disregarding the Qing government's order, and
encouraged the Qing government to distinguish the "true" Boxers from the "false" ones,
and to put those dangerous Boxers against the foreigners' guns. Thus they (the uneasy
Boxers) would be attacked from both sides, with the attack from the Qing government
elaborately disguised. From this we can see that the Boxers were doomed, they could
hardly avoid their own tragedy.
1900: Abstracts
14
Ben Middleton
Cornell University
Scandals of Imperialism: Ktoku Shsui, the Yorozu Chh and Japanese
critiques of empire at the time of the Boxer War
Abstract
This paper takes up reaction to the Boxer War as a defining moment in the re-
radicalisation of extra-parliamentary opposition in late Meiji Japan and as a stimulus to
the development of critiques of imperialism by writers like Ktoku Shsui (1871-1911).
Ktoku, a journalist, activist and poet, is most famous for his socialist/pacifist opposition
to the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), his later popularisation of a Kropotkinesque
anarchism of direct action (chokusetsu kd no museifugshugi) and his being framed
and executed in 1911 for allegedly plotting to assassinate the Emperor Meiji (in the
taigyaku jiken or High Treason Incident). However, Ktoku was not always a pacifist.
Although his support of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) has been widely recognised,
Anglophone studies to date have overlooked the fact that from 1897 until midway
through the Boxer War, Ktoku was the purveyor of a hawkish imperialism based on
realpolitische calculation. From early 1898 when he joined the staff of the Yorozu
Chh, the most successful Tokyo newspaper of the day, Ktoku wrote a slew of
articles designed to further what he represented as the interests of the Japanese state
on the Asian continent. When the Boxer War broke out his position was strongly anti-
Chinese and anti-Boxer until around November 1900, when war-correspondents at the
front began sending back reports not only of excesses by Japanese forces, but also of
abuses and corruption within the Japanese army. In response to the trauma of such
disclosures, Ktoku began developing a critique of both Japanese desire for empire,
and western imperialism in East Asia. This culminated in the publication in 1901 of
Imperialism: the spectre of the twentieth century (Nijisseiki no kaibutsu: teikokushugi),
the first book-length critique of imperialism in Japan. It is a work solidly grounded in
English radical liberalism, especially the ideas of John Mackinnon Robertson, a friend
and associate in Radical circles of John Atkinson Hobson. It was from a further
radicalization of this liberalism that a serious engagement with socialism and anti-war-
ism (hisensshugi) began in Japan.
Such radical opposition politics received a tremendous boost when the Yorozu Chh
broke the story of the Bateigin jiken or Horseshoe Silver Incident from late 1901 to
early 1902. Published in fifty installments under the heading, The Scandal of the
Plunder of North China (Hokushin bundori no kaibun), these articles, the product of a
fine piece of investigative journalism by Ktoku, Sakai Toshihiko, Taoka Reiun and
Uchimura Kanz, exposed pillaging during the Boxer campaign by Japanese Imperial
Army officers, and their repatriation of stolen loot back to Japan. The story caused a
sensation, seriously embarrassed the army, and collapsed the facade of the strict
discipline of the Meiji state. Yet, for all the effort expended by the Yorozu Chh, the
reports met with utter indifference on the part of the government and the army.
Although the Yorozu Chh was therefore unable to claim a political victory, the
scandal played an important role in militarism and imperialism becoming key sites of
struggle for the opposition movement led by the Heiminsha or Commoners Society
from 1903. This paper will thus examine the political philosophies underlying the
changing representations of the Boxer War and the imperialist project in the pages of
the Yorozu Chh, paying particular attention to conceptions of minzoku (race), nation
and empire, while emphasising the role of transnational flows of knowledge and
representations of empire.
1900: Abstracts
15
Stephan von Minden
Besieged Beauty: Reflections on the Story of Sai Jinhua as a Popular Myth
Abstract
Ever since the publication of Zeng Pu's novel Niehai hua in 1905, the name of Sai
Jinhua (c. 1872 - 1936) has been related to the events of 1900/01 notably in regard to
her presumed diplomatic skills in handling affairs of national importance". Up to most
recent years, Chinese writers have credited her with having been "instrumental ... in
resolving the ongoing conflict between the allied forces and the Qing court"
(Biographical dictionary of Chinese Women. The Qing Period. ... Armonk, N.Y. 1998, p.
183), thus upholding and transmitting a powerful myth directly related to the crucial
historical events of the Boxer rising.
By examining some of the more important literary works written on the topic until 1999,
I'd like to show how the story of the beautiful courtesan in times of national trouble was
instrumentalised in its turn to serve political ends. And if the myth of Sai Jinhua has
proved until now to be astonishingly resistant against all attempts of deconstruction, it
can be all the more considered as a singular, yet typical, example of widespread
popular misconception of historical reality.
Klaus Mhlhahn
Free University of Berlin
Religious Exclusions: Interactions between German Missionaries and Local
Chinese Society in Shandong in the Wake of the Boxer Uprising.
Abstract
The origins of the Boxer uprising are multi-fold. Historical scholarship so far uncovered
cultural, psychological, political, social, economic and environmental factors
contributing to the rise of the Boxers. However, besides speaking of an overall culture
conflict, the complex interactions between missionaries, Chinese converts and the
boxers have not been assigned a central place in this scholarship. To focus on social
and symbolic interactions has far-reaching methodological consequences: The social
and religious encounters between missionaries and local society are viewed as an
ongoing, dynamic process. This process constantly produced and modified perceptions
of the social world, symbolic interpretations, religious orientations and patterns of social
behavior. For a fuller and more accurate understanding of the Boxer-Christian conflict it
seems important to reflect on the way the missionary movement and Chinese society
were reacting to each other on a micro-historical level. Applying approaches derived
from social anthropology, the diversity, complexity and practical logic of the encounters
can be described.
Shandong was the home of the Boxers. Since 1881 the southern part of that province
was also the missionary field of the catholic order Society of the Divine Word.
Members of this order came from rural, catholic regions in Germany. Educated in
church schools they had a deep faith in Christian teachings. Almost all shared the
conviction of the necessity of martyrdom for a successful spread of Catholicism in
China. The German missionaries were what today would be called religious
fundamentalists. Their vision of Christianity was attractive above all to members of
1900: Abstracts
16
religious sects in rural South Shandong. Within two years, Christian communities came
into being in several villages. Religion dominated everyday life in the newly founded
Christian communities: daily common prayers, frequent church services, public
confession and penance, baptisms, consecrations, exorcism. Parallel to the growing of
Christian communities, conflicts between Christians and non-Christians arose. The
causes for the conflicts mostly reached back in the time before the arrival of the
missionaries. For protecting their interests vis-a-vis the Christians, Non-Christians
started to look for a way to organize themselves. Through reviving and spreading
fighting techniques, a loose organization with the name Big Sword Society (dadao hui)
emerged. As being the case with the Christian communities, religion played a dominant
role in the Big Sword Society, too: daily deep-breathing exercises, recitation of magical
formulas, swallowing of charms, worship of ghosts and gods. As a result, social
conflicts between Christian and Non-Christian communities were transformed into
religious conflicts. Every side increasingly adopted a exclusionist stance, i.e. that the
own religious convictions were completely incompatible with and hostile to that of the
other side. Thus peasants in the villages now were asked to make a exclusive choice
between the two different religious systems. Interaction between these two forces over
the course of time thus led to a boost of religious activities in rural South-Shandong - a
tendency never seen before.
The conclusion focuses on two points: First, the growing role of religion in the rural
world in Shandong in the 1890s is an important factor leading to the Boxer-movement,
which therefore has to be understood as a religious conflict. Secondly, this
development also explains the policy of Chinese authorities in Shandong after 1900.
The campaign against popular religion and the policy of secularization were reactions
to the expansion of religious activities in the wake of the Boxer-uprising.
T.G. Otte
University of the West of England, Bristol.
The Boxer Uprising and British Foreign Policy: the End of Splendid Isolation
Abstract
This paper will cover two topics. It will firstly deal with the British governments reaction
to the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising. In so doing it will examine the conduct and
course of British policy in China. More importantly, however, it will also discuss the
wider significance of the China crisis for British foreign policy.
The importance of the Boxer episode for Chinas development in the twentieth
century has been given wide coverage by historians; and, of course, the Siege at
Peking has never lost its fascination for Western audiences. Surprisingly, however, the
Boxer crisis as a crisis of British foreign policy has attracted little scholarly attention.
Using largely untapped archival materials this paper will argue that the events in China
in the summer of 1900, more than the Boer War, led to the end of isolation in British
foreign policy. The Boxer crisis forced many leading members of Lord Salisburys
government to reconsider their outlook on Britains international position. The crisis of
1900 led to the formation of a coherent and vociferous group of ministers disaffected
with Salisburys conduct of foreign policy. In reaction to Britains perceived weakness
revealed by the events in East Asia this group forced on the reluctant Salisbury their
own anti-isolationist agenda. This paper, then, will follow
British policy in China as well as metropolitan high politics.
1900: Abstracts
17
Roger R. Thompson
Stanford University
Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre: Politics and Culture in the China War of 1900
Abstract
The graphic account of Shanxi governor Yuxians cold-blooded murder of forty-five
foreigners, including women and children, in the outer courtyard of his government
compound in the provincial capital of Taiyuan on 9 July 1900 has served as perhaps
the defining representation of the madness of the Chinese state in the midst of the
Boxer Uprising. From Arthur Smiths China in Convulsion (1901) and H. B. Morses
International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1918) to Peter Flemings The Siege at
Peking (1959), Sterling Seagraves The Soong Dynasty (1985) and Dragon Lady
(1992), Nat Brandts Massacre in Shansi (1994) and Diana Prestons Besieged in
Peking (1999) there appears, usually in an extended quotation, the same account of
the Taiyuan massacre.
This paper addresses the following sets of questions: 1) What is the
provenance of this long-lived story? Is it credible? Did the British evangelical tradition
influence this particular representation of the Taiyuan Massacre and its subsequent
reception? 2) What were the other versions of this event? What does the relative
weight given to each version in diplomatic, military, missionary, and government circles
tell us about Western objectives as well as factional politics within Chinese officialdom?
3) How reliable is Boxer-year documentation for Shanxi? What standards should be
used in making this assessment? 3) Can a convincing narrative of events in Shanxi
for June-August 1900 be written without reference to these problematic sources? If so,
how does this affect our understanding of the Boxer Uprising in an empire-wide
context?
Sources used for this paper include treaty-port newspapers published in Tianjin
and Shanghai, Western diplomatic archives, Western and Chinese martyrologies, and
Chinese government documents such as provincial reports and imperial edicts.
R. G. Tiedemann
University of London
The Church Militant: Armed Conflicts between Boxers and Christians in North
China
Abstract
As is well known, Chinese Christians bore the brunt of the violent Boxer attacks in the
spring and summer of 1900. Throughout North China, several thousand converts were
killed, their property either taken or destroyed, and their churches and chapels razed in
the course of this bloody episode. What is less well known is that in spite of these
widespread persecutions a number of Christian communities in Shandong, Zhili and
Shanxi successfully withstood sieges and repulsed attacks. This paper seeks to
explore the circumstances of and background to Christian militancy during the Boxer
Uprising. Part I consists of narrative accounts of some of the more prominent
confrontations, including brief coverage of the one case of Christian resistance that
went disastrously wrong, namely the Zhujiahe incident in Zhili province in which over
1900: Abstracts
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2,000 converts lost their lives. Part II examines the origin of Christian community
fortification and the development of self-defence organizations. Particular attention is
paid to contextual factors. It is argued that Christian militancy was an integral part of
the prevalent culture of violence in the border districts on the North China Plain. Here
local inhabitants had been long accustomed to pursuing, in the words of Elizabeth
Perry, protective and predatory survival strategies.
Although part of a local tradition of community defence, Christians could also
rely on the external support of missionaries. This essay devotes, therefore, some
space to the inherently aggressive nature of Christian proselytization, with particular
attention being paid to the construction of fortified mission stations in rural settings.
More specifically, the extent and nature of missionary links with foreign governments
(religious protectorates; procurement of modern weapons; training of Christian militia)
will be examined. The final section gives some consideration to Christian involvement
in the punitive expeditions of the foreign military forces into the interior of Zhili province,
as well as the presence of Russian troops at mission stations in Manchuria and Inner
Mongolia. The essay concludes with the assertion that Christian self-defence was a
product of both endogenous and exogenous circumstances.
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
Indiana University
The Boxers for Children
Abstract
This paper will look at representations of the Boxer Uprising and its after effects (such
as the campaign of suppression and reprisal launched by foreign troops) in text
intended for young readers. Both Chinese and Western language works will be
considered, as well as a combination of written and pictorial texts, as well as ones that
combine words and images. The piece will range over time from the era of the event
itself (illustrated magazines portrayals, for example) up through the 1920s (school
primers, for example) to the present (e.g., a pair of cartoon histories of modern China
published in the PRC in 1998). Some works considered will be ones that were
designed to be read or looked at by adults (particularly semi-literate ones) as well
youths but all will be ones for whom it is almost certain that children or teen-agers were
part of the intended audience. The goal of the paper will be to see what new
dimensions can be added to the discussion of the Boxers as positive or negatively
charged symbol in works ranging from Harold Isaacs Scratches on our Minds (first
published in 1958) to Paul Cohens recent History in Three Keys -- simply by looking
closely (as no one to date seems to have done) at the way the events of 1900 have
been conveyed to young people inside and outside of China. The paper will also try to
connect recent works on childrens literature and the way ideas about nationalism are
shaped by schoolbooks to scholarship on the Boxer Uprising as a mythologized event.
1900: Abstracts
19
Anand A. Yang
University of Utah
(A) Subaltern('s) Boxers: An Indian Soldier's Account of China and the World in
1900
Abstract
This paper is based on a reading of a travel/autobiographical memoir of an Indian
soldier who spent thirteen months as a member of largely Indian-manned British
military force that participated in the International Expedition. His eyewitness account
of the Boxer "uprising" is rich not only for its details of the "war" itself but also of
existing social and economic conditions. Furthermore, it greatly complicates the story
of the international context of the "war" by raising issues of class, race, nationality, and
colonialism that surfaced as a result of his experiences as a colonial subject fighting a
war against fellow Asians on behalf of his colonial masters.