Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Uprising ({{zh-tsp|t=義和團起義|s=义和团起义|p=Yìhétuán Qǐyì}}; Righteous Harmony Society Uprising) was an uprising against Western commercial and political influence in China during the final years of the 19th century. By August 1900 over 230 foreigners, thousands of Chinese Christians, an unknown number of rebels, their sympathisers and other Chinese had been killed in the revolt and its suppression.

Anti-Western Movement

The uprising is named for the 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.

Related Topics:
Righteous Harmony Society - Manchu - Qing

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The Boxer uprising was concentrated in northern China where the European powers had begun to demand territorial, railroad and mining concessions. Imperial Germany responded to the killing of two missionaries in Shandong province (November 1897) by seizing the port of Qingdao. The next month, a Russian squadron took possession of Lushun, in southern Liaoyang. Britain and France followed, taking possession of Weihai and Zhanjiang respectively.

Related Topics:
Europe - Imperial Germany - Shandong - 1897 - Qingdao - Russia - Lushun - Liaoyang - Britain - France - Weihai - Zhanjiang

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Boxer activity developed in Shandong province in March 1898 in response to both foreign penetration and the failure of the Imperial court's "self-strengthening" strategy of officially-directed development, whose shortcomings had been shown graphically in China's defeat by Japan in 1895.

Related Topics:
1898 - Self-strengthening - Defeat - Japan - 1895

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The early months of the movement's growth coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (June 11–September 21, 1898), during which the Guangxu Emperor sought to improve the central administration, before the process was reversed at the behest of his powerful aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi.

Related Topics:
Hundred Days' Reform - June 11 - September 21 - Guangxu - Empress Dowager Cixi

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After a mauling at the hands of loyal Imperial troops in October 1899, the Boxers dropped their anti-court slogans, turning their attention to foreign missionaries (such as Hudson Taylor) and their converts, whom they saw as agents of foreign colonialist influence. The Dowager Empress Cixi, who actually believed in the Boxers' claim of being magically impervious to both blade and bullet, decided to use the Boxers to remove the foreign powers in China. The court, now under Cixi's firm control, issued edicts in defence of the insurgents, drawing heated complaints from Western diplomats (January 1900).

Related Topics:
1899 - Missionaries - Hudson Taylor - Colonialist - 1900

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The conflict came to a head in June 1900, when the rebels, now joined by elements of the Imperial army, boldly attacked foreign compounds within the cities of Tianjin and Beijing. The killing of the German Minister Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler on June 20 brought open war, the court proclaiming hostilities against the powers, who in turn prepared military intervention to relieve the legations, which were under the command of the British ex-soldier and Minister plenipotentiary Claude Maxwell MacDonald.

Related Topics:
Tianjin - Beijing - June 20 - Legation - Claude Maxwell MacDonald

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