Talk:Boxer Rebellion

Peaceful Chinese Intention?

Declaring war and surrounding a diplomatic quarter clearly constitutes as an act of war by every possible measure. How could it possibly be based upon a peaceful intention? --YKatakura (talk) 22:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Prince Ronglu and Prince Qing invited the foriegners to take shelter inside the zongli yamen but the foreigners were paranoid and refused, instead, they shot at all chinese that passed by the legations, which led to them being blockaded. Its natural that a government would be concerned about keeping the trigger happy marines under control before they shot even more people and cause more resentment, which would have led to more support for the Boxers.Дунгане (talk) 20:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Whether it is "natural" or not is your opinion. Can you actually provide any verifiable source stating that the Chinese government tried to actively fight against the boxers to stop their belligerency for the purpose of respecting the obvious diplomatic protocol i.e. non-violation of diplomatic missions? Can you prove, against nearly every serious historian, that the Imperial Chinese Army surrounded to protect the diplomatic quarter from the boxers? What some Princes did personally does not automatically warrant any official policy of the government. --YKatakura (talk) 15:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

You saying "surrounding a diplomatic quarter clearly constitutes.... war... based on peaceful intention" is equally your own personal opinion, and per sources already in the article, we already know that forces (the Boxers and Kansu Braves) were already attacking the foreigners in the legations, they received no orders from the government to proceed in such an attack. These two sources say Prince Qing sent his bannermen to protect the foreigners and invited them to the zongli yamen, even sending his own bannermen to attack the boxers and kansu braves.[1][2]ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 20:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Your references not withstanding, YKatakura's statement that "surrounding a diplomatic quarter clearly constitutes as an act of war" is not a matter of opinion. It was already a longstanding diplomatic and political agreement, well before the events being discussed here. Such agreements were on paper as early as 1709. China, in the person of the Empress Dowager Cixi, had already agreed to the Vienna Convention previous to 1900, most likely on the very day of her ascension. I would suggest a refresher in international political history before further errors are presented in rebuttal to members in this discussion.--ADWNSW (talk) 04:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The diplomatic quarter was "surrounded" by imperial army forces to clear out Boxer insurgents hiding in the legations area, and "diplomatic protocol", had been violated numerous times by foreign powers before any such actions in the legations took place, including the murder of a Chinese civilian unconnected to the Boxers by German Baron von Ketteler, the illegal invasion of chinese territory without notification of the chinese government by foreign forces- the Seymour expedition was clearly without chinese authorization.

Thats not even mentioning the Battle of Dagu Forts (1900), which even the american commander refused to participate in becaues it was an illegal act of war against China without any such declaration.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 17:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

This is irrelevant to my point. Please stay within the immediate topic. Thank you.--ADWNSW (talk) 19:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

regarding questions some had about the origins section

the reason the origins section is vague, and does not detail much about the arrival of the boxers, is because there isnt much to say about their origins. They arose spontaneously in various groups in Shandong in response to various foreign interferences like missionaries and seizing of concessions. If it sounds vague to any of you, we can't do anything about it, thats just like asking why the Tutankhamun article doesn't detail much about Tutankhamun's childhood- because we don't know. Nothing short of a time machine would answer your questions so i think the article is fine the way it is regarding factual information, if you have a problem with grammar, everyone is welcome to fix it.Дунгане (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Non Neutral Standpoint and poorly written

Many of the sentences in the article seem random and disjointed. Additionally, the numbers don't seem to add up as it is claimed by the article that virtually every battle was won by the Boxers and heavy casualties were repeatedly sustained by the Western forces and yet the casualties list seems to show totally in the allies favour (something like 3000 westerners to 38000 chinese casualties) this seems to hhint at further biases in China's favour. I suggest someone needs to read through and edit alot and check some of the facts. 86.152.14.101 (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Saying "numbers don't add up" is WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:OR, since you are synthesising and coming to various conclusions on your own. I have listed a whole group of battles in the article, Crushing of boxers in Northern and Central Manchuria,Boxers attacks on Chinese Eastern Railway, Battles on Amur River (1900), Defence of Yingkou, which were not won by chinese forces. Heavy casualties were sustained by westerners during the siege of the legations, where they only numbered a few hundred. Show me where is says a battle was won by the boxers in the article, and virtually nothing will come up. I just checked, the word "won" only appears once, victory only appears three times, and only one refers to a chinese victory. I deleted all the nianhua pictures already.Дунгане (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

western forces during numerous battles numbered a few hundred or a few thousand. Therefore, when the westerners lost a few hundred, that is considered "Heavy" by historians. Alot of chinese casualties were lost during the invasion of manchuria and by the way- virtually nobody kept count of chinese casualties at the Battle of Taku Forts and the Battle of Tientsin, as noted by references on those respective articles, so the casualty figure in the article is probably not even accurate either its more, or less likely, less. And again, i would like to note virtually nowhere does it come up in the article that the word "Victory" or "won" is used to describe the chinese actions, only twice.Дунгане (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Heaviness of casualties is generally calculated based on a percentage rather than absolute numbers, but it's somewhat subjective since you might calculate it based on actual numbers killed or including wounded, and then one might need to decide whether that means severely wounded or minor injuries. The anon does have a point about the brokenness of the writing. I've been working on the Origins section and most of the time that's involved staring at it till my eyes bleed trying to wring some sort of consistency from it. I'm not able to get sources (my local libraries are all little town libraries and the nearest major city library doesn't have anything near the sort of books I need and the university library there doesn't have any east asian texts at all) so I'm kinda stuck for expanding it. Blackmane (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the casualties for the Western military (3,000) given in the article is too high. Looking at the battles I cant come up with more than a few hundred dead -- although I don't know much about the Russian occupation of Manchuria. But was that really part of the Boxer Rebellion? I don't think anybody has a clue about Chinese casualties. Probably in the low thousands for soldiers but with many thousands of civilians killed. I've seen estimates of 30,000 Chinese Christians killed by the Boxers. The Western invaders also did their share of indiscrimate killing of Chinese civilians. I agree that this article is difficult to try to revise. There are whole sections of the article that should be deleted so that a fresh start could be made to come up with something that reflects a middle-ground of what this immensely interesting and controversial event was all about. Smallchief 18:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

There were several thousand boxers in manchuria during the war, and death notices were posted throughout towns by them, urging people to target Russians. The worst fighting in the war occured in manchuria, over 100,000 russian troops invaded compared to only 2,000 for Seymour's expedition. The Honghuzi bandits were the chief source of resistance to Russian invaders. Boxers attacks on Chinese Eastern Railway, Defence of Yingkou, Battles on Amur River (1900), Russian Invasion of Northern and Central Manchuria (1900), Battle of Pai-t'ou-tzuДунгане (talk) 20:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with the IP, the section "peaceful Chinese intention" seemed to be written as a defence of the Chinese role, and although i have removed some of the phraseology, it still does in my opinion. I don't dispute the facts, since I know little of them, however the expression "Only party X were doing Y" and "Actaully they did not do z but the very opposite" - when we have no reason in the text to think they did Z, seem very clumsy POV pushing and lead to distrust of the surrounding text. To say that observing contradictions in the article is WP:SYN seems absurd. All figures should be sourced, if there is a contradiction between the sources, as there often is, we should make it clear that they disagree. Rich Farmbrough, 11:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC).

User:CWH is revising the article pretty well. I do not have any objections to his changes so far.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 20:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Edits to the lede

Friends;

I've made some edits to the lede, mainly removing notes that were redundant (more than one cite for the same information); ancient (to journalistic accounts of the time): not reliable; or not preferable when clear and well written modern scholarship is easily available. My understanding of Wiki policy is that notes and links in the lede should be kept to a minimum in any case. I also moved some material to shorten and make the chronology more logical and lightly edited for consistency.

If anyone is interested, I'd be glad to spell out my reasoning for particular references. Thanks for your patience. ch (talk) 05:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

i have found reliable sources for chinese use of electric mines and works refering to torpedoes

Several American military reports here say that Chinese forces used "electric Mines" on the beihe (peiho) river during the Boxer Rebellion

I have also found some reliable references regarding chinese use of "electric torpedoes", but they all date to the period before the Boxer Rebellion. In 1876, Li had added an electric torpedo works to tientsin arsenal "Electric torpedoes have been laid in some places"ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Atrocities section

This needs some expanding on what Chinese/Boxers did. There's one line on this and then the rest is devoted to the conduct of Alliance troops. This is not neutral. John Smith's (talk) 10:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Real Life isn't neutral. The Allies were the ones who were out of their home countries, and invading another country which never attacked them in all their history. When we write an article on a terrorist attack or a bank robbery here on Wikipedia, we don't pretend that we have to give equal time to the perpetrator and find some dirt on the victims, we report the facts, which is neutral- the perpetrator committed the XXX atrocity and the victim is the victim. We don't invent atrocities by the victim to make it appear neutral.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 15:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Dillon stated that Chinese women committed suicide to avoid rape, and said that he witnessed corpses of raped and bayoneted women by alliance troops.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 16:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Erm, sorry, but we know that the Chinese carried out atrocities. Otherwise, what is the section "Massacre of missionaries and Chinese Christians" about? Was this imagined atrocities? Most of the atrocities section is commentary on the Alliance forces' actions. Are you trying to tell me that there is no commentary on what Chinese did or that no atrocities were committed? John Smith's (talk) 20:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"Western"

I don't think this term should be used, unless it's in a citation. It's lazy and vague. "Western" can cover a vast arrange of countries not involved in the conflict. I would use "Alliance" to refer to troops, "foreign" or state specific nationalities. John Smith's (talk) 10:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Then the tolstoy one stays since his citation specificlly mentioned westerners.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"he praised the Chinese for their heroic patience. When he learned about the "orgy of murder, raping, and looting" committed by the Western powers in quelling the Boxer rebellion, he raged against the brutality of the Christians"ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 16:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you read my comment? I said "I don't think this term should be used, unless it's in a citation". John Smith's (talk) 20:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Conflicting attitudes within the Imperial Court section

I cannot see how the citation at the end of the first paragraph supports all of that text. Page 88 of the book does not seem to refer to anything discussed in that paragraph. John Smith's (talk) 10:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Scroll down to page 89 and 90 to see the rest of the text.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 15:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You should not have a single citation per paragraph. You need to interspace them a bit more and refer to all the relevant pages. John Smith's (talk) 20:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Another source which said alliance forces raped but chinese did not

"Lost souls"

An eight-nation allied relief force, including a British contingent, made its way from the coast, with much bickering between the rival commanders. When it lifted the siege on August 14, it proceeded to loot, kill and rape with as much ferocity as the Boxers had shown (with the difference that the Boxers looted and killed, but did not rape).ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

A fact is a fact. When someone commits a crime, and its notable, we write it out clearly. We don't try to make up crimes that the victim committed in order to make the article "neutral".ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• You should note the following reference, p. 148, which states that Chinese Christians were killed, mutilated, and raped by the Boxers. http://books.google.com/books?id=o80WueMVIeQC&pg=PA148&dq=rape+boxer+rebellion&hl=en&ei=cqC1TZnJCdDUgAeTpL3GCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=rape%20boxer%20rebellion&f=false

To me your insistence that Chinese did not rape women is unprovable. Nobody witnessed the death of most of those killed by the Boxers. We don't know whether or not the Boxers raped women, including Western women. We don't know of any women who survived to allege that the Boxers or Chinese soldiers raped them. That may be because they were all killed. To insist that the Boxers did not rape women is to insist on the unknowable.

There were plenty of atrocities on both sides. The Boxers beheaded children. I don't know of any source that says the Western or Japanese soldiers did. Therefore, should we put a line in the article saying that the Boxers beheaded children, but there were no reports of Western soldiers beheading children?

Your objective is, of course, to portray the Boxers and the Chinese government in the most favorable light possible and to paint the sins of the West in the darkest colors. That's not NPOV. Smallchief (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

According to you then, everything is unprovable

First of all, the majority of reference I used were from books written by proffessors with PHD in the area (i checked the authors of the books for credentials), like Diana Preston who has degress in history, and she the author of one source i quoted for the western committed rapes. this book "abundance of Rain" does not appear to have been written by someone with a PHD or degree, but by a christian evangelical bent on portraying christianity as the one true religion and everything else as lies

Robert R. Mathisen, the author of " Critical issues in American religious history", which i gave as one of the cites that Chinese did not rape, has full academic credentials-

(M.A. Ball State University) is Professor of History and Political Science at Corban College, Oregon

Luella Miner remarked that for all the Boxer atrocities there had been no incident of Chinese rape

And as for westerners killing children-

"An American correspondent was appalled when he saw a Russian soldier crush the skull of a four-year-old Chinese boy for no reason, and Cossacks sometimes killed children just as casually."

"At least one Western observer reported witnessing Cossacks killing Chinese children for no apparent reason"

Now as for unprovable- as per policy, Wikipedia is based on verifiable sources, not the truth. If everyone knows the sky is blue, but all academics wrote the sky is red in their books and articles, then we have to write the sky is red in wikipedia, not our own observation.

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth Wikipedia:Verifiability

Unprovability extends to real life itself. How do you know we aren't locked up in some kind of Matrix like machine where all reality is a lie like the The Matrix (franchise)? I'm not bringing this up as a red herring or to hijack off topic, but in reality you can't prove anything is real or really happened, thats why lawyers use the phrase "beyond all reasonable doubt" that my client is innocent, not "my client is definetly innocent".

Therefore, according to sources I presented (with authors that have academic credentials in the form of degrees, the concenses is that western forces committed rapes and killing, and the boxers committed killings but the sources e xplicitly mention the absence of rape.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 19:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• • Wrong. You didn't present "sources." You presented a source. Your academic source quoted a missionary. Luella Miner, who said there was no rape by Boxers. Your academic source didn't opine whether Ms. Miner was accurate in her statement or not. You've based your whole theory on a one-sentence statement from a missionary who was in the Legations during the siege and had no idea what was going on outside the walls of Beijing. Flimsy. Misleading. Smallchief (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

you're the one whose wrong. I also provided a guardian article which explicitly says europeans raped and chinese did not

John gittings, the author of the article, has the proper credentials to be used as a cite-"John Gittings worked for many years as the Guardian's foreign leader-writer and China specialist. He has also written extensively on cold war politics and is a research associate at SOAS Centre for Chinese Studies."ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 21:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Even if there were no citations for saying no Chinese rape occured, the fact is, I looked, and could not find any instances of Chinese rape, but I found tons of reliable sources saying western forces committed rape, the article would therefore contain information about westerners committing rape and not say anything about Chinese and rape since there are no reliable sources which says such events occurred. Then I doubt John would leave it like that, he would most likely have come into the talk page regardless and challenged the neutrality of the article, saying "how come it says westerners raped but chinese didn't, it isn't neutral". Then I would have to show him the Gittings article anyway, regardless of whether it was in the wiki article or not.ΔΥΝΓΑΝΕ (talk) 21:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)