The document provides background on the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. It discusses the long history of peasant revolts in China against foreign intrusion and capitalist exploitation. The Boxer Rebellion was led by secret societies and directed against foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians. It arose from peasant anger at foreign aggression, the role of Christian missionaries in oppression and intelligence gathering, and China's increasing semi-colonial status in the late 19th century as it was forced to accept unequal treaties and loans while foreign powers divided the country economically. The rebellion marked a climax in popular proto-nationalist and anti-Western sentiment.
The document provides background on the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. It discusses the long history of peasant revolts in China against foreign intrusion and capitalist exploitation. The Boxer Rebellion was led by secret societies and directed against foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians. It arose from peasant anger at foreign aggression, the role of Christian missionaries in oppression and intelligence gathering, and China's increasing semi-colonial status in the late 19th century as it was forced to accept unequal treaties and loans while foreign powers divided the country economically. The rebellion marked a climax in popular proto-nationalist and anti-Western sentiment.
The document provides background on the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. It discusses the long history of peasant revolts in China against foreign intrusion and capitalist exploitation. The Boxer Rebellion was led by secret societies and directed against foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians. It arose from peasant anger at foreign aggression, the role of Christian missionaries in oppression and intelligence gathering, and China's increasing semi-colonial status in the late 19th century as it was forced to accept unequal treaties and loans while foreign powers divided the country economically. The rebellion marked a climax in popular proto-nationalist and anti-Western sentiment.
The document provides background on the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. It discusses the long history of peasant revolts in China against foreign intrusion and capitalist exploitation. The Boxer Rebellion was led by secret societies and directed against foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians. It arose from peasant anger at foreign aggression, the role of Christian missionaries in oppression and intelligence gathering, and China's increasing semi-colonial status in the late 19th century as it was forced to accept unequal treaties and loans while foreign powers divided the country economically. The rebellion marked a climax in popular proto-nationalist and anti-Western sentiment.
under1National of 18 Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT), MHRD Author: Amit Bhattacharya
HISTORY
Course Name : History
(For under graduate student.)
Paper No. : Paper- VIII
History of China
Unit, Chapter : Unit- 1
Chapter- 4
Topic No. & Title : Part- 1
The Boxer Rebellion or Yi Ho Tuan Movement 1
History of China – Boxer Rebellion I
The most important feature of China is the occurrence of
uninterrupted peasant revolts in all parts of the country. Although most of the feudal societies of the world had witnessed explosions of peasant fury from time to time, no country other than China has had a more continuous tradition of peasant revolts. These occurred both in feudal China as also in semi-feudal and semi-colonial China into which China was forcibly converted after the First Opium War of 1840-42. That was the first of a series of humiliating treaties that China was forced to sign with the Western capitalist powers.After History of China Page 2 of 18
the defeat of China at the hands of Japan in the Sino-
Japanese war of 1894-95, imperialist intrusion into China intensified and the resistance of the Chinese people also gained in strength. Unlike the Reform Movement of 1898 which preceded it and was a movement from above, the Boxer rebellion was a movement from below. It was led by secret societies. Broadly speaking, it was a peasant movement integrally connected with the condition of Chinese agriculture. At the same time, it was directed against foreign missionaries and the Chinese Christians.The rebellion was associated with the year 1900, although it started a bit earlier and came to an end with the conclusion of another humiliating treaty, known as the Protocol of 1901.
Background
The anti-foreign resistance movements of the peasants that
took place in the 19th century were basically scattered in nature and were not generally effective. In 1841, near Canton, villagers routed a detachment of Anglo-Indian troops. In 1884-85, the Black Flags of Tonking and the border regions of south China raised stiff resistance against French troops. The members of this sect were partly peasant, partly History of China Page 3 of 18
mercenary soldiers who were influenced in their anti-foreign
movement by a kind of proto-nationalism. In the late 1890s, the Red Beard bandits of Manchuria also effectively opposed Russian penetration into that region during the construction of the trans-Manchurian railway.
Equally scattered was peasant resistance to the penetration of
the Western capitalist technology and economy. In the early days of industrialization in England, workers took to machine- breaking or „Luddism‟(drawing its name from the name of John Lud, the Chartist activist) as, they felt, these were causes of unemployment. Likewise, the Chinese artisans also indulged in machine-breaking. However, they did so not just because these were causes of unemployment, but primarily because these were foreign. In fact, it was a political motivation of a nationalistic kind that impelled them to take such steps. Modern machines for the spinning and weaving of silk were destroyed in the rural areas near Canton in the 1880s. Peasant opposition against modern industrial technology continued in the towns to which their misery had driven them in search of work in the factories. Cases of factory-smashing were reported in the 19th and 20th centuries. History of China Page 4 of 18
Foreign aggression and the Role of the Missionaries
In Asiatic couintries that had fallen victims to foreign
capitalist penetration, religion came side by side with foreign political control. In China also, the picture was more or less the same. The relations between the peasants and the missions were very bad. The peasants detested the Christians, particularly Catholic Christians, and the Chinese converts who were accused of seeking cheap means of protection against Chinese authorities in case of trouble with the police and also as a kind of insurance against misery. The missions were accused of kidnapping Chinese children with the object of forcibly converting them into Christianity.
Among missionaries who committed many crimes of
aggression under the cloak of religion were, according to the Chinese authors of the book The Yi Ho Tuan Movement of 1900, Timothy Richard of Britain, Gilbert Reid of the United States, Alphonse Favier of France and Anzer of Germany. Many of the missionaries--directed by their archbishops, bishops and other higher-ups—collected intelligence, forcibly seized farmland, put pressure of all types on the law-courts, History of China Page 5 of 18
extorted money from the people, bought over gangsters and
other bad elements to become converts, created incidents, intimidated and bullied the common people and committed crimes of all types, murder included. The Manchu or Ching officials cowered submitted meekly to foreign pressure. In case of disputes between the people and the missionaries, they always shielded the latter and oppressed the former. These were the reasons why anti-missionary incidents became frequent.
In fact, after 1860, there were an increasing number of
incidents involving missionaries, attacks on mission buildings, the destruction of churches, manhandling of Chinese converts and so on. In 1891, a series of anti-Christian riots took place in several small towns and rural markets in the Yangtze Valley. In these movements, the peasantry and the urban poor played a leading part; besides these, the local gentry also incited the peasants against foreigners, furnished arms and organized popular discontent. In some cases, the secret societies were also mixed up in these anti-Christian outbreaks. In fact, the Boxer movement was the climax of all these trends, of peasant hostility to Christianity on religious grounds, of popular proto-nationalism, of secret society History of China Page 6 of 18
activity, of „luddite‟ resistance to modern technology, and also
the anti-Western feeling of the local gentry.
By the end of the 19th century, world capitalist had entered
into the stage of monopoly capitalism—the highest stage of capitalism i.e, imperialism. In the years after the defeat of China by Japan—another addition to the long list of defeats at the hand of foreign powers—in 1895 and conclusion of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, tremendous changes took place in China. It allowed Japanese capitalists to start factories in China‟s trading ports which naturally served as outlets for export of capital. The right to set up factories owned by foreign capitalists had an important implication. It proved that export of capital rather than the export of commodities, now became the main feature of capitalism. That, in reality, was the stage of the transformation of industrial capitalism into finance capitalism. Great industrial and financial monopolies, which had been maturing in Europe, America and Japan, were slicing up China like a watermelon into their respective colonial spheres of investment and exploitation. The reality is that China at the end of the 19th century, was literally on the verge of partition and dismemberment as an independent History of China Page 7 of 18
nation. The privileges extracted by Japan were extracted also
by others powers under the most-favoured-nation clause.
One of the manifestations of such a situation was he setting
up of factories not just by Japan, but also by other imperialist powers such as British, German, American in fields Like cotton spinning and weaving, flour-milling, oil-pressing etc. All these naturally prevented the development of China‟s national industry.
However, the export of capital to China began, in fact, not
with factories but with bank loans. Before 1895, the debt of China to foreign powers was negligible, but in the five years following 1895, the Chinese government had to borrow more than 50 million pounds to repay her war indemnity to Japan. This amount was borrowed partly from a Russo-French financial group and partly from an Anglo- German group. The security History of China Page 8 of 18
comprising of receipts from the Chinese customs—already
foreign-administered—did not reach the Chinese government at all. In order to make up this deficit, the Manchu rulers increased the burden of taxation to a large extent, the main brunt of which fell on the common people.
Moreover, foreign diplomats began forcing railway loans on
China. The condition was That the countries that provided loans to the Chinese government would also provide railway material and rolling stock, with repayment guaranteed by a lien on railway property and income.
There is no doubt that all the imperialist powers took
advantage of the weakness of China to interfere in her internal affairs. They got emboldened by the defeat of such a large country like China at the hands of such a small country like Japan. So they started slicing up China into their respective spheres of influence. The Germans used the assassination of two German missionaries as a pretext to capture in November 1897 Tsing-tao port in History of China Page 9 of 18
North China. Then they forced China to sign a treaty in March
1898 whereby they extracted the right to get „leasehold‟ on the eastern Shantung peninsula for 99 years until 1997. Tsarist Russia followed it up with the acquisition of the naval base of Port Arthur and the commercial port of Darien for 25 years. Within the next few days, Britain grabbed the naval stronghold of Weihaiwei, specifying that she would hold it as Russia held port Arthur. In April 1898, France got hold of the South China Bay of Kwangchowwan.
In this way, the foreign aggressors annexed one region of
China after another and made those their respective „spheres of influence‟. Britain took the Yangtze Valley; tsarist Russia grabbed Manchuria and Mongolia; southwest China came under the control of Britain and France; apan acquired the Fukien province and Germany controlled the Shantung province. In fact, by 1897-98, the foreign powers within a span of a few months created a situation which was admittedly more threatening to the existence of China as a nation than all the defeats she had suffered before combined. History of China Page 10 of 18
Thus foreign aggression in North China had become
unbearable after China‟s defeat at the hands of Japan. During the Sino-Japanese war, hostilities had spread to Shantung. Some of the towns in the province had been occupied by the Japanese. The people were outraged also by the German capture of Jiaozhou Bay. The gravity of the situation can be ascertained from a memorial written by censor Hu Fuchen on 2 March 1898 to the emperor: “ I have heard tell that in the province of Shantung German soldiers are killing peaceful inhabitants…Things are a boiling point everywhere, and the people are aflame with fury”. In Chihli, as in Shantung, the foreign powers displayed a voracious appetite. Railways were built on foreign credits and under the supervision of foreign technicians. With the appearance of the railways, traditional modes of transport began to shrink, with a large number of people—boatmen, coolies, porters, and carters—losing their livelihood. On both banks of river Haihe, foreigners had grabbed land, jetties, firms, banks, factories and churches. Foreign missionaries were busy throughout the province, converting Chinese to Christianity by blandishments and gifts. And the newly-converted Christians, knowing well that they would be protected by the missionaries, were at daggers drawn with their non-Christian neighbours. S.L.Tikhvinsky History of China Page 11 of 18
writes that the anger with foreign abuses was exacerbated by
various rumours and by anti-foreign propaganda.
In May 1895, rumours spread that foreigners were about to
attack Sichuan. This provoked a series of violence in Chendu and the neighbouring districts. A.I.Pavlov, the Russian representative in China, reported to hid government in October 1898 that „more and more, absurd rumours are being spread among the populace in the capital about…an impending massacre of foreigners as the true culprits of China‟s misfortunes‟. What has been described as rumours might have been rumours; but there is no denying the fact that the foreigners were „the true culprits of China‟s misfortunes‟ and were bent upon capturing one part of China after another. In fact, as various studies on insurgency would show, rumours are part and parcel of the process that lead up to popular outbursts of one type or another. Murder and attacks on missionaries were reported from Fujian, Hunan, Hupei, Sichuan, Kiangsi, Kiangsu and Shantung. Two German missionaries were assassinated in Shantung. It provided the German militarists with the pretext to make military invasion in China. This resulted in the ceding of Chinese territories to the major foreign powers. History of China Page 12 of 18
In fact, the period from 1895 to 1899 was one of scattered,
uninterrupted violent outbursts in rural China. The attacks on mission buildings were one manifestation of such a situation. Banditry, famine riots, riots against taxation and forced labour became the order of the day. There is reason to argue that these were the direct results of the Sino-Japanese war which caused devastation in the Northern regions and increase in taxation to pay for the war. This specific crisis was closely connected with the general crisis in the countryside of China.
Nature of the crisis
Let us try to explain in some detail the nature of this crisis. In
a hundred years from the mid-18th century to mid-19th century, the population of China increased more than two-fold from 180 millions to 430 millions. This increase had been arrested somewhat during 1850-77, the period of the Taiping, Nien and other movements, which took a large toll in human lives on both sides. However, during the late 19th century, population increase seemed to have resumed. Between 1873 and 1893, according to the estimate provided by A.Feuerwerker, population increased by 8% and the area of History of China Page 13 of 18
cultivable land by only 1%. The farmland of China mainly
belonged to peasant landowners, but the size both of their plots and plots worked by tenants grew smaller. Lack of capital prevented the introduction of technical improvements such as fertilizer, better tools and seed. The situation was such that the peasants went deeper and deeper into debt and the number of landless peasants, vagabonds, beggars and others grew.
One of the natural routes of escape from such a condition was
migration to other areas. At the time of migration, normally the strongest and the most enterprising peasants took part and this often contributed to the economic decline of a village. In reality, this was often the case in large areas of Hopei, Hunan, Shansi, Shantung, Shensi, Kwangsi and Yunnan. Natural disasters in successive areas devastated vast areas at regular intervals. Between 1886 and 1897, about 60 districts were ravaged each year by floods, drought and insects.
There is no doubt that the peasant community was shaken by
these changes. Moreover, it also felt the repercussions of the changes in commerce and industry that were caused by the History of China Page 14 of 18
advent of foreign imperialism. In some regions, the rise in
imports and in industrial production, particularly of cotton yarn and cotton fabric, caused the ruin of the home handicrafts that supplemented both farm incomes. In addition, the development of steam navigation and railways reduced countless numbers of porters, boatmen and innkeepers to grinding poverty.
A growing variety and quantity of Chinese agricultural
products were exported. However, their prices rose much more slowly than those of imported goods mainly because the foreign powers were in control of customs tariffs. Added to this was the fact that the Chinese market was dependent on the world market in certain sectors which implied that the peasants were the victims of international speculation and fluctuations. During the years 1885-1900, the tea-growers were most seriously affected by world market events. As for example, the development of tea plantations in India, Ceylon and Java led to decrease in the price of Chinese tea.
During late 19th century, public discontent and anger in
Shantung virtually reached the stage of an explosion. From 1880, the province was being ravaged every year by natural History of China Page 15 of 18
disasters. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, there
were heavy forcible military requisitions in Shantung. In 1898, the imperial government decided that the people of Shantung should provide 90,000 taels more every year for the defence of the frontier. Moreover, the government forced the people to subscribe to a domestic loan of 100 million taels to pay off the war indemnity.
The province of Shantung had another special reason to get
aggrieved. There the missionaries and converts totalled around 80,000 and they were justifiably accused of land- grabbing, engaging in trade and money-lending, protecting criminals, picking up quarrels with non-Christians, extorting huge indemnities etc. The people of Shantung thus had every reason to see the missions as the cause of all the evils it was suffering from.
Yi Ho Tuan or the Boxers rise in Shantung
Between 1896 and 1898, numerous revolts, in which secret
societies played a leading part, broke out against the missions in south Shantung. In 1896, such struggles, led by the Ta Tao Hui(Big Sword Society), a secret society, broke out in History of China Page 16 of 18
Tsaohsien and Tanhsien counties; in 1897 in Chuyeh,
Shouchang, Tsining, hotse, Chengwu and other sub- prefectures and counties; in 1899 in Yichow, Pingyuan and Feicheng.
A new organization was also active in the struggles. It was a
people‟s organization, heavily tinged with mysticism, whose members were known for their skill in boxing and fighting with staves.It came to be known as Yi Ho Tuan or Righteous and Harmonious Fists or simply the Boxers. The Yi Ho Tuan activities against the Ching rule in Shantung, Chihli(now Hopei) and Honan provinces dated from the early 19th century; however, the bloody suppression by the Ching regime had failed to stop them. At the end of the 19th century, when the imperialist aggressors penetrated deep into China and the national contradictions sharpened as never before, the Yi Ho Yuan became increasingly active. They described the foreign imperialists as “ferocious tigers and wolves”, directed the spearhead of their attack against thses forces and changed from a secret to an open society.
In fact, within this sect, the three traditional Chinese
religions or ideologies—Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism History of China Page 17 of 18
co-existed in a relative peace, and in proclamations the
Boxers described themselves as follows: „Yi Ho-tuan is an alliance in which yi stands for righteousness and ho for restraint(both of which were traditional Confucian virtues)…The alliance practises Buddhism”. A folk song praising this great national revolutionary movement spread among the local people:
The Yi Ho Tuan Stood up in Shantung Heroes they are, Protecting the nation.
The Yi Ho Tuan held their gatherings at the „altars‟, which
were usually abandoned huts; instructors taught them various exhortations and the art of Taoist gymnastics reminiscent of fist-fighting. They held the native belief that their skill in performing physical exercises and knowledge of a few „magic‟ words made them invulnerable to enemy bullets and shells. And the amulets they put on made this assurance doubly sure. Admission, which involved a prescribed mystical ritual, was individual. Like most of the other secret societies, the Boxers were ascetic in their ways, and admitted adolescents History of China Page 18 of 18
and women who were organized in separate bodies. However,
the movement was above all a political one, inspired by elementary nationalism—„Exterminate the foreigners‟ was inscribed on its banners. Economic elements were also present: the Boxers attacked railways, telegraph lines etc. History of China Page 1 of 2
HISTORY
Course Name : History
(For under graduate student.)
Paper No. : Paper- VIII
History of China
Unit, Chapter : Unit- 1
Chapter- 4
Topic No. & Title : Part- 1
The Boxer Rebellion or Yi Ho Tuan Movement 1
Summary
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 was one of the leading peasant
rebellions in modern China. It was initiated by the secret society named Yi Ho Tuan. The aim of the rebellion was many folds. It was against the foreign Christian missionaries who were converting the Chinese forcefully. It was against the Manchu rulers who were submitting to the dictates of foreign powers for their vested interest. Finally it was against the introduction of foreign machinery not only because they caused unemployment but also because they were foreign intrusions. History of China Page 2 of 2
China was forced to sign a series of humiliating treaties like
the Nanking Treaty and the Shimonoseki Treaty. She was exploited by the foreign powers. China had to borrow heavily from the Western powers to pay war indemnities. Stiff taxes were also imposed for this purpose. Further China became an importer of foreign goods.
Thus the rebellion was motivated by elementary nationalism.