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Not for citation or circulation without the written permission of the authors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 AtwillJuniata College, Huntingdon, PA

“Boxers Beyond the Pale: Re-positioning Antiforeign and Antichristian Hostilityin Southwest China, 1875-1902.”

Abstract

This paper will examine how the geopolitical, historical and multi-ethnic contextof Yunnan province substantially altered the nature of antiforeign and antichristiandisturbances. Specifically, I explore in the essay how Yunnan’s intricate ethniclandscape and competing visions of sovereignty fundamentally muted a fullermanifestation of the Boxer movement in Yunnan. This is not to say that the Yunnan didnot experience upheaval similar to that of Shandong and Zhili for numerous Christianmissionaries and Chinese Christians were attacked, in the provincial capital, Kunming,several Christian Churches were set ablaze, and Qing provincial officials clearlyattempted to fan popular hostility against foreign officials and missionaries living in theprovince.

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 thismanner, the events of Yunnan while part of the Boxer metanarrative challengetraditional conclusions espoused in more orthodox studies of the event. This isimperative, I think, for although the hostilities of Shandong/Zhili are the focal point ofthe Boxer narrative, regional variations of this event were grounded in a quite distinctset of events even putting into question term “Boxer” itself (though Europeansemployed the term at the time). In the case of Yunnan, the hostilities of 1900 wereclearly shaped by the legacy of the Panthay Rebellion and Margary Affair, late 19th

century Christian conversion strategies (which tended to focus on the non-Hanpopulations of the province), and France’s ambivalent imperialistic aspirations towardYunnan.

Much of the text of this paper—as it stands right now—focuses on the series ofanti-foreign attacks, the subsequent diplomatic maneuverings and the ethnic politics ofthe region, as seen from the imperial standpoints of Beijing and Paris as well as thelocal standpoints of Hanoi and Kunming. The source backbone of the piece consists oflocal Yunnan gazetteers, memorials and personal writings of Qing officials posted toYunnan, and the firsthand accounts provided by French missionaries (some of whomhad lived in the province since the 1860s) and officials—particularly those of AugusteFrançois who served as consul in Kunming during the Boxer hostilities and whosephotos lend a strong sense of immediacy to the events. But the paper also includescolonial French newspaper accounts, and travel narratives (e.g. Gervais Courtellemont,Archibald Little. G.E. Morrison, E. Colbourne and Henry R. Davies). Finally the paperalso utilizes excerpts published in the multivolume collections of interviews carried outby Chinese scholars among the largest of Yunnan’s ethnic groups (Yunnan Huizu,Baizu, Yizu, Miaozu Shehui Lishi Diaocha). This source is often overlooked for theperiod in question and when used judiciously offers important insight into local andindigenous 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 ahistorical narrative that accentuates the multi-ethnic and multiple peripheral nature ofYunnan, and the propensity of modern histories to perpetuate this bias. In the case ofthe Boxer Rebellion as it manifested itself in Yunnan this is particularly important sincemany of the “imperialistic” tensions between China, Britain, and France in the regionwere over frontier areas that were often only nominally under Qing authority. Themulti-ethnic backdrop of the paper is a significant reminder that “antiforeign” in theYunnan 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 Yunnan’s unique circumstances as a frontierprovince with a volatile past of ethnic strife which defies the stark bipolar duality ofChinese-Foreign portrayed in many accounts of this period.

In its present form, the paper takes the murder of Augustus Margary in 1875 asa starting point of a new era Yunnan. An era typified by increasingly virulent antiforeignantagonisms and ever more intrusive maneuverings of France, Britain and China alongYunnan’s external (and internal) frontiers. The paper then traces the variousundulations of violence culminating in the Gejiu Mine Uprising, attacks on severalFrench missions, and the Kunming Incident of 1900 (involving siege of the smallEuropean community led by François). Thus, the contours of the rebellion as it wasplayed out in Yunnan were shaped by the patterns of the interplay between a complexnexus of issues.

In the months prior to the conference, I will bend the “locus” of the piece to theBoxer event and themes. As well, the interim period will give me time to includematerial that I have acquired at libraries and archives in France this past summer whichI would like to include. Structurally, though I think this article has all the themes theconference wants: the strategizing of court and provincial officials, the reaction ofEuropeans living in the province, and most crucially the strong veins of antichristianand antiforeign sentiment particularly among the Han Chinese population. The factthat the paper covers a slightly larger chronological period seems helpful, as many ofthe disputes, connections, and tensions leading up to the Boxer events had longhistories that deviate from that of northeastern China.

Lucie BernierNational Chung Cheng University

Pierre Loti’s Les Derniers jours de Pékin (1900) and the Boxer Uprising

Abstract

Foreign Invasion and the Qing Dynasty's capitulation policy after the Sino-JapaneseWar of 1894 are the main reasons for the Boxer Uprising. The Yihe organisation thatstaged the revolt that broke out in the year1900 was a masse's movement of resistanceagainst the foreign powers' aggression. The Yihe's movement caused a heavy blow tothe foreign power. The latter formed an alliance of Eight to join force and launch a largescale war of invasion in China thus suppressing the Boxer Uprising. In July and August1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forceslaunched an attack against Beijing which fellAugust 14. The Eight slaughtered, plundered and destroyed China's Cultural andhistorical treasures.

In September 1900, shortly after the uprising, Pierre Loti, a Marine Officer and awell-known writer, arrived in Beijing as a part of the punitive forces against China. Fromfirst-hand experience and his French perspective, Loti describes in details the attack ofthe Allied-Forces. He depicts how, through the still smoking ruins of the city, he entersto the Forbidden City, sleeps in the imperial beds, uses the Empress dresses to warmhimself. In his view, his (mis)deeds and those of the other soldiers of the joined forceswere 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 novelcontributed to the propagation of clichés on the xenophobia, treachery and cruelty ofthe 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 theFrench identity against the infidel Chinese.

Lewis BernsteinAssistant 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 alliedmilitary government, the Tianjin Provisional Government (TPG). Its ruled the city for 25months and changed its physical appearance. Its activities are a neglected chapter inTianjin's administrative history, attracting some attention in the 25 years after itsdemise, but completely ignored since 1927.

The TPG's activities and conduct are important because it (1) drasticallychanged the physical shape of Tianjin, (2) showed the Imperial government how citiescould be money machines using modern administrative methods and (3) was one ofthe few times the Treaty Powers temporarily occupied, governed and returned territoryto China. Its history is scattered through many sources, the most accessible the work ofH. B. Morse. Practically everything written about it since then has been drawn from hissummary, whose main source, the "Procès Verbaux des Séances du Conseil duGouvernement Provisoire de la Cité de Tientsin," was "given to the author by theSecretary General," Charles Denby, Jr. This document has disappeared, but othersources 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 Chinaand the Expansion of the Tianjin Concessions, (2) Reasons for the TPG’s Formation,(3) TPG Organization, Personnel, Power and Jurisdiction, (4) TPG Accomplishments,(5) Tianjin Retrocession Negotiations and (6) Final Judgements of the TPG’s Work.

Cord EberspächerUniversity 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 andthe West far into the 19th century. In the classical age of gunboat diplomacy, warshipswere launched when diplomacy failed, and everey major western power kept warshipsin Chinese waters as a self-understood part of foreign policy. Accordingly theoperations 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 bynaval troops. Only after the failure of the Seymour expedition did the internationaloperations shift from the level of gunboat diplomacy to a state of war, which wassymbolized 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 movedsouth, to the Yangtze valley. In the summer of 1900 the question arose among thewestern powers as to who would supervise the units of the Chinese navy in theYangtze Delta. As soon as the British volunteered, the Germans quickly offeredassistance, apprehensive that Great Britain might claim special rights from performingpolice 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 theGerman ”watch on the Yangtze”. By the time the western powers had amassed theirlargest concentration of troops and ships, the troubles in northern China had abatedand, following the relief of Beijing, international cooperation had ended. The rivalry inthe Yangtze valley between mainly Great Britain and Germany became a welcomeexcuse for the German navy to keep a massive fleet in Chinese waters once theBoxers seemed no longer to pose a threat. The goals of the German cruiser squadronwere to protect German interests in the Yangtse valley (as the economically mostpromising 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, andthus to justify the enormous concentration of ships stationed in Chinese waters.

The expedition of German troops and ships should be viewed from the perspective ofnational prestige in the context of German Weltpolitik and through the preservation ofinterests overseas through military power. China at this point was merely the stageupon which was performed this power struggle for the key positions in the Yangtzevalley.

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 roundlycondemmed the Imperial Chinese army in the last decades of the Nineteenth Centuryon the basis of little more than (for the Chinese), the fact that Japan won the war in1894-95 (Germany won a war against France in 1870 but the literature does notcondemn 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 theBoxers. For Western Scholars, analysis of the performance of the Imperial Chinesearmy at this time amounts to no more than sweeping generalisations that the soldierswere "opium sodden" and "inept" and led by "corrupt" and "ignorant" officers. ThoseWestern scholars who hold such views do so on the basis of no acceptable historicalevidence.

This paper opens to question what was appropriate behaviour for a patriotic Chineseloyal to his country in North China in 1900. It agues that by mid-May, the Boxers weretaking towns and destroying the railway in an effort to assume control and prevent thearmy from moving in a way that had nothing whatever to do with their anti-foreign oranti- Christian platforms. They were behaving like any other group of rebelliouspeasants 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 theleadership qualities, the political acuity and the patriotism of a Chinese military leaderin 1900. Moreover, in an environment in which Boxers were killing soldiers, soldierswere 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 eachother, we can read between the lines of General Yang's correspondence and see thatthe rank and file of the former Tenacious Army led by General Nie Shicheng had beenmoulded into a group of fighting soldiers who followed their officers in military situationsof an order of difficulty far greater than that in the fighting experience of the officers andmen of any of the eight invading armies. They demonstrated not only that the on-goingmodernisation of the Chinese army was being successful, not only that both men andofficers had learnt from their experience in the Sino-Japanese war, but also that theyhad achieved something extraordinary; they had imbibed Western military training andgrafted it successfully onto Chinese military thinking.

Both in 1900 and today in all domains and in all disciplines, the Chinese try to selectfrom Western knowledge while retaining their perception of what constitutes Chineseculture. The soldiers who fought under General Nie Shicheng were heroes, they werepatriotic Chinese, they were the nec plus ultra of professional soldiers and they weremodern in their thinking. Their achievement is to be lauded.

James A. FlathDept. of History

University of Western Ontario

Liu Mingjie - a modern peasant?: Viewing the Boxer Uprising through nianhuaprint

Abstract

Liu Mingjie (1857-1911) was a peasant and part-time print maker in Yangjiabu - aShandong village famous for printing nianhua (New Year woodblock prints). Amonghis many colleagues, Liu Mingjie's art stands out as the first known instance in which aYangjiabu printer broke from symbolic representation and chronicled contemporarypolitical events. His contributions to visual culture show that by the turn of the centuryresidents of the North China village had begun to accept that an 'event' could have avisual expression distinct from the ritual and theatre that had always dominatednianhua 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 andcreated a market for printed commentary. Liu Mingjie capitalized on these sentimentsby 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 thedevelopment 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 HarrisonLeeds

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 centralShanxi. By examining the dates and locations of rumours I show that the ideas thatstarted the Boxer activities arrived in Shanxi along the main route into Zhili provinceand not from Governor Yu Xian in Taiyuan city. Rumours of Christian sorcery and thatChristians were poisoning wells led to panic, the guarding of wells, and the occasionalmurder of people suspected of being Christians. They did not at forst constitute ageneral attack on Christians in the province: indeed the people suspected of being wellpoisoners were often merely vagrants. In some areas where there was strong localgovernment Boxer activities never went beyond these sporadic murders.

However, two of the counties studied, Taiyuan and Xugou, had sizeable andlongstanding Catholic populations and weak administrative control. In these countiesBoxer groups formed armies of several hundred men who attacked Catholic villages,burned churches and massacred villagers. In response Catholic villagers armedthemselves and hired mercenaries from outside the province. Several full scale battlestook place with one village, Dongergou, holding out succesfully against assaults by fourdifferent Boxer forces. An examination of events in these villages suggests that we mayneed to rethink the current consensus that conflicts between Christians and non-Christians arose primarily within the village setting over such issues as communalprayers for rain or levies raised for opera performances. Major Boxer violence in ruralShanxi did not involve fighting within any single village, but rather attacks by largenumbers of people from one village on the Christian population of another. Indeednon-Catholic villagers were sometimes suspected of trying to protect their Catholicneighbours. Land Reform and the consequent debate about the existence of class inrural China before 1949 has too often blinded us to the importance of powerrelationships between village communities rather than within them. In this paper I arguethat the way in which the Boxers organised and the villages they chose to attacksuggest that the primary problem with Catholicism in rural China was that the presenceof the missionaries and of church structures disrupted the existing hierarchy ofrelationships between villages that was organised and negotiated through themanagement oftemple rituals.

Finally I argue that the events of the summer of 1900 show the beginnings ofthe collapse of what Prasenjit Duara has called the "cultural nexus of power". It hasbeen all too readily assumed that the Boxer slogan of "Support the Qing and Destroythe Foreign!" was a simple statement of support for the government. In Shanxi thisstatement was always accompanied by another: "Implement the Way for Heaven!" Theimplication ofthe two slogans together is that the government has failed to "implementthe Way". Ambiguities within the central government over the need for reform versusthe need to resist the foreigners were reflected at local level. Local magistrates whosympathised with the Boxers' aim of enforcing the previously accepted culturallegitimation of power were in a weak position when Boxer groups mocked officials andundermined the officials' own power. This weakness and their consequent failure toinvestigate the murders of Christians by Boxers marked the beginning of a completecollapse of the legal system which lasted for at least three years. The indemnitieswhich followed the Boxers killings were imposed at a local level as fines for supportingwhat 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 thelegitimacy ofthe Qing dynasty within rural communities.

James L. HeviaUniversity 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 whatone observer described as a "carnival of loot." Private homes of imperial princes, thecompounds of wealthy residents of Beijing, and imperial palaces were all sacked. Thelooting continued well into the occupation of the city in the following year. Although theplundering itself had much in common with the Anglo-French joint expedition into thesame area in 1860, there were a number of significant differences between the twoepisodes.

This paper will explore those differences by addressing a number of overlappingdevelopments. After providing a brief overview of the characteristics of plunder in 1860and some obvious contrasts with 1900, I will focus on developments in European,North American, and Chinese art markets between 1860 and 1900; the changingattitudes in Europe and North America toward plunder in times of warfare; thecirculation and representations of Qing imperial objects in Western museums andprivate collections; and the growth of new knowledge about Chinese art. The results ofthese explorations will then be brought to bear to address questions about the patternsof looting in and around Beijing in 1900. From this, it will be possible to draw certainconclusions not only about the general nature of plunder in the age of Europeanempire, but the specific meanings or significance it had for the participants.

Richard HorowitzCalifornia State University, Northridge

"The Architecture of a Modern State: The End of the Zongli Yamen and theOrigins of Ministerial Government in China"

Abstract

This paper deals with the transformation of the Six Boards, and similar organizationslike the Zongli Yamen into the more familiar European ministerial/cabinet structureduring the Xinzheng reforms. Where the Qing system before the Boxer uprising tendedto spread authority into many hands, the ministerial system was perceived by Qingreformers as a way to more clearly assign roles, and establish individual responsibilityof ministers to accellerate the reform process. It was also, very significantly, a way ofmaking the Qing state conform to Western expectations of what state institutionsshould 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 uprisingand the response by Qing authorities to its humiliating conclusion. The 1901transformation 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 istrue in part, it was also related to an emerging domestic critique of the limitations of theold central bureaucracy. Moreover, this reform was not simply a change of name andchange of position on the government's protocol list. The 1901 transformation involveda significant internal restructuring of the Zongli Yamen to establish a clearorganizational hierarchy with a single responsible president on top. Over the next fewyears the bureau's role was narrowed to focus on diplomatic relations, and many ofeconomic and financial roles previously held by the Zongli Yamen are shifted to otheragencies. The process transformed the Zongli Yamen, an office with extraordinarilybroad areas of activity, into a much more narrowly defined foreign office alongEuropean lines.

The 1906 central government reforms extended these developments to the rest of thecentral state bureauclcy by explicitly duplicating the waiwubu's organizational structurein each of the other central government ministries. In doing so, the Qing state moveddramatically in the direction of the European Ministerial/Cabinet model.

These reforms are particularly significant in that they outlasted the Qing dynasty. Thegovernments of the early Republic, the Guomindang and the PRC perpetuated theministerial/cabinet system and continues to the present. In a short, the adoption of theministerial system in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising marks the end of the lateimperial system, and the beginning of China's internalization of foreign norms of stateorganization.

Frank H H KingUniversity 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 ahistorical point of reference, a dividing point, without causal factors being necessarilyascribed. The Boxers faded into the North China scene, but they left China to thewrath of the Powers and an uncertain economic heritage perhaps best characterizedby 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 expertpresentation 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 wasalready 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 itfrom evidence always immediately before them.

The Uprising was over, the Protocol signed, and relations back to ‘normal’.Attention might now focus on China’s modernization, on Asia’s future, but for oneobstacle. 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 throughWorld War II. Passing through various stages, including recalculations, remissions,remittance, postponements, and various forms of both foreign and Chinese end-usecontrols, the Boxer Indemnity remained a partly misunderstood but emotion-packedirritant, frustrating foreign reformers and Chinese nationalists alike.

If the Indemnity is the thread holding the theme of this paper, reinforcing in theirconsequences 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 theapparently wealthy concessions in Shansi and Honan. Fear of the Boxers left theshares to the underwriters, the later sell-off resulted in eventual French control, and thewhole balance of post-Boxer financial arrangements among the Powers came underthreat. With control of the Syndicate, French interests were ready to challenge theinternational China consortium, placing the Franco-Chinese Banque Industrielle in aposition to destabilize the plans designed to retain China’s credit-worthiness despitethe burden of the Indemnity.

The two themes Indemnity and Pekin Syndicate lock together post war as thebank collapses in scandal and the French attempt to salvage both the bank and theirprestige with funds from the Boxer Indemnity.

Between 1908 and 1925 various of the Powers, embarrassed by the excessesof the Indemnity in relation to actual damage sustained, sought to reduce the burdenon China. But there was no uniform pattern or timing; each negotiation had its ownhesitation or ulterior motive interwoven with a genuine desire to benefit China. TheFrench and then the Italians had their banks, the British had their supervisorycommittees, and the Americans looked over the Chinese shoulders from far off. Eventhe beneficiaries themselves carried the name; they were Boxer Indemnity scholars,and my own university benefited from a Boxer grant. So confused did the situationbecome that China’s most unpopular debt became China’s preference for repaymentshould funds be lacking to meet all scheduled requirements.

To the extent that Boxer Indemnity payments became an uncommitted incomeflow, they could also provide credit for a new series of loans, new controversies, andnew defaults. The official China Consortium, which the Chinese made every effort tothwart, was finally undermined by, of all the unexpected, promised payment of theBoxer Indemnity.

A complete study would include the fate of individual businessmen of the early1900s, of other companies diverted by the events, the failure of China investment tointerest 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 brieflyto these last mentioned items, will take out of the maze the changing fate of the PekinSyndicate and the actual course of the Indemnity to illustrate the lasting impact of theBoxer Uprising. In PR terms, ‘Boxer’ had ‘name recognition’, it was known by itsindemnity, it remained before the public to reinterpret and to mould to many politicalpurposes.

Dr. Susanne Kuss (Freiburg, Germany)

Elements of a War of Extermination during the Boxer Urprising: German andEnglish Soldiers in China

Abstract

By definition the main aim of a war of extermination is not victory but the completeannihilation of the enemy. This includes large scale killings of soldiers as well ascivilians, murdering prisoners of war, purposefully starving the population, and partisanwarfare - 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 situationgetting out of hand so that the difference between fighting, and killing, the enemy andrandom atrocities gets blurred. Even if this argument seems to describe a part ofhuman 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 termimplies explicit military orders from above as well as the individual soldier’s willingnessto carry out those orders. Extermination means wilfully crossing the threshold of man’snatural physical and psychological inhibitions to kill.

Basically, German warfare in China was not crueller than the one of the otherforeign troops. What makes the difference, however, is the fact that it started only afterChina 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 feltthe pressure to make a stand as a colonial power itself. So there was ‘normal colonialwar business’ on the one side and the necessity to overcome the Chinese challengesuccessfully on the other side. What with the increasing tensions between England andGermany 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 mentality3) Atrocities: Law, orders, and legitimacy 4) Relevance of the „Chinese experience“: Theory and practice

Dr Monika LehnerVienna University

The Austro-Hungarian perception of the shifting alliances after the internationalIntervention to suppress the „Boxer-Movement“

Abstract

The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary had always been focussed on European affairsand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to deal primarily with Germany and Russia, thetwo 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 otherparts of the world – and especially in East Asia, where the network of legations andconsular 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-Hungary’s engagement in theAllied operations to suppress the Boxer Movement was not to broaden her influence inAsia, but to secure her position in Europe. The other European Powers (France, GreatBritain, Russia and Germany) did not consider Austria-Hungary a rival in the „Strugglefor 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 variousconventions/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 concerningEuropean 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-Japanesetreaty? My paper will show the enourmous effects of the Allied intervention in China (the firstmulti-national intervention abroad) in re-shaping the interplay of forces in Europeanpolitics.

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, theso-called ‘three persecutions of the heretics’ received great attention from all levels ofsociety. It was even then said that the Boxers were really betraying their predecessorsby persecuting the White Lotus Sect (Bailianjiao), because they were thought to havederived from the Eight Trigrams Sect (Baguajiao), and thus shared a common root withthe White Lotus Sect. This perception gives rise to some interesting questions: Werethe persecutions really conducted by the Boxers? Were the victims really the followersof the White Lotus Sect? Is it really true that the Boxers shared a common origin withthe White Lotus Sect?

To answer the question whether the Boxers and the White Lotus Sect camefrom the same root (or whether the Boxers originated from the White Lotus Sect), weshould first have a look at the development of the White Lotus Sect itself. Establishedin 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 longtime. Its founder, the Buddhist monk Mao Ziyuan (d. 1166), set up the White LotusPenance 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 LotusTradition (the famours monk Huiyuan of the Eastern Jin dynasty), it was later alsocalled the ‘White Lotus Sect’. However, by the end of Yuan dynasty, the sect'steachings had been completely modified. Instead of Mituo (Buddha Amitabha) it nowworshiped Mile (Buddha Maitreya), and advocated overthrowing the old government inthe name of the "sage king". Thus, while the original teachings, together with the oldWhite Lotus Sect, had disappeared almost entirely out of sight, many new sectsappeared in northern China in mid-Ming to early Qing, such as the Luojiao and theWumingjiao. These new sects, differing greatly from the old White Lotus Society in boththeir worship and their teachings, are frequently referred to as the "neo-popular sects ofthe Ming and Qing dynasties". On the other hand, though in decline after middle MingDynasty, 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 sectsthat did not share these ideas. But as the rulers at that time could not tell which waswhich, they were generally assumed to be part of the White Lotus Sect whichaccordingly 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 martialunits as the Amour of the Golden Bell (Jinzhongzhao), Plum Flower Boxers(Meihuaquan), Red Fists (Hongquan), Spirit Boxers (Shenquan), etc. Some of themserved as the martial branches of sects, while others were merely associated with asect. Accordingly, the latter martial arts groups cannot be equated with the EightTrigrams Sect or the White Lotus Sect. It was only after some martial groups —

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headed by the "qian" and "kan" — had moved into the central and southeastern partsof Zhili province, including Beijing and Tianjin, that they assumed some of thecharacteristics of a sect. Since the "kan" derived from the Kan Trigram Sect (Kanguajiao), and the "qian" from the Li Trigram Sect (Ligua jiao), they can be regarded as theremnants of the Eight Trigrams Sect. At the same time, the teachings of the EightTrigrams Sect contained the secret "true words" ‘Maitreya our Lord’, which were indeeda remnant of the White Lotus teachings. It was, therefore, acceptable for the commonpeople to call them a remnant of the White Lotus Sect.

As to the three groups of ‘heretics’ that had suffered the persecutions in Beijing in1900, two of them, according to evidence in the First Historical Archives, belonged tothe Teachings of Saints and Sages (Shengxian dao); while the third one, in theabsence of concrete evidence, can be deduced also to have come from that sectariantradition. The Shengxian sect had come from one of the two Ligua sects, namely LiuGong's branch which first appeared in 1813, and which had gradually replaced theEight Trigrams as the leading sectarian group in North China. Liu Gong's Ligua sectand 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 stepstowards feudalization. In contrast with the Boxers idea of "supporting the Qinggovernment to fight against the foreigners", the Shengxian sect fought against Qinggovernment, 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 andSages. 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 todestroy the fleet of the foreign invaders. And though he failed, he still secured hispromotion from the Qing government. The Shengxian sect and the Jiugong sect wereborn from the same root, and both were important organizations in Northern China inlate Qing Dynasty. But their destinies were quite different, with one honored and theother extinguished. Among these historical facts, one thing is certain: neither of thesetwo sects would cooperate with the Boxers.

The three persecutions had in fact been conducted by the feudal government, thatis, the Office of the Gendarmerie. The first group of victims included 10 eunuchs aswell as some officials. They were handed over to the Gendarmerie by Zailan (DukeLan) as soon as he found them in his own palace. Immediately, many of the leaders ofthe sects were arrested outside the Yongding Gate by the Beijing Gendarmerie, andthe Boxers, who were at that time in charge of the Chongwen Gate, were appointed toarrest the heretics there. The reason why Zaiyi (Prince Duan) and Zaixun (PrinceZhuang) arrested the secret sect may be twofold. First, they wanted to show theirloyalty 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 theygave the Boxers a warning for disregarding the Qing government's order, andencouraged 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 uneasyBoxers) would be attacked from both sides, with the attack from the Qing governmentelaborately disguised. From this we can see that the Boxers were doomed, they couldhardly avoid their own tragedy.

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Ben MiddletonCornell University

Scandals of Imperialism: Kōtoku Shūsui, the Yorozu Chōhō and Japanesecritiques 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 tothe development of critiques of imperialism by writers like Kōtoku Shūsui (1871-1911).Kōtoku, a journalist, activist and poet, is most famous for his socialist/pacifist oppositionto the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), his later popularisation of a Kropotkinesque‘anarchism of direct action’ (chokusetsu kōdō no museifugshugi) and his being framedand executed in 1911 for allegedly plotting to assassinate the Emperor Meiji (in thetaigyaku jiken or High Treason Incident). However, Kōtoku 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 midwaythrough the Boxer War, Kōtoku was the purveyor of a hawkish imperialism based onrealpolitische calculation. From early 1898 when he joined the staff of the YorozuChōhō, the most successful Tokyo newspaper of the day, Kōtoku wrote a slew ofarticles designed to further what he represented as the interests of the Japanese stateon 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 thefront began sending back reports not only of excesses by Japanese forces, but also ofabuses and corruption within the Japanese army. In response to the trauma of suchdisclosures, Kōtoku began developing a critique of both Japanese desire for empire,and western imperialism in East Asia. This culminated in the publication in 1901 ofImperialism: 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 inEnglish radical liberalism, especially the ideas of John Mackinnon Robertson, a friendand associate in Radical circles of John Atkinson Hobson. It was from a furtherradicalization of this liberalism that a serious engagement with socialism and anti-war-ism (hisensōshugi) began in Japan.

Such radical opposition politics received a tremendous boost when the Yorozu Chōhōbroke the story of the Bateigin jiken or Horseshoe Silver Incident from late 1901 toearly 1902. Published in fifty installments under the heading, ‘The Scandal of thePlunder of North China’ (Hokushin bundori no kaibun), these articles, the product of afine piece of investigative journalism by Kōtoku, Sakai Toshihiko, Taoka Reiun andUchimura Kanzō, exposed pillaging during the Boxer campaign by Japanese ImperialArmy officers, and their repatriation of stolen loot back to Japan. The story caused asensation, seriously embarrassed the army, and collapsed the facade of the strictdiscipline of the Meiji state. Yet, for all the effort expended by the Yorozu Chōhō, thereports met with utter indifference on the part of the government and the army.Although the Yorozu Chōhō was therefore unable to claim a political victory, thescandal played an important role in militarism and imperialism becoming key sites ofstruggle for the opposition movement led by the Heiminsha or Commoners’ Societyfrom 1903. This paper will thus examine the political philosophies underlying thechanging representations of the Boxer War and the imperialist project in the pages ofthe Yorozu Chōhō, paying particular attention to conceptions of minzoku (race), nationand empire, while emphasising the role of transnational flows of knowledge andrepresentations of empire.

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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 SaiJinhua (c. 1872 - 1936) has been related to the events of 1900/01 notably in regard toher presumed diplomatic skills in handling “affairs of national importance". Up to mostrecent years, Chinese writers have credited her with having been "instrumental ... inresolving 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 crucialhistorical 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 wasinstrumentalised in its turn to serve political ends. And if the myth of Sai Jinhua hasproved until now to be astonishingly resistant against all attempts of deconstruction, itcan be all the more considered as a singular, yet typical, example of widespreadpopular misconception of historical reality.

Klaus MühlhahnFree University of Berlin

Religious Exclusions: Interactions between German Missionaries and LocalChinese Society in Shandong in the Wake of the Boxer Uprising.

Abstract

The origins of the Boxer uprising are multi-fold. Historical scholarship so far uncoveredcultural, psychological, political, social, economic and environmental factorscontributing to the rise of the Boxers. However, besides speaking of an overall cultureconflict, the complex interactions between missionaries, Chinese converts and theboxers have not been assigned a central place in this scholarship. To focus on socialand symbolic interactions has far-reaching methodological consequences: The socialand religious encounters between missionaries and local society are viewed as anongoing, dynamic process. This process constantly produced and modified perceptionsof the social world, symbolic interpretations, religious orientations and patterns of socialbehavior. For a fuller and more accurate understanding of the Boxer-Christian conflict itseems important to reflect on the way the missionary movement and Chinese societywere reacting to each other on a micro-historical level. Applying approaches derivedfrom social anthropology, the diversity, complexity and practical logic of the encounterscan be described.

Shandong was the home of the Boxers. Since 1881 the southern part of that provincewas 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 inchurch schools they had a deep faith in Christian teachings. Almost all shared theconviction of the necessity of martyrdom for a successful spread of Catholicism inChina. The German missionaries were what today would be called religiousfundamentalists. Their vision of Christianity was attractive above all to members of

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religious sects in rural South Shandong. Within two years, Christian communities cameinto being in several villages. Religion dominated everyday life in the newly foundedChristian communities: daily common prayers, frequent church services, publicconfession and penance, baptisms, consecrations, exorcism. Parallel to the growing ofChristian communities, conflicts between Christians and non-Christians arose. Thecauses for the conflicts mostly reached back in the time before the arrival of themissionaries. For protecting their interests vis-a-vis the Christians, Non-Christiansstarted to look for a way to organize themselves. Through reviving and spreadingfighting techniques, a loose organization with the name Big Sword Society (dadao hui)emerged. As being the case with the Christian communities, religion played a dominantrole in the Big Sword Society, too: daily deep-breathing exercises, recitation of magicalformulas, swallowing of charms, worship of ghosts and gods. As a result, socialconflicts between Christian and Non-Christian communities were transformed intoreligious conflicts. Every side increasingly adopted a exclusionist stance, i.e. that theown religious convictions were completely incompatible with and hostile to that of theother side. Thus peasants in the villages now were asked to make a exclusive choicebetween the two different religious systems. Interaction between these two forces overthe course of time thus led to a boost of religious activities in rural South-Shandong - atendency never seen before.

The conclusion focuses on two points: First, the growing role of religion in the ruralworld in Shandong in the 1890’s is an important factor leading to the Boxer-movement,which therefore has to be understood as a religious conflict. Secondly, thisdevelopment also explains the policy of Chinese authorities in Shandong after 1900.The campaign against popular religion and the policy of secularization were reactionsto the expansion of religious activities in the wake of the Boxer-uprising.

T.G. OtteUniversity 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 government’s reactionto the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising. In so doing it will examine the conduct andcourse of British policy in China. More importantly, however, it will also discuss thewider significance of the ‘China crisis’ for British foreign policy.

The importance of the Boxer episode for China’s development in the twentiethcentury has been given wide coverage by historians; and, of course, the ‘Siege atPeking’ has never lost its fascination for Western audiences. Surprisingly, however, theBoxer 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 Chinain the summer of 1900, more than the Boer War, led to the ‘end of isolation’ in Britishforeign policy. The Boxer crisis forced many leading members of Lord Salisbury’sgovernment to reconsider their outlook on Britain’s international position. The crisis of1900 led to the formation of a coherent and vociferous group of ministers disaffectedwith Salisbury’s conduct of foreign policy. In reaction to Britain’s perceived weaknessrevealed by the events in East Asia this group forced on the reluctant Salisbury theirown anti-isolationist agenda. This paper, then, will followBritish policy in China as well as metropolitan ‘high politics’.

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Roger R. ThompsonStanford University

Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre: Politics and Culture in the China War of 1900

Abstract

The graphic account of Shanxi governor Yuxian’s cold-blooded murder of forty-fiveforeigners, including women and children, in the outer courtyard of his governmentcompound in the provincial capital of Taiyuan on 9 July 1900 has served as perhapsthe defining representation of the madness of the Chinese state in the midst of theBoxer Uprising. From Arthur Smith’s China in Convulsion (1901) and H. B. Morse’sInternational Relations of the Chinese Empire (1918) to Peter Fleming’s The Siege atPeking (1959), Sterling Seagrave’s The Soong Dynasty (1985) and Dragon Lady(1992), Nat Brandt’s Massacre in Shansi (1994) and Diana Preston’s Besieged inPeking (1999) there appears, usually in an extended quotation, the same account ofthe Taiyuan massacre.

This paper addresses the following sets of questions: 1) What is theprovenance of this long-lived story? Is it credible? Did the British evangelical traditioninfluence this particular representation of the Taiyuan Massacre and its subsequentreception? 2) What were the other versions of this event? What does the relativeweight given to each version in diplomatic, military, missionary, and government circlestell us about Western objectives as well as factional politics within Chinese officialdom?3) How reliable is Boxer-year documentation for Shanxi? What standards should beused in making this assessment? 3) Can a convincing narrative of events in Shanxifor 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-widecontext?

Sources used for this paper include treaty-port newspapers published in Tianjinand Shanghai, Western diplomatic archives, Western and Chinese martyrologies, andChinese government documents such as provincial reports and imperial edicts.

R. G. TiedemannUniversity of London

The Church Militant: Armed Conflicts between Boxers and Christians in NorthChina

Abstract

As is well known, Chinese Christians bore the brunt of the violent Boxer attacks in thespring and summer of 1900. Throughout North China, several thousand converts werekilled, their property either taken or destroyed, and their churches and chapels razed inthe course of this bloody episode. What is less well known is that in spite of thesewidespread persecutions a number of Christian communities in Shandong, Zhili andShanxi successfully withstood sieges and repulsed attacks. This paper seeks toexplore the circumstances of and background to Christian militancy during the BoxerUprising. Part I consists of narrative accounts of some of the more prominentconfrontations, including brief coverage of the one case of Christian resistance thatwent disastrously wrong, namely the Zhujiahe incident in Zhili province in which over

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2,000 converts lost their lives. Part II examines the origin of Christian communityfortification and the development of self-defence organizations. Particular attention ispaid to contextual factors. It is argued that Christian militancy was an integral part ofthe prevalent culture of violence in the border districts on the North China Plain. Herelocal inhabitants had been long accustomed to pursuing, in the words of ElizabethPerry, protective and predatory survival strategies.

Although part of a local tradition of community defence, Christians could alsorely on the external support of missionaries. This essay devotes, therefore, somespace to the inherently aggressive nature of Christian proselytization, with particularattention 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 involvementin 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 InnerMongolia. The essay concludes with the assertion that Christian self-defence was aproduct of both endogenous and exogenous circumstances.

Jeffrey N. WasserstromIndiana University

The Boxers for Children

Abstract

This paper will look at representations of the Boxer Uprising and its after effects (suchas the campaign of suppression and reprisal launched by foreign troops) in textintended for young readers. Both Chinese and Western language works will beconsidered, as well as a combination of written and pictorial texts, as well as ones thatcombine words and images. The piece will range over time from the era of the eventitself (illustrated magazines’ portrayals, for example) up through the 1920s (schoolprimers, for example) to the present (e.g., a pair of cartoon histories of modern Chinapublished in the PRC in 1998). Some works considered will be ones that weredesigned to be read or looked at by adults (particularly semi-literate ones) as wellyouths but all will be ones for whom it is almost certain that children or teen-agers werepart of the intended audience. The goal of the paper will be to see what newdimensions can be added to the discussion of the Boxers as positive or negativelycharged symbol in works ranging from Harold Isaacs’ Scratches on our Minds (firstpublished in 1958) to Paul Cohen’s recent History in Three Keys -- simply by lookingclosely (as no one to date seems to have done) at the way the events of 1900 havebeen conveyed to young people inside and outside of China. The paper will also try toconnect recent works on children’s literature and the way ideas about nationalism areshaped by schoolbooks to scholarship on the Boxer Uprising as a mythologized event.

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Anand A. YangUniversity of Utah

(A) Subaltern('s) Boxers: An Indian Soldier's Account of China and the World in1900

Abstract

This paper is based on a reading of a travel/autobiographical memoir of an Indiansoldier who spent thirteen months as a member of largely Indian-manned Britishmilitary force that participated in the International Expedition. His eyewitness accountof the Boxer "uprising" is rich not only for its details of the "war" itself but also ofexisting social and economic conditions. Furthermore, it greatly complicates the storyof the international context of the "war" by raising issues of class, race, nationality, andcolonialism that surfaced as a result of his experiences as a colonial subject fighting awar against fellow Asians on behalf of his colonial masters.