Qing China Confronted the West

1. Qing China Confronted the West • Western powers proved to be a formidable threat to Qing government • China began to suffer from another wave of foreign invasion, this time from Europe • The Opium War (1839-1842) – • Cause, burning of opium, Lin Zexu • Defeat by British humiliated Qing government • “Treaty of Nanjing” stipulated China’s war compensation in twelve articles • one says, “The island of Hong Kong to be possessed in perpetuity” by Victoria and her successors, and ruled as they “shall see fit” • British merchants and soldiers entered Canton as a result of its opening as a treaty port were with anti-British attacks by rural militias and urban mobs • Violent attackers were met by British reprisals and reciprocal atrocities • Chinese began to know that British army and navy are superior to China’s

2. More Western Presence • More foreign presence/aggression in China coincided with waves of domestic turbulence, such as the Taiping and Nian • The advance of foreign intrusion • “Second Opium War,” or “Arrow War” (1856-1860) • British moved jointly with the Americans and French to press for treaty revision • Qing search of British ship, “Arrow,” a smuggler’s ship furnished British pretext for a new series of military action • Violent war took place in 1859 before the forts of Dagu, where Qing army was defeated • Twenty thousand British and French troops entered into Bejing, sacked and burnt the Summer Palace, the famous Yuan-ming-yuan, to the ground

3. China Encircled • In the end of 1850’s, Qing China was encircled by foreign powers • Russia in the northwest—invaded Xinjiang • Japan in the east—occupied the Ryukyu Islands • France in the southeast Asia and southeast China—took Vietnam, laid seige to Ningpo, occupied the Penghu Islands (Pescadores)

4. War with Japan • Japan’s sweeping economic and institutional reforms of the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868, made Japan a strong power • Japan’s military expansion resulted in • the annexation of Ryukyus (1879) • seizing Korean palace during its domestic rebellion (1894) • seizing Chinese harbor at Lüshun • Defeating Chinese Northern Fleet (2 battleships, 10 cruisers, 2 torpedo boats (1895) • Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan to Japan “in perpetuity”

5. Late Qing’s Modernization Effort • Both the Taipings and foreign powers pushed the Qing to strengthen itself through modernization: • The Taipings: • Competent governors learned experience from their wars with the Taipings • Foreign powers: • Superiority of western weaponry • The humiliating defeat by Japan in Sino-Japanese war in 1895 • French and British invasion in 1860 forced the Qing to adopt a conciliatory policy toward foreign powers • Leader of more open-minded reformer: Yi Xin and Wen Xiang • The Conservatives in the Qing court blocked the reform • Cixi, Empress Dowager, Yi Huan, Wo Ren

6. China Crucified • During 1898 and 1899, foreign powers intensified their pressures and outrages on China • The Germans occupied Qingdao • The British took over Weihaiwei • Also forced the Qing to lease a large area of fertile farmland on the Kowloon peninsula north of Hong Kong for 99 years, which the British called “The New Territories” • The Russians occupied Lüshun • The French claimed special rights in China’s southwesten provinces and on the island of Hainan • The Japanese, already masters of Taiwan, intensified their economic penetration of central China • The US wanted China to declare an “open door” policy, under the terms of which all countries agree not to deny others access to their spheres of influences • Chinese began to fear that their country was about to be “carved up like a melon” (guafen)

7. The Boxer Uprising (1898-1901) • “The Boxers United in Righteousness” (Yihequan) appeared as an expression of nationalism • Emerged in northwest Shandong in 1898 • A collective force of a variety of secret-society and self-defense units that had spread in southern Shandong previously in response to the provocations of Western missionaries and their Chinese converts • Desperate local farmers and workers plagued by flood and drought joined the force to call for the ending of special privileges enjoyed by Christian converts and Christian missionaries • By 1898, they had destroyed/stolen a good deal of property from Chinese Christians and had killed several converts in the Shandong-Hebei border area • Foreigners, alarmed by the Boxers killing, demanded that the Qing suppress the Boxers and their supporters • The Boxers responded with a slogan, “Revive the Qing, destroy the foreign” • Many boxers believed they were invulnerable to swords and bullets in combat • “when at last the Foreign Devils/Are expelled to the very last man/The Great Qing, united, together/Will bring peace to this our land” –one catchy jingle

8. The Expansion of the Boxers • The Boxers expanded dramatically • 70 percent were poor peasants, male and young • The rest were mixture of itinerants and artisans • Peddlers, rickshaw men, sedan-chair carriers, canal boatmen, leather workers, knife sharpeners, barbers, dismissed soldiers, salt smugglers • Joined by female Boxer groups, such as the Red Lanterns Shining (Hongdeng zhao) • They harassed or killed foreigners and Chinese converts, and sometimes even those possessed foreign objects • The Qing court wavered between punishing the Boxers who killed foreigners and condoning their show of anti-foreign “loyalty”

9. Qing Declaration of War • Western forces seized the forts at Dagu to provide cover for a troop landing, should full-scale war broke out • News of battle at the Dagu ports arrived Beijing, which agitated Qing court and Beijing citizens • German minister was shot dead in the street as he went to an interview with the Zhongli Yamen, which was in charge of foreign affairs • The Boxers force laid siege to the foreign-legation areas • Praising the Boxers as a loyal militia, the empress dowager Cixi issued a “declaration of war” against the foreign powers

10. Full-Scale War • With the government behind them, the Boxers launched a series attacks on mission compounds and on foreigners • In August 1900, the colonial troops of the Allied nations, about 20,000, fought they way through Beijing • Soldiers of eight nations sacked the city and burnt imperial palace, the Forbidden City, and used it as the headquarters for the foreign expeditionary force • Boxer resistance quickly crumbled, hundreds of thousand were killed • More than two hundred foreigners were killed • Empress Dowager and Emperor Guangxu fled to the West, establishing a temporary capital in the city of Xi’an

11. Peace Treaty • A peace treaty known as the Boxer Protocol was signed in 1901 • The Qing agreed to erect monuments to the memory of the more than two hundred Western dead • The Qing to pay an indemnity of 450 million taels (of gold) for damages to foreign life and property ( until the debt was amortized on 12/31/1940, total Chinese payments over the thirty-nine year period would amount to 0.98 billion)

12. Revolution • Qing’s being “carved up like a melon” was a national disgrace, which Han Chinese could not tolerate • Revolutionaries wanted to overthrow the Manchu state “to avenge the national disgrace”, and “to restore the Chinese”