From the Taiping Rebellion to the Boxer Uprising

 

In 1842 the Treaty of Nanjing was signed between the British and the Qing governments. In subsequent years other foreign powers like France, Russia, Holland, and the US (1844) signed comparable treaties which all included:

1. The principle of extraterritoriality: foreign subjects living or working in China like merchants, sailors, missionaries, and diplomats were subject to their home countries’ law instead of Chinese law.
2. The principle that no nation was to be favored with privileges. If China granted special trade conditions to one nation, now all other foreign powers profited by automatically winning the same rights.
   

Many more ‘treaty ports’ were opened to the imperialist powers that shared all privileges.

The intrusion of the Western powers and the opium wars caused psychological and political disruptions. The image of China as the Middle Kingdom, the Center of the World, was replaced by an image of a damaged empire.

Partly the Western powers were made responsible for the disruptions, partly the Qing government was seen as a corrupt foreign power, incapable of keeping China free from the intruding West.

The Taiping movement under Hong Xiuquan 

Hong Xiuquan, a Chinese of Hakka descent who had been influenced by the teachings of Christian missionaries and who repeatedly failed to pass the state examinations, suffered from mental exhaustion after one of the exams. In a dream he experienced visitations by God and Jesus, whom he recognized as his older brother, and who told him to establish a ‘heavenly kingdom’ in China.

Thereupon Hong and a close friend founded the Society of God Worshippers who were organized in the 'Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace', a state-like organization with the capital Nanjing, who followed an utopian ideology of

1. social and gender egalitarianism (members lived in puritan single-sex communities instead of families)
2. communal landownership
   The overthrow of Manchu rule in China was the unifying goal aimed at by Hong’s followers.
   

The Qing army was too weak to fight the Taiping followers by themselves. Almost a quarter of the Chinese population, ca. 100 Mio. people, were followers of Hong Xiuquan at the peak of his power. The Taiping rebels controlled the heartland of China: parts of Hunan and Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanxi provinces.

To fight the Taiping the Qing mobilized Chinese troops under the leadership of provincial military leaders and jointly they defeat Hong’s troops in the end.

Although Hong claimed to be a Christian and even Jesus’ younger brother, his role was not convincing to the Western powers who saw him as a religious fanatic, not a possible ally of Christian faith.

 

The confrontation with the western powers, with the Taiping rebels, and China’s defeat in the war against Japan (1894-1895; led to China’s loss of control over Korea) entailed considerations of reforms among Qing politicians.

 

It was planned that the reforms would have to include the government system (a new ministry dealing with the foreign powers), the army (equipment with new western weapons and military technology), the education system (including translations of foreign technical works and teaching foreign languages), etc.

For a hundred days young emperor Guangxu received permission from the State Council and Empress Dowager Cixi to test reforms. The reforms failed because Manchu nobles and Chinese officials equally objected to the reforms: they feared the loss of control and power as well as the loss of their privileges.

 

The reform movement was suppressed and many prominent reformers fled to Japan.

In the meantime the Boxers, a martial arts movement concentrated in Shandong province, followed the idea of purifying society from foreign influence. Empress dowager Cixi cleverly decided to support this movement: - in this way the Manchu government could no longer identified by the boxers as one of the foreign dominating powers that had to be eliminated. The Boxers marched to Beijing and confronted the Western powers by besieging the diplomatic quarter in the capital for 55 days. The Western powers sent an army composed of members of all eight imperialist countries present in China at the time to Beijing which defeated the Boxers and occupied Beijing.

China again had to pay major sums of indemnities to the western powers for supporting the Boxers instead of sending the army against them in defense of the diplomatic quarter.

Thus the Qing government was even more discredited: in the eyes of the Western powers but more importantly in the eyes of the Chinese population.

Several Chinese intellectuals engaged in new reform plans and especially in the establishment of a new government: either as a constitutional monarchy or as a republic.
Under the leadership of Sun Yatsen, the Revolutionary League (Tongmeng hui) engages in anti-Manchu activities. Sun internationally promotes the founding of a Republic in China, to replace the weak and incapable Manchu rule. The Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911 and the Republic of China was founded in 1912, with the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) receiving the majority of seats in the first Chinese election to a provisionary assembly.