Late Qing Crisis
HI 168: Lecture 4
Dr. Howard Chiang
Empress
Dowager Cixi
Zongli Yamen
The Changing Context
1861: Zongli Yamen
1864: international law
1873: foreign audience no kowtow
1876: diplomatic missions
Universal empire (天下) to nation-state
(國家)
• Western perception – Mutiny of 1857 in
India -> British policy in China changed
to moderation (gradual decline)
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Sino-French War (1884-85)
Tributary Retraction
Losing Vietnam: Sino-French War (1884-1885)
- realists (Li Hongzhang) vs. pro-war faction
- afterward: final phase of the “self-strengthening
movement” (1885-1895)
Losing Korea (Origins): Li-Ito Convention (1884)
- after Japan annexed Okinawa in 1879
- Each country promised to notify the other if it was
planning to send forces in the future
Losing Taiwan: First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)
- July 23, 1894, Japanese captured Seoul
Ito Hirobumi
Li Hongzhang
Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)
Treaty of Shimonoseki
• April 17, 1895: China recognizes
independence of Korea
• China cedes to Japan Taiwan and the
Liaodong Peninsula
- Triple Intervention (Russia, Germany,
and France)
• 200-300 million taels indemnity
• China is to grant Japan (replacing
Britain) the most-favored-nation
treatment
“Carving up the Chinese Mellon”
Russian Interest: Russia monopolized special status in Beijing until
the Treaty of Tianjin in 1860 – insisted that the Qing ceded a million
square km of lands east and north of the Amur River to Russia
(Maritime Province)
Chinese Eastern Railway: cuts through Manchuria
“Carving up the Chinese Mellon”
Germany: 99 yrs Qingdao &
Jiaozhou Port (Mar 1898)
Russia: 25 yrs Port Arthur &
Dalian (Mar 1898)
Russia: South Manchuria
Railway
Britain: 25 yrs Port of Weihai
(Mar 1898)
Britain: 99 yrs New Territories
of Hong Kong (June 1898)
France: 99 yrs Guangzhou
Bay (Apr 1898)
Partitioning of China
- Queen Victoria
- William II (Germany)
- Nicholas II (Russia)
- French Marianne
- Meiji Emperor
1890s
• Growing acceptance of Western knowledge
and values
• Socio-economic transformations came with
treaty settlements – increasing social
mobilization eroding traditional attitudes
• Reformist writings
- the Western ideal of political participation
- the need for change in the central political
institutions of China & prize the West as the
source not only of instrumental/secondary
but also of essential and central values
Kang Youwei
The Book of Great Unity
- philosophical canon
was a forgery
- culturalism to nationalism
Liang Qichao
- ‘grouping’
- democracy
- newspapers
- modern
intelligentsia
Guangxu Emperor
Hundred Days Reform:
June 11-Sept 21, 1898
Yuan Shikai
The Boxer Catastrophe
Context: late 19th-c. resentment at foreign presence
- gentry & local officials concerned with the rivalry of
Christian missionaries
- China’s economic downtown - the availability of
foreign goods, the establishment of Western
businesses and railways, and the circulation of
foreign currency
- heavy taxes levied
Context: domestic natural disasters
- Yellow River flooded 400 villages in Shandong
- severe draught in north China
- popular superstitions blamed foreign presence
The Boxer Catastrophe
The Boxer movement:
- a social explosion that emerged from a culture of
poverty in north China
- name taken from the martial arts “Boxing”
- constituents: young farmers, laborers, unemployed
drifters, and other socially marginalized individuals
- 3 main targets: foreigners, Chinese Christian
converts, & others involved in foreign economic
enterprises
- 1899-1900 spread to Zhili, Henan, Shanxi, and Inner
Mongolia and Manchuria
- lacked central leadership (unlike Taiping rebellion)
- The Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers!!
Eight-Nation Force
Eight-Nation Force
The Boxer Protocol (Sept. 1901)
- Execution and punishment of officials who had
participated in the war
- Suspended the civil service examinations for 5 years
in 45 cities
- Demanded over 2 dozen forts to be demolished
- Expanded legation headquarters
- 2-year prohibition on China’s importation of arms
- Most disastrous: 450 million taels indemnity (the Qing
government’s annual revenue is 88-89 million taels)