Proposal

PROPOSAL:

Chinese Nationalism and the Boxer Rebellion

At the turn of last century, Northern China experienced a proto-nationalist uprising. At this time, China was a weak and vulnerable state which had come under the influence of a number of western countries. These countries had successfully established representative delegations in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, imposing the diplomatic and commercial interests of multiple western powers including countries such as Great Britain and the United States. **( ****Esherick, J. 1987) ****. ** They successfully coerced the Chinese imperial government into providing various economic and political concessions, favouring the western powers.

Accompanying the western delegations were large numbers of Christian missionaries who successfully established Christian churches and converted Chinese civilians to Christianity. This was seen by many members of Chinese society to be an invasion of their country and traditional Chinese belief system based on Confucianism (**Ch'ên, Jerome, 1960 ****) **. These factors and others such as opium trading contributed to the “Boxer Uprising” or “Boxer Rebellion”, which occurred between 1898 and 1901. T he Uprising was originally initiated by a violent Chinese cultural movement called ‘ 义 和 团’//(// //The Society of Righteous Fists’),// or ‘//Boxers’ //. The movement was against Christianity and missionary evangelism, and many other forms of foreign influence. This uprising culminated with ‘The Siege of Beijing’ in June 1900. This siege lasted 55 days and was lifted when a large military force drawn from the eight western nations (known as the Eight-Nation Alliance) abolished the rebellion. It was a humiliating defeat for the Chinese imperial government and a major victory for the western powers (**Lynn Bodin, 1979) ****. **

The source we chose to illustrate the Boxer Rebellion is an American painting focusing on one aspect of the siege of Beijing in 1900. The painting is a patriotic American portrayal of the arrival of US forces to lift the siege, and shows the American flag flying from the ramparts of the foreign quarter in Beijing. The painting is romantic and heroic because the US government believed that the defeat of the rebels was a major victory and opened China to further US influence.