Through the history of China,
it always found itself on the 
civilized end of the nations it 
encountered.  It consistently 
had the more civilized and 
advanced cultures, and prided 
itself on this achievement, 
viewing the outside world as 
"barbarian."  It was this 
attitude coupled with the 
advancements made in Europe 
through the Industrial 
Revolution that heralded the 
Opium Wars throughout the 19th 
century across China.

The first of many conflicts 
began in 1839 as a result of 
disagreements between the 
Chinese and British over the 
importation of opium from India.
China declared war on England in
November of 1839, a war which 
lasted three years, with China 
being beaten handily by the 
British.  China was forced to 
give land concessions (Hong 
Kong), grant trading 
concessions, and pay heavy war 
reparations.  For China, this 
greatly weakened the ruling 
Imperial Court and caused 
general unrest throughout the 
country that eventually led to 
open rebellion in the 1850s.

England and France took 
advantage of the weakened 
Chinese central government, and
by 1860 had managed to force 
their way into Peking.  
Unwilling to sue for peace, the 
Western powers decided to sack 
the Summer Palace, recognizing 
the symbolic importance of the 
structure.  The Treaty of Peking
was signed in October of 1860, 
ceding yet more of China to the 
West.

As internal rebellion continued,
China began to rely more and 
more on foreign training to 
subdue its civil unrest.  
Mercenaries from America 
(Frederick Townsend Ward) and 
Britain (Charles Gordon) trained
the Chinese troops that cleared
through areas around Shanghai, 
Tzeki, Soochow, and Taiping.  
The rebellions culminated with 
the latter, the Taiping 
Rebellion, and was finally put 
down on July 10, 1864, with the 
fall of Nanking.  It is 
estimated that over 20 million 
people died in the civil unrest
throughout China between 1850 
and 1864.

The next great crisis to face 
China was an undeclared war with
France between 1883 and 1885.  
The French began a course of 
expansion in southern China, and
launched a series of successful 
raids against the Chinese.  The 
fate of the battles soon turned 
against the French, however, as 
China handed them a series of 
defeats, allowing them to 
recapture the territory it had 
lost in Formosa and the 
Pescadores.  For the first time,
China had beaten a Western 
power.

Throughout this same period, 
Japan was avoiding the 
interventions faced by China.
This freedom from foreign 
influence allowed Japan to 
transform from a medieval 
society to a modern industrial 
power within a matter of 50 
years.  At the end of the 
Japanese civil war in 1868, 
Japan embarked on a shipbuilding
and industrialization program 
modeled after the European 
powers; by 1894, they were ready
to copy the Western Imperialism,
as well.

Japan chose Korea as its first 
objective.  In 1894, Japan 
landed troops in the northwest 
portion of Korea - China replied
by moving troops by sea to the 
area.  The Chinese expedition 
encountered Japanese warships 
off the Yalu river, decimating
the Chinese fleet.  By April of 
1895, China was forced to sue 
for peace, relinquishing Korea, 
Formosa, the Pescadores, and the
Liaotung Peninsula to Japan.

The pinnacle of the Chinese 
resentment was reached in what 
came to be known as the Boxer 
Rebellion.  A fanatical secret 
sect called the Society of 
Righteous Harmonious Fists 
(Boxers) turned their hatred 
from the Imperial Court to the 
foreigners that were taking 
advantage of China.  Reeling 
from a series of natural 
disasters (crop failures, 
floods), the Boxers took hold 
of the unrest throughout the 
countryside and gave the masses 
a focal point for their 
frustration - drive out the 
invaders.

The Boxers took control of 
Tientsin on June 15, 1900.  
Imperial troops mined the harbor
and seized the railway to 
indicate their support for the 
rebellion, forcing the West to 
demand entry or risk war.  On 
the 17th, the British, French, 
and Germans stormed the forts at
Tientsin and captured them; at 
the same time, Chinese troops 
began an assault on the 
International Settlement at 
Tientsin, and the Boxers began 
a siege of the Legation Quarter 
at Peking.  The Chinese 
government officially declared 
war on the Western powers on 
June 21st.

By July 14, the Western powers 
had control of Tientsin, and 
relieved the siege of Peking 
three weeks later.  Attacks by 
the Boxers continued throughout 
September and October, with 
German General von Waldersee 
breaking the last major pocket 
of resistance at Pao Ting Fu.  
The allies held war crime trials
and imposed heavy war 
reparations against China.  

The Boxer Rebellion was an 
enormous loss for China, 
becoming a contributing factor 
in the fall of the Manchu 
Dynasty in 1912.  Woefully 
unprepared militarily, China 
was forced over 70 years to 
sign treaty after treaty giving 
concession after concession to 
foreign powers.  If anything 
positive can be said to have 
come of this period for China, 
it is the modernization program 
that began at the start of the 
20th century.

