(0:03)The Boxer Rebellion became the first major war to erupt in the new century.Hostilities that had been simmering for decades exploded when China declared waragainst the foreign powers of France,Russia, England, Japan, Austria, Italy, Germany, andthe United States. The beginning of the 20th century found the two thousand-year-oldChinese empire in decline. Foreign powers descended like vultures on what was left tothe dying Manchu [Qing] Dynasty. The once-powerful Chinese people fumed as they sawtheir land and protectorates taken over by foreigners. Hong Kong and Burma were lost toEngland, Korea to Japan, and Vietnam to France.(0:52) As the power structure within the Manchu court struggled to maintain its tenuouscontrol within China, foreign encroachment intensified internal political conflicts.Whathad been an ancient closed society was threatened by the corruption of progress andforeign influence. The Chinese became distrustful of foreigners and were greatlyconcerned by the influx of Christian missionaries who converted an increasing number ofChinese to an alien religion.(1:22)[Note: the footage during this section of “Boxers” attacking a Christian mission isstaged. It is not real footage from the actual Boxer Rebellion]A campaign of terror had begun the previous year (1899) when a secret organizationcalled Boxers began killing Christian missionaries and their converts in the northernprovinces of China. The Boxers were a clandestine social society that had been inexistence since the early seventeen hundreds. The group preached a mixture ofBuddhist, Confucian and Daoist ideas and was radically opposed to any change in Asianculture. Members practiced a form of shadow boxing and believed that followers of thecult were invulnerable.Photograph of a Chinese Boxer, 1900.Imageis courtesy of wikimedia commons and is in the public domain1. Who were the Boxers? Why did they rebel?
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