1. HI 168: Lecture 4 Dr. Howard Chiang
Late Qing Crisis
HI 168: Lecture 4
Dr. Howard Chiang

2. Empress Dowager Cixi

3. Zongli Yamen

4. 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)

5. Sino-French War ( )

6. Tributary Retraction Losing Vietnam: Sino-French War (1884-1885)
realists (Li Hongzhang) vs. pro-war faction
afterward: final phase of the “self-strengthening movement” ( )
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 ( )
July 23, 1894, Japanese captured Seoul

7. Ito Hirobumi
Li Hongzhang

8. Sino-Japanese War ( )

9. 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)
million taels indemnity
China is to grant Japan (replacing Britain) the most-favored-nation treatment

10. “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

11. “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)

14. Partitioning of China - Queen Victoria - William II (Germany) - Nicholas II (Russia) - French Marianne - Meiji Emperor

15. 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

16. Kang Youwei
The Book of Great Unity - philosophical canon was a forgery - culturalism to nationalism

17. Liang Qichao
- ‘grouping’
- democracy
- newspapers
- modern intelligentsia

18. Guangxu Emperor
Hundred Days Reform:
June 11-Sept 21, 1898

19. Yuan Shikai

20. 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

21. 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
spread to Zhili, Henan, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia and Manchuria
lacked central leadership (unlike Taiping rebellion)
The Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers!!

22. Eight-Nation Force

23. Eight-Nation Force

24. 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 million taels)