Changes

The late 19th century was also a period of intense industrialization and competition among the Western powers. Initially it was Germany, France, Britain, and Russia, but soon the United States, that began to play an increasing role in foreign affairs.<ref>or a discussion on 19th century political competition see: Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, eds. 2002. <i>Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture</i>. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press, Pg. 43.</ref> Throughout much of the late 1800s, a weak Qing Dynasty that technically ruled China characterized the political power in China, but foreigners consistently took possessions within China or did as they please when it came to building or seizing land needed for their trade and bases. While foreign powers competed with each other throughout much of the world in the 19th century, China held mutual interests as the largely one-way trade was benefiting all the imperial powers collectively.<ref>See the discussion in Chapter 3 regarding the great powers in China before the Boxer Rebellion: Silbey, David. 2012. <i>The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China</i>. New York: Hill and Wang.</ref> <dh-ad/>

[[File: 1200px-Beijing Castle Boxer Rebellion 1900 FINAL.jpg |left|thumbnail|Foreign Armies attack Beijing Palace during Boxer Rebellion]]

However, the mass uprising in the Box Rebellion was swift and was very popular among the vast peasantry. This put immediate pressure on the Western powers to suppress the rebellion before all of them would lose their foothold in China. The rebellion forced the Qing Dynasty to largely support the uprising, even if members of the Qing court held reservations given their bitter defeats in the Opium wars.<ref>Esherick, Joseph W. 1987. <i>The Origins of the Boxer Uprising</i>. Berkeley: University of California Press, pg. xiv.</ref> With the arrival of foreign troops and reinforcements, with a large Japanese presence in particular, to Beijing, the Boxers were ultimately defeated by 1901. While the unity caused by the rebellion proved to be short-lived, as the rivalries between the great powers soon reemerged and ultimately led to World War I, for China there were long-term changes that have made these events of great interest to this day.

The Boxer Rebellion also exposed divisions within China, namely those who looked to the West and those who aspired for nationalism. China descended into a chaotic period after 1911-1912, when the last emperor of China abdicated, with warlords and factionalism replacing various parts of China. Soon, the influence of Communism began to affect China and the Chinese Civil War (1927-1950) was in part shaped by the events of the Boxer Rebellion. <ref>For an overview of key events that shaped China from 1911 to the Chinese Civil War see: Clubb, Edmund. 1964. <i>20th Century China</i>. New York, N.Y.; Columbia University Press.</ref> Resentment to the West, including what was seen as Western Capitalism, lingered in many areas and many peasants and young intellectuals had joined the Communist party which was seen as a cure for China’s ills brought about by the Western encroachment initially and then the collapse of the state all together in 1911-12.<ref>Sheel, Kamal. 1989. <i>Peasant Society and Marxist Intellectuals in China: Fang Zhimin and the Origin of a Revolutionary Movement in the Xinjiang Region</i>. Princeton: Princeton University Press.</ref>

[[Category:Chinese History]] [[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Imperialism]] [[Category:European History]] [[Category:Asian History]]