The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, a group known as the "Boxers" in English due to many of its members having practised Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.
The Eight-Nation Alliance was a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing, which was being besieged by the popular Boxer militiamen, who were determined to remove foreign imperialism in China. The allied forces consisted of about 45,000 troops from the eight nations of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. Neither the Chinese nor the quasi-concerted foreign allies issued a formal declaration of war.
Yikuang, formally known as Prince Qing, was a Manchu noble and politician of the Qing dynasty. He served as the first Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet, an office created in May 1911 to replace the Grand Council.
Prior to the 17th century, China and Russia were on opposite ends of Siberia, which was populated by independent nomads. By about 1640 Russian settlers had traversed most of Siberia and founded settlements in the Amur River basin. From 1652 to 1689, China's armies drove the Russian settlers out, but after 1689, China and Russia made peace and established trade agreements.
Foreign concessions in China were a group of concessions that existed during the late Imperial China and the Republic of China, which were governed and occupied by foreign powers, and are frequently associated with colonialism and imperialism.
The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Beijing (Peking), China where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In the Chinese language, the area is known as Dong Jiaomin Xiang, which is the name of the hutong through the area. It is located in the Dongcheng District, immediately to the east of Tiananmen Square.
Ronglu, courtesy name Zhonghua, was a Manchu political and military leader of the late Qing dynasty. He was born in the Guwalgiya clan, which was under the Plain White Banner of the Manchu Eight Banners. Deeply favoured by Empress Dowager Cixi, he served in a number of important civil and military positions in the Qing government, including the Zongli Yamen, Grand Council, Grand Secretary, Viceroy of Zhili, Beiyang Trade Minister, Secretary of Defence, Nine Gates Infantry Commander, and Wuwei Corps Commander. He was also the maternal grandfather of Puyi, the last Emperor of China and the Qing dynasty.
The Battle of Peking, or historically the Relief of Peking, was the battle fought on 14–15 August 1900 in Beijing, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance relieved the siege of the Peking Legation Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion. From 20 June 1900, Boxers and Imperial Chinese Army troops had besieged foreign diplomats, citizens and soldiers within the legations of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the United States.
The "century of humiliation" is a term used among the Sinosphere to describe the period in Chinese history beginning with the First Opium War (1839–1842), and ending in 1945 with China emerging out of the Second World War as one of the Big Four and established as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, or alternately, ending in 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China. The century-long period is typified by the decline, defeat and political fragmentation of the Qing dynasty and the subsequent Republic of China, which led to demoralizing foreign intervention, annexation and subjugation of China by Western powers, Russia, and Japan.
Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), courtesy name Xingwu (星五), was a Chinese general who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was born in the Western Chinese province of Gansu. He commanded an army of Hui soldiers, which included the later Ma clique generals Ma Anliang and Ma Fuxiang. According to the Western calendar, his birth date is in 1839.
The Gansu Braves or Gansu Army was a unit of 10,000 Chinese Muslim troops from the northwestern province of Kansu (Gansu) in the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Loyal to the Qing, the Braves were recruited in 1895 to suppress a Muslim revolt in Gansu. Under the command of General Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), they were transferred to the Beijing metropolitan area in 1898, where they officially became the Rear Division of the Wuwei Corps, a modern army that protected the imperial capital. The Gansu Army included Hui Muslims, Salar Muslims, Dongxiang Muslims, and Bonan Muslims.
The Seymour Expedition was an attempt by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and relieve the Siege of the Legations and foreign nationals from attacks by Qing China's government troops and the Boxers in 1900. The Chinese army and Boxer fighters defeated the Seymour armies and forced them to return to Tianjin (Tientsin). It was followed later in the summer by the successful Gaselee Expedition.
The siege of the International Legations occurred in 1900 in Peking, the capital of the Qing Empire, during the Boxer Rebellion and led to the deaths of approximately 2500 Chinese people by western soldiers. Threatened by the Boxers—an anti-Christian, anti-foreign peasant movement—900 soldiers, sailors, marines, and civilians, largely from Europe, Japan, and the United States, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Peking Legation Quarter. The Qing government took the side of the Boxers after the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Tianjin at the Battle of the Taku Forts (1900), without a formal declaration of war. The foreigners and Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter survived a 55-day siege by the Qing Army and Boxers. The siege was broken by an international military force, which marched from the coast of China, defeated the Qing Army, and occupied Peking.
The Imperial Decree on events leading to the signing of Boxer Protocol is an imperial decree issued by the government of the Qing dynasty in the name of the Guangxu Emperor, as an official imperial statement on historical events such as Boxer Rebellion, Eight-Nation Alliance and Battle of Peking and Siege of the International Legations, detailing instructions given to Prince Qing and Li Hongzhang as the full representatives of the imperial court in negotiating a peace treaty with the foreign powers, prior to the official signing of the Boxer Protocol on 7 September 1901. This Imperial Decree was officially issued in the name of the Guangxu Emperor and with his official Imperial Seal. The Emperor was actually under house arrest at the time, ordered by Empress Dowager Cixi who held full administrative power.
The Russian invasion of Manchuria occurred in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) when concerns regarding Qing China's defeat by the Empire of Japan, and Japan's brief occupation of Liaodong, caused the Russian Empire to speed up their long held designs for imperial expansion across Eurasia.
Xu Jingcheng was a Chinese diplomat and Qing politician supportive of the Hundred Days' Reform. He was envoy to Belgium, France, Italy, Russia, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany for the Qing imperial court and led reforms in modernizing China's railways and public works. As a modernizer and diplomat, he protested the breaches of international law in 1900 as one of the five ministers executed during the Boxer Rebellion. In Article IIa of the Boxer Protocol of 1901, the Eight-Nation Alliance that had provided military forces successfully pressed for the rehabilitation of Xu Jingcheng by an Imperial Edict of the Qing government:
Imperial Edict of the 13th February last rehabilitated the memories of Hsu Yung-yi, President of the Board of War; Li Shan, President of the Board of Works; Hsu Ching Cheng, Senior VicePresident of the Board of Civil Office; Lien Yuan, Vice-Chancellor of the Grand Council; and Yuan Chang, Vice-President of the Court of Sacrifices, who had been put to death for having protested against the outrageous breaches of international law of last year.
The Mutual Defense Pact of the Southeastern Provinces was an agreement reached in the summer of 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion by Qing dynasty governors of the provinces in southern, eastern and central China when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded northern China. The governors, including Li Hongzhang, Xu Yingkui, Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai, refused to carry out the imperial decree promulgated by the Qing imperial court to declare war on 11 foreign states, with the aim of preserving peace in their own provinces.
Liang Cheng, courtesy name Liang Chentung, also known as Liang Pi Yuk, and later as Chentung Liang Cheng, was a Chinese ambassador to the United States during the Qing dynasty. He was primarily responsible for negotiating the return payment by the US of its share of the Boxer Indemnity for the establishment of Tsinghua University and the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program.
The Karakhan Manifesto was a statement of Soviet policy toward China dated 25 July 1919. It was issued by Lev Karakhan, deputy commissioner for foreign affairs for Soviet Russia. The manifesto offered to relinquish various rights Russia had obtained by treaty in China, including extraterritoriality, economic concessions, and Russia's share of the Boxer indemnity. These and similar treaties had been denounced by Chinese nationalists as "unequal." The manifesto created a favorable impression of Russia and Marxism among Chinese. It was often contrasted with the Treaty of Versailles (1919), which granted Shandong to Japan.
Baron Adolphe Marie Maurice Joostens, was a Belgian diplomat. As a signatory of the Boxer Protocol, the final act at the Algeciras Conference and the Colonial Charter in which Congo Free State was ceded to Belgium, Joostens was an important Belgian diplomat in the age of New Imperialism. Throughout his career, Joostens was able to gain the absolute confidence of king Leopold II of Belgium and eventually he became one of the monarch's favourite diplomats.
Boxer Protocol at Wikisource 
