Tai Ping and Boxer Rebellion

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at two rebellions in Chinese history; the Tai Ping Rebellion, which was a rebellion of religious fanatics seeking to overthrow the traditional culture of China, and the Boxer Rebellion, which, although religious based, sought to rid the country of European influence. The paper examines the history behind the Tai Ping movement that led it to rebellion, the damage it caused and how it was squashed. However, it also shows how Taiping leaders adopted many policies that would later become the marks of modernizers in China. The Boxer Rebellion, on the other hand, was neither a rebellion or a war against the Europeans, since it was limited to only a few places. By 1901, the imperial government was forced to agree to the humiliating terms of the Boxer Protocol, under which European powers got the right to maintain military forces in the capital. The Boxer Protocols established a new course of reform for China.

From the Paper:

"While China was involved in conflicts with Europeans during the Opium War, it was also convulsed by a number of rebellions during the mid-century, including the rebellion in Nien, 1853-1858, where several Muslim rebellions in the southwest and northwest, and especially the Taiping rebellion, resulted in devastating consequences for China. The Taiping rebellion alone lasted for twenty years, leading to some thirty million deaths, in fact, from 1850 to 1873, the rebellion, together with drought and famine caused the Chinese population to drop by over sixty million people, a truly tragic period for China. The Taiping rebellion was an internal disturbance instigated by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, who possessed a unique mix of European and Chinese cultural. He was the son of a poor farmer near Canton, who had visions which led him to believe that he was sent by God to earth in order to eradicate the demons. After studying under a Baptist minister, Hung and some followers formed a new religious sect called the God Worshippers, dedicated to the destruction of idols in the region around Canton. He believed that the Manchu rulers were the main propagators of demon worship and that to overthrow them would help bring in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. During the late 1840's, Hung reorganized his movement into a military organization, and began to build a treasury, consolidate forces, and store up weapons. In December 1850, he was attacked by government forces, and successfully defeated them, and the following year declared that the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace at been established with himself as the Heavenly King, thus the era of the Taiping or Great Peace began."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Boxer Rebellion and the U.S. Navy, 1900-1901. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq86-1.htm
• Hooker, Richard. The Boxer Rebellion: Carving up the Melon http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/BOXER.HTM
• Hooker1, Richard. The Taiping Rebellion. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/TAIPING.HTM
• Michael, Franz. "Chinese Cultural Studies: The Taiping Rebellion,1851-1864." http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taiping.html

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