Boxer Rebellion may be regarded as the culmination of misunderstandings between China and the Powers in every phase of international activity. It was the last, the supreme, the most desperate effort of all to keep the middle Kingdom riveted to the standards of antiquity, and its failure, complete in every respect, even from the viewpoint of the Chinese themselves, made possible and inevitable the China of to-day.
A detailed examination of the causes, immediate and remote, of this final protest against western civilization would demand an exhaustive review of Chinese institutions, character and customs entirely beyond the scope of this volume, an examination leading back at least to the days of Confucius. A brief outline, however, may be given in passing, showing how contributory events, one piled upon the other, at last brought about this racial cataclysm, with consequences so momentous and far-reaching that they could not be understood at the time, much less fully appreciated. In effect, the Boxer Rebellion, through the very completeness and humiliation of its failure made possible the future position of China as a real member of the sisterhood of nations; this, however, at a heart-breaking cost, involving a shock to the national consciousness such as stands without parallel in history.
The Chinese had not always been isolated from the rest of mankind. Before the Manchu conquest in the XVIIth century there had been quite an extensive though spasmodic commercial intercourse with the west and a slight acquaintance with western culture. The products of China had been interchanged with those of the Roman Empire; Chinese engineers had been employed on the construction of public works in Persia; Buddhism had been introduced from India; a Chinese army had penetrated as far west as the Caspian region; Marco Polo and his two uncles had found a flattering welcome; the Jesuits had flourished at Peking; the Nestorian Tablet had been erected, a mute reminder to-day of what the current of history might have been; and the first embassies from Europe had been graciously received, provided they kowtowed. By such means a healthy curiosity toward the outside world had been occasionally stimulated. But, on the other hand, the Chinese had already developed to a great extent that exclusiveness characteristic of them up to the close of the last century. Nor is this to be wondered at, for such was the inevitable resultant of their past history, national ideals and environment.
Surrounded by tribes in a savage or semi-civilized state, which were greatly inferior from every point of view, it is not surprising that the Chinese should have looked upon these as barbarians, fitly to be designated by the radical for dog. Furthermore, a vast expanse of desert and mountain and sea made intercourse with the advanced parts of the world extremely hazardous and uncertain, all the more so when the favorite land routes were cut off by the fall of Constantinople and the ascendancy of the Suljuk Turks in western Asia. Moreover, the occasional exchanges of goods and ideas with European nations had been too small in volume appreciably to affect the Chinese race or to influence its development. Yet these little beginnings, if carefully fostered, might have led to greater things, and such undoubtedly would have been the case had it not been for the rigid policy of seclusion adopted by the alien Manchu monarchs, the greatest misfortune, considering the age of world expansion, which China could have suffered. Although in this the Manchus only copied the preceding Ming dynasty, yet the XVIIth century was not the century for the continuance of such a state policy, and therein lay the evil, to be accentuated all the more in the years to come.
