View source for Webquest - China's Resistance to European Imperialism

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== The Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) ==

<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino;" >The Taiping Rebellion (1850 - 64) was by far the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century. The revolt was a radical political and religious uprising, that ravaged 17 Chinese provinces and cost 20 million lives. The rebels rose against the tyranny of the Manchus, supporting a program partly based on Christian doctrines. Among their aims were public ownership of land and the establishment of a self-reliant economy. Their slogans - to share property in common - attracted many famine-stricken peasants, and the Taiping ranks swelled to more than one million soldiers.</span>

<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino;" >Under the leadership of Hung Hsiu-chuan they captured Nanking and made it their capital. Hung founded the 'Great Peaceful Heavenly Dynasty' in 1851. After a few years the leaders began to quarrel among themselves, the reforms were not completed and their opponents, supported by the Western powers, defeated the Taiping in 1864. But the Manchu government was so weakened by the rebellion that it never again was able to effectively rule China.</span>

== The Boxer Rebellion (1900) ==

<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino;" >The Boxer Rebellion was a peasant uprising that attempted to drive all foreigners from China and to destroy the Mongol Ch'ing dynasty. The Boxers were a secret society known as the I-ho ch'uan (Righteous and Harmonious Fists). Its members practiced certain boxing rituals in the belief that this gave them supernatural powers and made them invulnerable to bullets.</span>

<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino;" >After Japan defeated China in 1895, Japan and the Western Powers began to control more and more of the Chinese economy. In reaction the Boxer movement attracted popular support. As early as 1899, Boxers were killing Chinese Christians. In 1900 the Dowager Empress persuaded the Boxers to drop their opposition to the Ch'ing dynasty and unite with it to destroy the foreigners. All over northern China Missionaries and other foreigners were killed, and in Peking the Boxer besieged foreign diplomats who took refuge in the foreign legations.</span>

<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino;" >In 1900 an international force landed at Tientsin and fought its way to Peking. In August the siege was raised, the city looted, and the imperial palaces were sacked. The court fled to Sian, and representatives of the Dowager Empress had to sue for peace. The terms of the agreement signed in 1901 were the harshest imposed on China by Western powers.</span>

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