Nature of the Boxer Movement
No fruitful inquiry into the Boxer was a natural outcome of the economic
Movement would be possible without
answering 3 questions:
(1) Whether the Boxer Movement was anti-
foreign or anti-Christian;
(2) Whether the Boxer organization was a
militia or a heretical sect;
(3) Whether the Boxer Movement was pro-
or anti-dynastic.
Touching upon the 1st controversy Victor
Purcell’s conclusion is that, “The Boxer
movement was anti-foreign and therefore
anti-Christian.” The Chinese did not relish
the demonstration of cultural and racial
superiority by Western Christians in China.
The Western Christian drive to destroy
China’s cultural identity also invited anti-
Western and anti-Christian feelings. But
Purcell pointed out that the Chinese were
against the missionaries not because of their
religion, but because they were foreigners
and all foreigners were symbols of
imperialism.
Centering on the Boxer Movement is
the Western historians’ argument that, there
took place the unprecedented demonstration
of xenophobia by the Chinese people.
However, Purcell argues that the Boxer
Movement was essentially a peasant
movement – a struggle of the rural and
urban social strata against the feudal forces.
Further, though through the phases of
merchant capitalism, industrial capitalism
and finance imperialism, foreign
encroachments had increased, leading to a
simultaneous increase in the hatred felt by
the Chinese masses towards the foreigners,
this hatred cannot be called xenophobic. It
changes that took place in China following
the arrival of these imperialist powers.
Christian missionary activity too was not de-
linked from this economic exploitation by
the foreigners in China.
On the 2nd contention, George
Steiger firmly denied that the Boxers were a
religious sect with a heretical organization.
Queen Tzu Hsi’s decree of 1898-99, gave the
Boxer organization an official status. The
sole purpose of this organization was to
control the growing advance of foreign
imperialist powers. Heretical would suggest
that the movement was unorthodox, anti-
government and anti-state, which Steiger
pointed out that, it was not.
Victor Purcell has divided the Boxer
Movement into phases, where at different
times the movement developed a religious
and heretical character and adopted an anti-
Manchu stand, and at times a character
similar to the militia. He treats the Boxer
Movement as a continuation of and follow-
up of the White Lotus and the Nian
rebellions. He pointed out similarities
between the White Lotus Society and the
Boxers such as the practice of calisthenics,
belief in equality of sexes, the reliance on
Buddhist and Taoist ideology, anti-Manchu
leanings and Ming links.
Using a dialectic approach, Purcell
said that in the early stages, the Boxer
Movement was anti-Manchu, their slogan
being “Overthrow the Qing, restore the
Ming.” At this stage, the Boxer organization
did have a heretical character. But with the
growth of foreign intrusion, Boxers became
pro-Manchu and at this stage adopted a
militia-like character, in response to the
Nature of the Boxer Movement
willingness shown by the Manchus to help
the Boxers.
Finally, regarding the last contention,
the authors of “Yi He Tuan” indicates that in
the confrontation between the people and
the church, the Manchu government was
basically pro-church and anti-people,
because the Qing rulers had all along
followed a capitulationist line in foreign
affairs, selling out China’s sovereign rights to
the imperialists in exchange for the latter’s
support of their own rule and bloody
suppression of the masses. It was this basic
pro-church and anti-people stand, which
decided the anti-dynastic nature the Boxer
Movement.
Victor Purcell says that in the initial
stages, the Boxer struggle was directed
against the Manchus and so was heretical
and also anti-dynastic. This anti-dynastic
character emerged because of the growing
pre-eminence of the hardcore secret society
leadership, particularly the White Lotus
Society. However, at a later stage, the Boxers
allied with the Manchus in their supposed
struggle against the imperialist powers and
so assumed the character of a pro-dynastic
militia.
This was the result of circumstantial
changes: (1) the extermination of the
hardcore anti-dynastic leadership following
the Pin Yuan conflict of 1899. In the course
of this leaderless period, the Manchus
decided to win over the rebels, so that their
only target would be the foreigners and not
the Manchus themselves and;
(2) within the imperial court, the
traditional reactionary faction, completely
against the foreigners and the Western
model of modernization, pressurized the
Manchus into supporting the Boxers.
Hu Sheng follows a different dialectic
approach to the Boxer Movement. He argues
that the Boxers had no definite leadership,
not even a dominant class and therefore, did
not have a prominent ideology or a definite
character (anti-dynastic or pro-dynastic).
The Boxers were, therefore, vulnerable to
any kind of strategy applied upon them by
the imperial court (proved by the way a
simple decree that managed to change their
essential character).
The Manchus remained non-
committal in their support to the Boxers till
very late. They were not genuinely interested
in the Boxer cause and were merely trying to
strike a balance between the traditionalist
and pro-modern factions within the imperial
court. Outside, they wanted to strike a
balance between the Boxers and the
foreigners. Their superficial and farcical
involvement can be found in the decree
passed in 1900, which declared war on the
foreigners to win the goodwill of the Boxers,
but the decree never reached the foreigners.
Hu Sheng opined that as the
foreigners continued to acquire gains in
China, the Manchus, faced by a threat to
their own authority, arrived at a compromise
with the Boxers. Besides, Tzu Hsi realized
that the foreigners might otherwise align
with the opposing pro-western faction.
Sheng concluded by saying that since the
Boxers kept changing their stance vis-a-vis
the Manchus, one cannot put them in any
one category – different phases saw different
responses to the activities of the Manchus
and the foreigners.
Nature of the Boxer Movement

According to the Chinese historians,

the historical significance of the Boxer
Movement lies in the fact that: it scared the
imperialist aggressors out of their wits and
put the brakes on imperialist designs to
partition China; it awakened Chinese
patriotic consciousness and; they regarded
the Boxer Movement as a cornerstone of the
victory of the Chinese Communist
Revolution.