Russo Chinese and the Chinese nity to SECTION IV.-FOREIGN AGGRESSIONS AND BOXER AFTER the Chino-Japanese War, Russia increased her influence upon Financial China as a result of a clever financial coup organized between the RusRelations sian government and the Paris bankers. A Chinese indemnity loan was floated successfully in the French capital in July, 1895, the proceeds of which were handed over to China by Russia, which power guaranteed the interest. Ten million pounds sterling of the amount thus raised, which was paid over to Japan in accordance with the treaty of peace, was deposited by the Japanese government in the Bank of England, most of it being destined to pay for new Japanese ships of war. Japan's industrial progress after her war with China was most remarkable, and Japan was becoming as preeminent in the arts of peace as she had been victorious in war. China's After the Chino-Japanese War there were a series of isolated, though Relations. in some cases very serious, outbreaks of the anti-foreign mob spirit in China; which spirit resulted in the destruction of the foreign mission station and the massacre of several British missionaries at Ku-cheng, near Fu-chen, in August, 1895. In compliance with the stern demand of the British government, the Viceroy of the Chinese province of Szu-chuan was degraded, a consular investigation was held and a number of the guilty were executed. France obtained a rectification of the frontier between China and French Indo-China and considerable trade advantages with China. By a treaty with China in 1896 Russia secured the right to extend her Trans-Siberian Railway through Manchuria. China's Demoral ized Condi tion. The close of the Chino-Japanese War found China in a demoralized condition. Her navy was annihilated; her army was broken up her finances were in disorder; her government was reeking with corruption; her condition generally was absolutely helpless, and her Empire was believed to be in the throes of dissolution. China's general policy in opposing modern progress had borne its legitimate fruit; and even the brilliant abilities of such distinguished statesmen as Prince Kung, the Marquis Tseng and Li Hung Chang, who had been prominent in China's public affairs during the last forty years of the nineteenth century, were unable to stay the progress of decline and decay which seemed destined to overtake the oldest nation still existing in the world -the only modern nation which dates its existence from the remotest antiquity. While her apparent end seemed pathetic, she had brought herself to her present pass by her persistent opposition to modern progress and enlightenment. ened of China. The Great Powers of Europe were not slow to take advantage of ThreatChina's helpless condition to aggrandize themselves at her expense. European For the purpose of extending their trade, Russia, Germany and France Partition seemed intent upon a partition of the Celestial Empire, each to take a large slice of territory wherein to plant its political influence as well as to establish its trade firmly. In the latter part of 1897 Kiao-Chau Bay was occupied by a German military and naval force on the pretext of punishing the massacre of German missionaries by a Chinese mob, and China was forced to cede Kiao-Chau Bay and the adjacent territory to Germany for trade purposes, January, 1898. Soon afterward Russia seized Port Arthur and obtained the cession of that port and Ta-lien-wan from the Chinese Emperor for naval and commercial purposes. A little later a French fleet occupied the large and important island of Hainan, off the southern coast of the mainland of China, and obtained the cession of territory in Southern China for commercial purposes. These cessions of Chinese territory were called "leases " and "spheres of influence," and the European powers which obtained them were aiming for political influence as well as for trade and commercial privileges. It was believed that the European powers were seeking to partition China among themselves as they had partitioned Africa. Long and complicated negotiations ended in the conclusion of a large loan to China by an Anglo-German syndicate, which was completed only after M. Pavloff, the very energetic Russian Minister to China, had opposed successfully a proposal for a loan to China guaranteed by the British government and many other proposed arrangements. In the meantime the business of obtaining concessions for the construction of railways and the development of mines in China was pushed very actively by Russian, German, French, Belgian, Italian, British and American syndicates, thus causing intense commercial rivalry among the European powers and the United States. A concession for a railway from Pekin to Hankow was granted by the Chinese government to a Belgian syndicate acting in the interest of France and Russia, in June, 1898. Russia was busy at the port of Niu-Chwang as well as at fortifying Port Arthur and Ta-lien-wan, the name of the latter afterward being changed to Dalny. The agents of the GermanAsiatic Bank were active also. Besides obtaining valuable concessions in South China, France was granted privileges at Shanghai, in spite of the most vigorous opposition from Great Britain, which for many years had controlled the commercial activities of the Yang-tse-Kiang valley, the chief port of which was Shanghai. These concessions to foreign syndicates in China never were relished by the Dowager Empress and the Conservative party at Pekin; and the Foreign Railway and Mining Concessions in China. Coup d'etat of the Dowager Empress of China. Russia's with Great Britain and Japan. result was a remarkable coup d'etat in the imperial palace in China's capital, in September, 1898, by which the wicked Dowager Empress, a woman guilty of many political murders and having the active support of the anti-foreign mandarins, practically deposed her nephew, the Emperor Kwang-su, reëstablished herself as regent and caused six of the leading reformers to be beheaded. After this palace revolution the energetic and vigorous but wicked Dowager Empress announced herself as favoring a policy of moderate reforms and proceeded to adopt a remarkable new precedent by receiving the wives of the foreign Ministers at the imperial palace in Pekin. After that remarkable palace revolution in China's imperial capital the Dowager Empress was practically the real ruler of China for the rest of her days. Lord Salisbury was criticised very severely in England for his lack Rivalry of vigor in opposing the aggressions of Russia in the Far East, his course in this instance being in direct contrast with his vigorous and effective opposition to France's threatening attitude in Africa in connection with the Fashoda incident. The political and commercial rivalry of Russia with Great Britain and Japan in China, Manchuria and Korea continued; Russia seeking political preponderance and commercial monopoly in those countries, while Great Britain and Japan were striving for equal trade privileges, or for the "open door" policy of all nations in the Far East, having the support of the United States in this attitude, as the great American Republic was competing with the other great nations of the world for the Chinese trade. As an insular nation, like Great Britain, Japan depended upon foreign commerce for the support of her people; and China was her nearest market. There was a constant rivalry between Russia on one side and Great Britain and Japan on the other side for commercial supremacy and political influence in the Far East, and this rivalry threatened to break out into hostilities several times during the year 1899. The combined fleets of Great Britain and Japan in Far Eastern waters were far superior to the fleets of all other powers in those waters. Russia and Japan by turns had controlled the policy of Korea, according as which party at Seoul swayed the destinies of Korea. Japan was alarmed at Russia's aggressions in Manchuria as well as at her spasmodic influence in Korea. Great Britain was as jealous of Russia's aggressions in Korea as was Japan; and when Russia caused the British commissioner of customs at Chemulpo, Korea, to be superseded by a Russian customs commissioner a British fleet proceeded to that Korean port and restored the deposed British commissioner, and the matter was settled by British and Russian deplomacy. The rivalry between Russia and Japan on repeated occasions threatened to break out into a war between those two empires. In case of hostilities Japan would have had the advantage of numerical superiority on both sea and land, as her navy in those waters was far superior to that of Russia, while on land she could have poured several hundred thousand troops into Korea and Manchuria long before the Russians could have put an equal force into the field in those countries, as the Russian troops would have had to be transported by land five thousand miles from European Russia, and the Trans-Siberian Railway was not yet completed. The active rivalry between the Russian and British Ministers at the Chinese capital, sometimes amounting to direct opposition early in 1899, was terminated eventually by an agreement between the Russian and British governments regarding their respective interests in China. These two Great Powers agreed to maintain the integrity and independence of China and provided against any clash of interests concerning railway development in Manchuria and in the Yang-tse-Kiang valley. This Anglo-Russian agreement for the time put an end to Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Far East. An imperial decree issued by the Dowager Empress on January 24, 1900, announced the incapacity of the Emperor Kwang-su and the appointment of Prince Tuan's nine-year-old son, To-Pu-Chun, as the heir to the Chinese imperial throne. The Dowager Empress immediately dismissed the generalissimo of the Chinese armies and other prominent state officials. These arbitrary proceedings produced rebellious outbreaks at Swatow and in the interior provinces of China under the instigation of the Chinese reform party, which appealed to the British, American and Japanese Ministers at Pekin to intervene and restore the Emperor Kwang-su to his throne. The deposition of Kwang-su caused great indignation in Japan. Kang-Yu-Wei, one of the reform leaders, telegraphed from Singapore, British India, that he could raise an army of four hundred thousand men to restore the deposed Emperor. The China Gazette accused the Dowager Empress of fearing a revolution in Pekin and appealing to Russia for aid, against which Japan protested. The Dowager Empress continued her persecution of the Chinese reform party and her antagonism to all Western ideas in China, drawing up a list of three hundred reformers who were to be proscribed and another list of thirty-five who were to be killed as soon as they were captured, at the same time offering a sum equal to one hundred thousand dollars for the head of Kang-YuWei. The arbitrary course of this woman ruler threatened to involve China in both civil and foreign war. In a secret edict which she issued the Dowager Empress asserted that foreign powers were coveting China with "tiger-like voracity" and that she deprecated "the evil habits " of Chinese viceroys and governors attempting peaceable solutions of international disputes, saying: "It is our special command that should RussoBritish Agreement. Another Coup d'etat by the Dowager Empress of China. Boxer Outbreaks in 1900. Insincere of the Chinese Government. any high official find himself so hard pressed by circumstances that nothing short of war would settle matters he is expected resolutely to set himself to work out his duty to this end." In the new examination for degrees in honor of the Chinese Emperor's birthday the Dowager Empress ordered that the examining officials should suppress all essays mentioning reform, Western science or "new ideas"; threatening severe punishment to all who disobeyed this decree. In the spring of 1900 the disorders in China became extreme, especially in the provinces of Shantung and Pechili, whence they threatened to spread into other provinces. The boldness of the Boxers, ε powerful anti-foreign league of Chinamen, increased as time went on. The Boxers were so called because the pretended reason for their existence was to indulge in the athletic pastime of boxing. They continued their outrages on foreigners in the provinces of Shantung and Pechili. The efforts of Chinese officials to fulfil the government's promises to suppress and punish the Boxers were only half-hearted; and the lawlessness had become so serious as to give rise to the report from Shanghai that the British, French, German and American Ministers in China had sent a joint note to the Tsung-li-Yamen, or Chinese Foreign Office, on April 7, 1900, to the effect that if the Boxers were not suppressed by the Chinese authorities foreign troops would be landed in China and would march into the interior of the country to protect foreigners whose lives and property were menaced. The Chinese government, under the Dowager Empress, showed itself cither unwilling or powerless to suppress the constantly-increasing lawlessness of the Boxers. It issued wordy commands which were not enforced, and it expected the foreign diplomatic representatives to accept these commands as evidence of fulfilling its obligations. On April 19, 1900, an imperial edict was issued to all Chinese viceroys and governors, directing them to warn armed organizations to refrain from hostile and lawless acts toward native Christians and to punish with great severity any violation of this edict. To offset this the Dowager Empress issued a secret edict to the Chinese soldiers not to fire on the Boxers, and no Boxer had been arrested so far. The Tsung-li-Yamen discussed an offer of Russian troops to suppress the disorders which the Boxers had excited. During the second week of June, 1900, the Dowager Empress issued another decree virtually justifying the Boxer disturbances. From the very beginning of the outbreak the Chinese government's attitude was practically one of approval of the antiforeign Boxer movement; and the Chinese troops supposed to be fighting the Boxers were operating against them in a half-hearted manner, while many of the troops openly deserted to the Boxers. The Dowager Empress issued an edict censuring the Chinese General Nieh for killing |