Western methods in many departments of life and administration
if China was to maintain the position of a great power.
“Awakening
of China.”
The necessity for a thorough reform of the administration
was widely recognized in 1901, and among the
progressive classes of the community much disappointment
was manifested because the powers had
failed to insist, in the conditions of peace, on a reorganization of
the machinery of government. The Yangtsze viceroys, the viceroy
at Canton, Yuan Shih-kai and other high mandarins repeatedly
memorialized the throne to grant effective reforms. While at
Si-gan-fu the court did in fact issue several reform decrees, but
at the same time all authority remained in the hands of reactionaries.
There had been an awakening in China, but another
lesson—afforded a few years later by the Russo-Japanese War—was
needed before the reform party was able to gain real power.
For three or four years following the signing of the peace protocol of 1901 it seemed indeed that there would be little change in the system of government, though in some directions a return to the old state of affairs was neither possible nor desired. On the 7th of January 1902 the court returned to Peking—a step which marked the restoration, more or less, of normal conditions. The failure of the Boxer movement, in which, as has been shown, she was deeply implicated, had impressed upon the dowager empress the need for living on better terms with foreign powers, but the reform edicts issued from Si-gan-fu remained largely inoperative, though some steps were taken to promote education on Western lines, to readjust the land tax, and especially to reorganize the military forces (though on provincial rather than on a national basis). The building of railways was also pushed on, but the dowager empress was probably at heart as reactionary as she had proved in 1898. The emperor himself from his return to Peking until the day of his death appeared to have little influence on public affairs. The most disquieting feature of the situation in the years immediately following the return of the court to Peking was the continued efforts of Russia to obtain full control of Manchuria and a predominant influence in north China. The Chinese government was powerless to stem the advance of Russia, and the dowager empress herself was credited with indifference to the fate of Manchuria. It was the menace to other powers, notably Japan, involved in Russia’s action which precipitated an issue in which the destinies of China were involved. Before considering the results of that struggle (the Russo-Japanese War) the chief events of the years 1902–1905 may be outlined.
The dowager empress from the day of her return from Si-gan-fu set herself to conciliate the foreign residents in Peking. Many foreign onlookers were gathered on the wall of the Tatar city to witness the return of the court, and to these the dowager empress made a deep bow twice, Relations with Europeans. an apparently trivial incident which made a lasting impression. On the 1st of February following the dowager empress received the ladies of the various embassies, when she bewailed the attack on the legations, entertained her guests to tea and presented each with articles of jewelry, and from that time onward, as occasion offered, Tszʽe Hsi exchanged compliments and civilities with the foreign ladies in Peking. Moreover, Sir Robert Hart—after having been nearly forty years in China—was now presented at court, as well as Bishop Favier and others. Henceforth attacks on foreigners received no direct encouragement at court. Tung Fu-hsiang,[1] who had been banished to the remote province of Kan-suh, had at his command there his old Boxer troops, and his attitude caused anxiety at the end of 1902. He was said to have received support from Prince Tuan—who had been obliged to retire to Mongolia—but events proved that the power or the intention of these reactionaries to create trouble had been miscalculated. There were indeed serious Boxer disturbances in Sze-chʽuen in 1902, but they were put down by a new viceroy sent from Peking. Notwithstanding the murder of fifteen missionaries during 1902–1905, there was in general a marked improvement in the relations between the missionaries, the official classes and the bulk of the people, and an eagerness was shown in several provinces to take advantage of their educational work. This was specially marked in Hu-nan, a province which had been for long hostile to missionary endeavours. Illustrative of the attitude of numbers of high officials was the attendance of the viceroy of Sze-chʽuen, with the whole of his staff, at the opening in 1905 at Cheng-tu of new buildings of the Canadian Methodist Mission. This friendly attitude towards the missions was due in part to the influence of Chinese educated abroad and also, to a large extent, to the desire to take advantage of Western culture. The spread of this new spirit was coincident with an agitation for independence of foreign control and the determination of the Chinese to use modern methods to attain their ends. Thus in 1905 there was an extensive boycott of American goods throughout China, as a retaliatory measure for the exclusion of Chinese from the United States. Regarding China as a whole the attitude of the people towards Europeans was held to indicate that the general view was, not that the Boxer teaching was false, but that the spirits behind Western religion were more powerful than those behind Boxer-dom. The spiritual prestige of Christianity and respect for the power of the foreigner were direct outcomes of the failure of the Boxers.[2] The British expedition to Tibet in 1904, the occupation of Lhassa in August of that year, the flight of the Dalai Lama to Mongolia, gave grave concern to the Chinese government—which showed much persistence in enforcing its suzerain rights in Tibet—but did not, apparently, cause any ill-feeling towards Great Britain among the Chinese people—who viewed with seeming equanimity the flight of the head of the Buddhist religion from the headquarters of that faith. The country generally was peaceful, a rebellion in Kwang-si—where a terrible famine occurred in 1903—being suppressed in 1904 by the forces of the viceroy at Canton.
The expiatory measures required of China in connexion with the Boxer rising were carried through. China during 1902 recovered possession of the Peking-Tientsin railway and of the city of Tientsin, which was evacuated by the foreign troops in August of that year. The foreign Commercial and railway progress. troops were also all withdrawn from Shanghai by January 1903. The conclusion of a new commercial treaty between Great Britain and China in September 1902 has already been recorded. The payment of the indemnity instalments occasioned some dispute owing to the fall in silver in 1902, but the rise in the value of the tael in subsequent years led China to agree to the payment of the indemnity on a gold basis. The increase in revenue was a notable feature of the maritime customs in 1903–1905. This result was in part due to the new arrangements under the commercial treaty of 1902, and in part to the opening up of the country by railways. In especial the great trunk line from Peking to Hankow was pushed on. The line, including a bridge nearly 2 m. long over the Yellow river was completed and opened for traffic in 1905. The first section of the Shanghai-Nanking railway was opened in the same year. At this time the Chinese showed a strong desire to obtain the control of the various lines. During 1905, for instance, the Canton-Hankow railway concession was repurchased by the Chinese government from an American company, while the Pekin Syndicate, a British concern, also sold their railway in Ho-nan to the Chinese government.
Russia’s action regarding Manchuria overshadowed, however, all other concerns during this period. The withdrawal of the proposed Russo-Chinese agreement of 1901 has been chronicled. The Russian government had, however, no intention of abandoning its hold on Manchuria. It aimed not only at effective military control but the reservation to Russian subjects of mining, railway and commercial rights. Both the sovereignty of China and the commercial interests of other nations were menaced. This led to action by various powers. The preamble of the Anglo-Japanese treaty of the 30th of January 1902 declared the main
