A New Book on Boxer Rebellion

choi

Howard W French, 'Exterminate the Foreigners;' A peasant army, incensed by the large Western presence in China, descended on Beijing and laid siege to the foreign quarter. Wall Street Journal, Mar 29, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 85872628265712.html
(book review on David J Silbey, The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China. Hill & Wang, 2012)

Quote:

"At the turn of the last century, with the European 'Scramble for Africa,' as it was known, only recently completed, three assertive new major powers were fast emerging: Germany, Japan and the United States. Most of the world had already been claimed by more established actors. But decrepit, late Qing Dynasty China, with its hundreds of millions of people, centuries of accumulated wealth and vast territory, loomed as the final big prize on the imperial frontier.

The Boxer Rebellion "had its roots in China's 19th-century demographic explosion, as well as crop failures and drought, which served as a catalyst for one of the era's many Chinese peasant uprisings. What was different this time was the target. The Boxers, who arose in Shandong Province, were not mobilized against the Qing state but rather against the large Western presence in the country, especially that of Christian missionaries, who were attacked by the rebels in the summer and fall of 1899.

"According to Mr Silbey, a historian a Cornell University's Washington, DC, campus, the Boxers' problem was not with the Westerners' religion per se. The rebels were incensed because, in the vacuum left behind by a failing Qing administration, the foreign church-based organizations were becoming local administrators. As such they were direct competition for the Chinese secret societies, like the Boxers, that were also moving to fill the void.

"As woeful as the Qing were in political and diplomatic skills, their army remained formidable. That it failed to win the war had little to do with the Chinese being overawed by Westerners or by a lack of tactical sophistication. Rather, after fighting smartly during the allied destruction and looting of Tianjin, the Chinese forces inexplicably seemed to lose stomach for further combat. Had they simply continued to harass and periodically engage the foreigners advancing alongside the Bai He River, Mr Silbey suggests, the invaders would probably never have reached Beijing.

Note:
(a) Scramble for Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa
(during the New Imperialism [1830-1914] period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914)
(b) The review quoted Mr Silbey as saying "to the surprise of the mother county."

Orobably a typo, which should be "mother country."
(c) For Bai He, see Hai River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hai_River
(previously called Bai He)
(d) The review says, "The Japanese learned from the war that they held the whip hand in Asia."
(i) have/hold the whip hand. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ... -hold-the-whip-hand
(to be the person or group that has the most power in a situation)
(ii) whip hand
"1: positive control : ADVANTAGE
2: the hand holding the whip in driving"
www.m-w.com