The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China by David Silbey

This is a simul-post of a review on Amazon.

This is more of some comments from my personal perspective than a comprehensive book review.

I started to have renewed interest in the Boxer movement recently because a good friend of mine has been gathering materials mainly in Chinese for writing a book on it, and we had discussions on the pivotal role of this movement at a critical juncture of the modern Chinese history.

I grew up with the CCP's brainwash which labels the Boxer movement as a great patriotic movement that did nothing wrong, no brutal killing of civilians and no foolish superstition. I recently read some Western works on this topic. They are generally good, but usually leave much room for improvement. The popular one is The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 by Diana Preston. For this reason, I looked forward to reading this book hoping it would be better. This is probably the first book that I have ever preordered from Amazon.

The Boxer movement, though short lived, was a very complex movement. The story has at least three sides - the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Boxers and the Qing government. The Qiang government was divided on the Boxers, and it is a complicated story by itself. The Eight-Nation Alliance is quite heterogeneous. As the book explains, it was amazing that the alliance could survive with so much rivalry. I tried to set a realistic expectation of this book. I do not expect a book by a Western scholar to give a comprehensive and balanced account of the complex event based on solid materials from all sides of the story. Such a book would require a tremendous amount of research. Getting funding for such research must be very difficult. Based on the introduction of the book and the author's background, I expected it would be primarily about the military aspect of the event.

This book has exceeded my expectation. The author has shown the depth and breadth of his knowledge in China. This is demonstrated particularly well with Chapter 1. An Imperial World, an Imperial China and the conclusion chapter. They are so well written that I would recommend them to anyone who wants to understand China in the 19th century and the ramifications of the Boxer movement, but does not have the time to read books to obtain the knowledge. The entire book shows the rigor, logic and objectivity of a good scholar. The author does not pretend to know everything and be able to make definitive conclusions about every event. For things that lack sufficient materials to explain, he asks questions and/or gives his best speculations.

After the Opium Wars, China was like a large piece of tasty meat that all world powers wanted to have their share of bite. The book depicts a clear picture of how the powers positioned them at the dining table.

The missionaries, together with their converts the primary victims of the Boxer movement, appeared to be the cause on the surface. The book laid out all the factors leading to the rise of the Boxers. The book's depiction of the missionaries, who are not a homogeneous group, is convincing. The missionaries in China are not that much different from missionaries in other regions. Their positive contributions to modern China are undisputable. It is evident if one just takes a look at the schools (including some finest colleges in China), hospitals founded by missionaries, and many outstanding intellectuals who graduated from these schools. In my opinion, both the missionaries and the Boxers were the victims of the corrupted, weak, incompetent, and backward Qing government.

The bulk of the book is apparently about the battles. What probably has made this book unique among similar books is its major part devoted to the battles outside Beijing. I think the proportion is appropriate because the real fighting happened largely outside Beijing. What happened in Beijing was more related to politics than military actions. I don't believe that tens of thousands Chinese fighters with a large amount of modern weapons could not conquer the Legation Quarter defended by a few hundred foreign troops if they had been ordered and really wanted to.

I have to admit that my interest in the details of all the battles is limited though I am generally interested in military history. The primary reason is that it was not a war with two sides determined to fight to the end. It is a war between well trained and coordinated troops and a mixture of troops and peasants under an extremely incompetent, corrupted and chaotic government and a superstitious leadership. There is not much military wisdom that can be learned from these battles, but plenty of stupidity and brutality.

The rampant looting described by the book based on solid evidences has long lasting ramifications. So does the extremely punishing treaty imposed upon China. The current anti-Western sentiment in China, though largely cultivated by the CCP's propaganda, can be partly traced back to these things.

Though I expected it, I still want to point out the limitation that this book shares with many other books on this topic - based exclusively on English documents. English speaking troops accounted for less than a third of the Eight-Nation Alliance (about 55,000 troops). The two largest contingents are the Japanese (26,000) and the Russians (13, 000). I think some Japanese and Russian accounts of the events would enrich the book and add credibility to the stories. I am inclined to believe that American troops were the most disciplined, and their occupied section was the most appealing to Chinese civilians. Some direct or indirect corroboration from other forces' accounts would be a nice addition.

It is a relief to see the book using pinyin instead of Wade-Giles. This makes it so much easier to relate to people and places that people already know in Chinese.

Overall, it is a book well worth reading. I look forward to reading more books on China by the author.