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| 1899, Feb |
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| Italy demanded a port and concession in Zhejiang, which China rejected with a show of force and vigorous efforts to strengthen imperial defenses. | 1 |
| In response to notes of Sept. and Nov., John Hay (1838–1905), U.S. secretary of state, secured assurances from the great powers that the Open Door to equal commercial opportunity would be maintained in spheres of special interest in China. | 2 |
| The BOXERS (a short form of “Boxers United in Righteousness,” the name by which they called themselves), coming together as a military force in 1898 in northwestern Shandong, began in early 1899 to attack Chinese converts to Christianity and their property. They culled from a wide range of religious belief and practiced martial arts, from whence came their name. They were supported in their xenophobia by the Manchu governor of Shandong, Yuxian (d. 1901), who was replaced (Dec. 6) by Yuan Shikai, who then proceeded to suppress the movement. | 3 |
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| 1900 |
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| As the Boxers increased their numbers, the Boxer Uprising became more daring. They acquired the support of the empress dowager and a number of high Manchu officials who hoped to use the Boxers as auxiliaries to expel the foreigners from China. The foreign diplomats in Beijing all demanded (Jan.–May) the suppression of the Boxers, which only fanned the flames of resentment. A Boxer attack on the Fengtai railway station (May 28) was followed by the admission into Beijing of some 458 legation guards, but a joint naval column of 2,066 men from Tianjin to Beijing was repulsed (June 10–26) by the Boxers. The Westerners' seizure of the Dagu forts (June 17) was cited in an imperial declaration of war (June 21), which was disregarded both by the foreign powers and by Chinese officials outside Zhili and Shanxi. The murder (June 20) of the German minister, Baron Klemens von Ketteler (1853–1900), opened a siege of the legations, which would have succeeded but for Ronglu's protection. An international expeditionary force of some 20,000 men (principally from Russia, Great Britain, the United States, Japan, and France) took Tianjin (July 14) and relieved the legations in Beijing (Aug. 14). Elsewhere, especially in Shanxi where Yu-xian was now governor, at least 231 foreign civilians (chiefly missionaries) were killed (June 24–July 24). The court fled (Aug. 15) to Xi'an, when a rescript (Dec. 26) promptly accepted a joint note embodying the allied demands. Russians at Blagoveshchensk, in retaliation for Chinese bombardments along the Amur (July 14–15) and in fear of attack by the local Chinese, drove several thousand Chinese civilians to their deaths in the river. Russia then quickly seized possession of southern Manchuria (Sept. 4–Oct. 10), without being able to secure ratification of a secret convention extorted at Lüshun (Nov. 11). German troops, arriving late in Beijing, alone carried out 35 of 46 punitive missions (Dec. 12–April 30, 1901). | 4 |
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| 1901, Sept. 7 |
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| After eight months of tough negotiating with the powers, the Boxer Protocol was signed by 12 powers. It provided for expressions of regret, punishment of 96 officials, payment over a period of 40 years of 450 million taels, revision of the tariff to an effective 5 percent, fortification of an enlarged legation quarter, the razing of all defensive forts, and the establishment of foreign garrisons along the railway to Shanhaiguan. The immense indemnity was to be met from maritime customs surplus, native customs, and the salt monopoly; the maritime customs under Hart were given charge of the native customs within 50 li (c. 17 miles) of all treaty ports. | 5 |
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| 1902, Jan |
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| The empress dowager and the emperor returned to Beijing by train. Educational, economic, and military reforms were soon undertaken. The deaths of Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi (1830–1902), and Ronglu (1903) left Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai as her ablest advisers. Intermarriage between Han and Manchu was for the first time sanctioned. The earlier trickle of students going to study in Japan became a flood, peaking in 1903–5. The legal code was ordered revised and was eventually promulgated (1910). Military reforms, actually begun the previous year, aimed at building “new armies”; provincial war offices were set up throughout the land (1904); by 1910–11 the reformed Qing army posted impressive victories in Tibet and elsewhere. | 6 |
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| 1903 |
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| Zou Rong (1885–1905), a Chinese nationalist who had studied in Japan, published a fiery tract, The Revolutionary Army, which ferociously attacked the Manchus. Arrested in 1904, he went to prison and died of illness there. | 7 |
| The Ministry of Commercial Affairs was created in the central government. The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce was founded. The Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce emerged as a force by 1905. | 8 |
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| 1904–5 |
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| The defeat of Russia by Japan (See March) again revealed to the Chinese some of the advantages to be gained by learning the lessons of the West. The Treaty of Portsmouth returned Manchuria from Russian to Chinese control (1907). Japan retained only the leasehold in Liaodong, which had already been definitively conceded to Russia, together with the South Manchurian Railway. Hitherto a Manchu preserve under military government, the “three eastern provinces” (Manchuria) were reorganized (1907) on a civilian basis and thrown open to Chinese settlement. | 9 |
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| 1905 |
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| As a protest against the further exclusion of Chinese immigrants from the United States, a boycott of goods from the United States reflected a growing national consciousness. | 10 |
| On Zhang Zhidong's recommendation, a ministry of education was founded, and Chinese students continued flocking to Japan. The civil service examination was disbanded as part of a complete overhaul of the educational system. | 11 |
| Sun Zhongshan and associates in Japan organized the Tongmenghui (usually translated as “Revolutionary Alliance”), an amalgam of anti-Manchu groups dedicated to overthrowing the Qing dynasty. They were inspired both by Japan's victory over Russia and the Russian revolution, both of 1905. | 12 |
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| 1906 |
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| Preparation for constitutional government was proclaimed, following the report of a mission sent in 1905 by the empress dowager to study foreign states; the model of the Japanese was especially approved. The reorganization of the state ministries (Nov. 6), together with plans for the eventual convening of a national assembly and provincial assemblies and other political reforms, were ordered. | 13 |
| Provision for a progressive ten-year suppression of opium cultivation and consumption was supplemented by an agreement with Britain, which cut imports from 48,530 chests (1907) to 4,236 chests in 1915. At the suggestion of the United States (1909), a series of conferences began in Shanghai and later at The Hague (1912) to establish international control over the world's drug traffic. | 14 |
| A summary of Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto appeared in Chinese for the first time. There was increasing interest among Chinese intellectuals, especially those who had studied in Japan, in socialism. | 15 |
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| 1908, Jan. 13 |
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| Foreign loans for a railway from Tianjin to Pukou (opposite Nanjing) were contracted on the basis of construction, control, and operation exclusively by the Chinese government. The line was completed and opened in Jan. 1912. Foreign involvement in railway construction began a major cause célèbre among nationalist groups throughout the country. | 16 |
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| May 13 |
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| Remission by the United States of half its share in the Boxer indemnity made possible the establishment of Qinghua (Tsing Hua) University (1911) and the sending of about 1,100 graduates to the United States for advanced study (1911–27). | 17 |
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| Nov. 14–15 |
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| The deaths of the emperor and empress dowager occurred on successive days. Power passed to the ultraconservative Prince Chun (Zaifeng, 1883–1951) who ruled as regent for the boy emperor, Puyi, until the end of the dynasty (1912). | 18 |
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| Dec. 3 |
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| A draft constitution was published, providing for the election of a parliament after nine years. The provincial assemblies were first to meet in Oct. 1909; by early the following year, they pressured the court into convening the cabinet in Oct. 1910. | 19 |
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