What were the long-term effects of the Boxer Rebellion on China?

The Boxer Rebellion took place in 1900. It was initiated and led by a secret Chinese society called the Boxers, so named because members practiced forms of boxing and martial arts that they believed made them impervious to bullets.

The rebels, with the support of the Empress of China, fought the Western powers that been running China for more than half a century. The Chinese resented the arrogant attitudes and looting of their country by these foreign powers, who did not consider Asians the equal of white Europeans and did not respect Chinese culture or religion. The Boxer movement represented an expression and assertion of Chinese cultural pride as much as an attempt to expel parasitic foreign powers.

The Boxers, however, were not impervious to bullets, and the weak Chinese monarchy could not adequately support the rebels against the superior wealth and technology of the West. The defeat of the Boxers was a crushing blow to the Chinese on a cultural level, robbing them of their dignity. One long-term effect was to undermine the monarchy to such an extent that a decade later it fell, to be replaced by a Western-style republic.

The Chinese suffered greatly after the Boxer rebellion, humiliated, forced to pay reparations, and increasingly weakened and impoverished. The most important long term effect was to sow such despair in the country that many people were attracted to the message of hope offered by Mao and the Communist Party. This led to China becoming a communist state in 1949.

The Boxer Rebellion turned out to have a devastating long-term impact on the future prosperity and stability of China. In the immediate aftermath of the rebellion's suppression by Western forces, the victors imposed crippling reparations payments on the Chinese. In both the short and long-term, these payments would overburden an already weak economy, leading to widespread misery and distress throughout China.

The long-term damage to the Chinese economy also had a negative impact on China's ability to defend herself. Unable to devote sufficient resources to national defense, and banned by the Western powers from importing weapons for two years, China was left wide open to future attack from foreign powers. Although it took place a long time after the Boxer Rebellion, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria can be seen as a direct, long-term consequence of the rebellion's failure.

In addition, China had to live with the humiliation of Western troops being stationed in Beijing for an indefinite period of time. This measure, which was particularly unpopular among the Chinese people, was to ensure that a similar uprising would not occur again in future. Although it undoubtedly achieved its aim, it served to increase resentment among the Chinese people by highlighting their weakness in the face of foreign powers.

The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-colonialism and anti-Christian rebellion that occurred in China. Internal conspiracy and deep hatred for foreigners led to the emergence of the Boxers. They viewed western foreigners as enemies and Christian converts as traitors. Thus, with the support of the Qing administration, the Boxers engaged in a brutal war against the foreigners and the converts. They murdered foreign missionaries and Christian converts, forcing foreign powers to respond. Foreign powers sent armed troops to China to fight the Boxers and the Imperial Army. 

Long-term consequences of the war include a peace treaty that was imposed on China, which included a hefty reparations bill. Western troops decided to occupy Beijing, which was a great affront to the Chinese people. The Rebellion marked the end of the Qing dynasty and the emergence of the Nationalist Kuomintang. Japan’s influence over China emerged and superseded European control and influence after the war.

How did the Boxer Uprising affect China?

I would say that the Boxer Rebellion was simply the last in a long line of events that weakened China relative to the powers that occupied (but did not actually colonize) that country.

The Boxer Rebellion did not really change the political structure in China in any great way.  The Qing Dynasty did not fall, the Western countries did not actually take control of the country, but neither were they expelled.

The Rebellion simply underlined the weakness of the Chinese government and gave the West and Japan more power over China.

The Boxer Rebellion, and the aftermath of an international army being sent by the west to crush it, had the long range effect of denying China it's autonomy and independence for decades.  More than a million Chinese Christians were killed by the Boxers, an anti-Western, anti-Christian uprising, and the major empires reacted with force to protect their interests.

China was then carved into "spheres of interest" where each country controlled trade in its region.  America's Secretary of State, John Hay, issued the Open Door Note, demanding American trade access to each region of China.  The Boxer Rebellion so weakened China as to render it nearly powerless for decades, including during World War II when the Japanese Army moved through China almost at will.

What were some consequences of the Boxer Rebellion?

The Boxers were Chinese nationalists opposed to foreign influence in China and angered by the past and ongoing humiliations against China by foreign forces. The purpose of the Boxer rebellion was to expel all foreigners from China and eliminate their spheres of influence. They failed on all fronts with disastrous consequences which included but were not limited to:

1. Occupation of the capital by foreign forces.
2. The levying of a huge war indemnity.
3. Destruction and desecration of cultural artifacts.
4. It led to the weakening and eventual collapse of the ruling dynasty.
5. It helped precipitate the eventual conflict between Japan and Russia.

What were the consequences of the Boxer uprising in China?

The 19th century was not kind to China. A vast country already exploited by foreign imperialists—China’s experience with foreign interventions and occupations dated back hundreds of years—this particular century saw the increasingly intrusive and harsh policies of Japan, Portugal, Britain, and Holland all reaching their climax. Each had established itself as an imperial power among the Chinese. Making matters much worse was the British trade in opium, with the consequent addiction problems that befell tens of thousands of Chinese citizens. The Opium Wars both further humiliated and degraded Chinese society. By the end of the 19th century, Chinese secret societies, led by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, were primed for a rebellion, and groups of disciplined fighters, appropriately labeled “boxers,” began to attack Western interests and symbols of those interests, including native Chinese who had converted to Christianity—a foreign import unwelcome to the Buddhist and Taoist followers who dominated Chinese society. The Empress Dowager, trying desperately to ensure the survival of the Qing Dynasty that ruled China, exploited local grievances directed against foreign imperialists and missionaries by rousing the increasingly militant population against the occupiers. The resulting Boxer Rebellion was initially successful, but a multinational army eventually succeeded in defeating the uprising and imposing yet another humiliating agreement on the now-dying monarchy.

So, what were the consequences of the Boxer Rebellion? First, Chinese nationalists, while militarily-defeated by the multinational forces that coalesced around the imperialist interests, were nevertheless emboldened in their struggle to evict foreign influences. Second, and tied to the first, the Qing Dynasty was dead, never(?) to return. Nationalist forces threw out the royal family and turned China towards modernization and military growth to protect against the Japanese and Europeans. A centuries-old history of dynastic rule was now and forever ended, and China would never again allow for unchallenged foreign occupation—a vow seriously and nearly-fatally tested when Imperial Japan colonized Manchuria in the 1930s. The end of the Qing Dynasty, however, ushered in the era of China as a republic, with a strict, militant nationalist orientation that would eventually, in 1949, be thrown out (finding refuge in Taiwan) by the Communist guerrillas led by Mao Tsetung and Zhou Enlai.