The Boxer Indemnity—‘Nothing but Bad’

Abstract

There was nothing unusual in an indemnity per se. Indeed, an indemnity could be seen as a forward step in European civilization, replacing the regime of indiscriminate plunder which preceded it—although it could equally be argued that in their pacification of north China following the razing of the Siege of the Legations in 1900 the Allies, through their looting of the Tientsin and Peking areas in disregard of recently agreed definitions, had acquired both indemnity and plunder. Indeed the chaos was such that among the first financial and contradictory consequences of the post-Boxer period was Sir Robert Hart's successful arrangement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of a loan of Ts10,000 a month for the chief Chinese negotiator, Prince Ch'ing [I-K'uang], on the one hand, while in Shansi the Protestant Church refused to accept any indemnity for the Christian lives lost; consequently the authorities voluntarily agreed to establish a University on Western lines, to be maintained by the authorities, and to operate under joint control for ten years at the annual cost of Ts 50,000.