![]() ![]() She had assumed a regent's role because the emperor was young. One of those resistant to change was the Dowager Empress, known as Cixi. Reactionary forces were still strong in China, however, and many people did not want to change, no matter how much the rest of the world had. The Chinese defeats in the Opium Wars and the war with Japan had revealed China's military weakness, especially. In June 1898, the Guangxu Emperor embarked on the Hundred Days' Reform, a program of modernization along the lines of what Japan had done after the Meiji Restoration, with the goal of bringing China on a par economically and militarily with Japan and the West. France and the United Kingdom expanded their presence in a number of provinces, and Russia obtained a controlling role in all territory north of the Great Wall. Seeing this, other Western powers moved to expand their influence within China. The German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered German troops to take over Shandong Province. 1, 1897, Juye Incident, a group of angry Chinese men killed two missionary priests. Existing discontent with German missionaries, fueled by an ongoing dispute over one religion's building a church on the site of another's former temple, boiled over into violence and in the Nov. Shandong Province, in the east, was particularly hard hit by flooding and famine in the late 1890s as a result, many farmers went to cities in search of food. In addition, China handed over the Liaodong Peninsula, which contained the strategic Port Arthur. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War, China agreed to give Taiwan and another island, Penghu, over to Japan, as well as renounce all claims of influence in Korea. The Treaty of Tientsin, which had ended the Second Opium War, had given Western powers the authority to increase the size of their Christian missionary movements within Chinese borders, including buying land on which to build churches.Ĭhina had also fought against Japan for control of the Korean Peninsula. Two Opium Wars in the early and mid-19th Century had weakened Chinese military forces and influence. Throughout the 19th Century, Japan and countries in the West had expanded their influence in China, particularly in the north. The Boxer Rebellion was an international conflict in China that began as an uprising against foreigners and ended with foreign domination. ![]()
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