2015 International History Olympiad
Historical Simulation of the Boxer Rebellion
BACKGROUND  GUIDE
Dear International History Olympiad Participants,
My name is Shravan Balaji, and I am a former history bowl player and Model United
Nations participant from East Brunswick High School in New Jersey, USA. I served as
captain of my school’s Academic Team and Secretary General of our Model United Nations
program. Both activities have meant a lot to me, and I see no better place to combine them
than at the International History Olympiad’s Historical Simulation. Though I will not be
attending the event as I will be abroad, I hope you guys have the best possible time at the
Olympiad as it’s something that I have always wanted to do.
At the Olympiad you will have a chance to take part in a historical simulations of the Boxer
Rebellion, a major Chinese historical event epitomizing anti-imperial sentiment. For those of
you familiar with Model United Nations conferences, this simulation will operate similar to
Model United Nations committees, using very basic parliamentary procedure with a “chair”
to moderate debate. However, these simulations will include “crisis” elements, giving
substantive updates in committee to delegates that will alter the flow of debate and require
participants to use their critical thinking abilities to embrace and delineate complex
solutions. I speak for both myself and all the Olympiad staff in saying that we hope you
greatly enjoy this simulation.
The simulation focused on in this specific brief will be the Boxer Rebellion from the
perspective of the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty. The brief, intended to help you
prepare for the committee, should serve as a starting point for research, as it will provide
you historical context and information (graciously provided from an external source), an
introductory letter from the Empress Dowager Cixi explaining the current situation, the list
of all the positions in the committee and their descriptions, and a guide to the written output
in committee. This should help you with preliminary research, but I absolutely request you
try to research on your own as well to develop a greater understanding of the topic. In the
meantime, have fun researching and get excited for this simulation!
-Shravan Balaji
Questions to consider:
• Should the Qing Dynasty lend direct support to the Boxers?
• What would be the best way to conduct diplomatic relations with the West?
• Is the state of Chinese bureaucracy sufficient for the modern world?
• In what ways, if any, can China modernize without disrupting Chinese culture?
• What can be done to win back the Mandate of Heaven?
• What external powers could China look to for help?
• What measures can be taken to improve the standard of living for China’s common
citizens?
• Should the Han Chinese be given equal citizen status as compared to the minority
Manchu elite?
LETTER FROM THE DOWAGER EMPRESS: March 1, 1900
我的朝廷：
我們今天在這裡開會，是迫切的。在過去的幾十年裡，我們已經看到中國從控制我們的土地的侵蝕。
外國人入侵對中國事務，成立了不平等條約，建立勢力範圍，和生活的中國人的方式完全不尊重。至
關重要的是，我們找到一個方法來阻止這個，現在阻止這一切。
保持這種緊迫性的考慮，我再審你來參加我們的會議考慮三種不同的，同樣引人入勝的話題。首先，
考慮的範圍和方式，我們應該支持義和團運動。顯然，我們支持他們的崇高意圖，但限制是有我們對
他們的支持？接下來，我們必須考慮我們與西方的外交狀態。如果我們斷言自己進一步，維持現狀，
或者尋求其他什麼東西？我們的第三個爭論點是中國治理和官僚的狀態。是否有可能發生變化，我們
可以作出這樣的保存皇位，維護天命而不改變中國的文化？所有這些問題是重要的，必須立即進行討
論。這是給你，朝廷大臣珍貴，幫助找到解決這一危機。
在此之前，
慈禧太后
ENGLISH TRANSLATION To my Imperial Court: It is urgent that we meet here today. Over the past few decades, we have seen the erosion of Chinese control from our lands. Foreigners have intruded on Chinese affairs with the establishment of the unequal treaties, creation of spheres of influence, and complete disrespect of the Chinese way of life. It is vital that we find a way to stop this, and stop this now. Keeping this urgency in consideration, I request that you come to our meeting considering three different and equally engaging topics. First, consider the extent and manner in which we should support the Boxer Rebellion. Clearly we support their noble intentions, but what limits are there in our support for them? Next, we must consider our diplomatic state with the West. Should we assert ourselves further, maintain the status quo, or seek something else? Our third point of contention is the state of Chinese governance and bureaucracy. Are there possibly changes we can make that preserve the imperial throne and maintain the mandate of heaven without changing Chinese culture? All these issues are important and must be discussed immediately. It is up to you, the prized ministers of Imperial Court to help find a solution to this crisis. Until then, Empress Dowager Cixi
A Brief History
China, the self-proclaimed Middle Kingdom, is undoubtedly an ancient land. Its people and
system of government can be traced as far back as 2100 BCE, with the founding of the semimythical Xia Dynasty in modern day Henan province; this event marks the beginning of a
period of time known as the Ancient Era. Lasting from the founding of Xia in 2100 BCE to
the end of the Warring States period in 221 BCE, this stretch of history was integral to the
development of the modern Chinese theory of rule and civilization: during these long years,
the concept of a divine mandate, or the Mandate of Heaven, was first invoked, and many
central cultural institutions, such as the philosophies of Confucianism and Legalism, were
developed. This period also saw the movement of the ethnic Han Chinese from areas
inhabited since prehistory to the many disparate regions that we now consider China proper.
The Ancient era was violently ended as China disintegrated into the Warring States period, a
200-year long fragmentation of a historically more unified china. Historiographers consider
the Ancient Era to have ended and the current era of Chinese history, the Imperial Era, to
have begun when a wily new king of the State of Qin was victorious in his military
campaigns against other small states, eventually unifying the six other major Chinese
powers. In addition to the amalgamation of the states in the area of eastern China, this
transition saw the beginning of the storied institutions of the imperial Chinese state, such as
rule of law and the primacy of the emperor. From then on, China has seen the
unceremonious transitions between various dynasties; the great strides in conquest and
technological development of the Han; the period of foreign takeover by the Yuan; and,
since the year 1664 AD, the governance by the Qing.
The Qing, much like the Yuan years before them, are not Han Chinese, the ethnic majority in the
nation, but are ethnically Jurchen, a people whose historic home has been in the region of
Manchuria. The Aisin Gioro, originally the chieftains of a small, unimportant tribe, rose to
prominence in the 16th century after unifying neighboring tribes, and declared themselves
Khans of the Great Jin; they eventually became the tribe that took charge of the Qing dynasty.
Previously a Ming tributary state, the Jurchen renounced their subservience to the Ming after
achieving newfound power through unification. After a successful military campaign, the capital
of Great Jin was moved south, and systems of military and civil administration developed; chief
among these inventions was the system of Eight Banners, which would come to unify the still
disparate peoples of Manchuria into a nation. The continued modernization of the state led to the
creation of a rudimentary system of administration developed on the model of the Ming state;
not surprisingly, it was staffed with captured Ming bureaucrats and was integral in keeping the
varied lands of the empire together. Future Jurchen Khans continued the legacy of their forebear,
eventually incorporating the territories of Mongolia into their growing state. After defeating the
last Khan of the Mongols, the reigning Jin Khan was presented with the imperial seal of the
Yuan Dynasty. After this conquest, the name of the state was changed to Great Qing, and the
supreme position was elevated from Khan to Emperor.
—4—
The Qing took up the title of the Mandate of Heaven in the year of 1644. Aided by a great
peasant rebellion in the ruling Ming Dynasty to the south, they swept in from Manchuria and
sacked the rebel usurper’s capital in Beijing. On October 30th, the Qing finally took up the
title of Son of Heaven and installed themselves as the rulers of all China.
International Troubles
Prior to the 1800s, the Qing were the dominant power in East Asia, with the regional
hegemony needed to dictate the politics of all the realms in the east. However, as European
powers began to build their economies around oceanic trade, they became stronger in
relation to the insular Chinese state. For a time, the Qing were able to find a balance of
power with the Europeans through what was known as the Canton System: this limited the
ports at which European merchants could trade — most notably to its eponym, the port of
Canto — and the seasons during which the movement of goods were permitted to take place.
This decades old system was challenged in 1793 by the British East India Company, which
desired the opening of China to a wider variety of trade. The British, under the ambassador
Lord Macartney, argued that a country of Britain’s status deserved a more amicable trade
relationship with China; this was promptly rebuked in Beijing, with the emperor telling the
British that China had no need for their manufactured goods, and only desired to trade for
precious metals. Pushed by both heightened demand in Europe for Chinese goods such as
tea and silk as well as dwindling stockpiles of precious metals, the British searched for a
solution. The British began to funnel opium into China through the port of Canton to
perpetuate a Chinese addiction to the drug; in 1839, Britain was able to declare war on
China after Beijing attempted to stem the Chinese addiction by banning the import of opium.
The First Opium War was a disaster for China. It not only damaged the nation’s prestige, but
also showed how outdated and ill-equipped the Chinese military had become. Complacent
officials in Beijing had not diverted funds to upgrade the military for warfare in the new era;
wooden junks were sent to fight against the cruisers of the Royal Navy, and archers were
tasked with the defense of cities against Royal Marine artillery. The humiliating defeat
resulted in the Treaty of Nanking, in which the island of Hong Kong was ceded to the
British, unrestricted European access to Chinese ports was granted, and crushing reparations
were appropriated. Furthermore, the losses proved to many that the Qing had lost the
Mandate of Heaven and were unable, either through corruption or incompetence, to govern
the Chinese people effectively.
This anti-Qing sentiment came to a head in 1851 with the Taiping rebellion. A bitter student,
hav-ing failed to become a civil servant in repeated attempts at the Imperial Examinations, lead
a re-bellion in the southwest province of Ghizhou. During this rebellion, the student, Hong
Xiuquan, established himself as the ruler of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with himself as
king; he claimed to be a prophet of God and to be the brother of Jesus Christ. The 14-year
rebellion, as of the year 1900, is the single bloodiest conflict to have been fought. After
receiving assistance from the French and British armies, the Qing finally put down the rebellion
in 1864. However, the Taiping rebellion opened the floodgates of anti-Manchu and anti-Qing
sentiments, spawning similar rebellions in the northwest by the Muslim population and in the
southwest by the people of Yunnan. Over the course of these rebellions in the mid 19th century,
China’s economy was irreversibly damaged, millions of acres of farmland were destroyed, and
upwards of 30 million people were killed.
British attempts to capitalize on Qing weakness to renegotiate the treaty of Nanjing were
met by stern opposition in Beijing. Unfortunately, this refusal by Chinese authorities to
further disadvantage their nation led to the outbreak of the Second Opium War, which
China, burdened already by a weakened state, could not have possibly won. This war ended
with the Treaty of Tientsin, which forced further humiliating on China through permanent
territorial concessions, a fine of millions of dollars in reparations to be paid in precious
metals, and the right for foreign warships to navigate Chinese rivers without hindrance.
Attempts at Reform
After stunning defeats at the hands of European powers and internal turmoil, China rallied
around younger, reform-minded officials like Li Hongzhang, who instituted such new policies as
the Self-Strengthening Movement, which tried to standardize trade with Europe; modernize the
aging army and fleet; and bring the nation back from the damage it had sustained in years of war
and rebellion. The result was the new model army for China, the Beiyang Army. This new
military was styled after the European armies of the day and was the centerpiece of the
reconstructed Chinese system; however, any renewed sense of security was destroyed when the
new fleet was defeated in combat by the forces of the Empire of Japan during the First SinoJapanese war.
After a political shuffle following the war, the new emperor Guangxu and his liberal minded
sup-porters took to a faster pace of reform during what is known as the Hundred Days Reform.
Be-ginning in 1898, the reforms shook up the millennia-old systems of power in China; it sought
to create a modern education system, eliminate government bureaucratic waste, and apply
capitalistic principles to the nation through industrialization. However, its most notable goal, and
the point that drew the ire of the conservative factions in court led by Empress Dowager Cixi,
was the desire to change the system of government from the absolute monarchy that had existed
for near four thousand years to a constitutional monarchy in the style of Western Europe, where
the populace were allowed to elect political leaders. Opposed to these drastic reforms, the
conservatives won the Muslim Kansu Braves army over to their cause, marching into Beijing to
crush the reformers. The army, led by the Empress Dowager, arrested the young emperor and
placed him under house arrest.
The Current Situation
The year is now 1900 and the Qing dynasty has held on to power for 256 years. It has, however,
suffered greatly, beset by those who would see China snuffed out. Presently, the issue that
concerns the court is the Boxer movement, composed of the downtrodden victims of
imperialism and foreign aggression. Taking control of their fate, these individuals fight
oppressive foreign forces wherever they can. Although they are not a centralized force and
instead rely on the aggregate action of cells, the Boxers are united in their ideology: to revive the
Qing and destroy the foreigners.
A major cause of the discontent that led to the Boxer movement was the Christian
missionaries who came to China to convert the local populace. Fed up with corrupting
foreign influence on China, the Boxers started attacking German and French missions. The
Boxers then continued to grow in popularity during the Hundred Days Reform, with the
Chinese seeing the meddling of missionaries in the court and the attempts to persuade the
Guangxu emperor to imitate Western reforms as definite signs of foreign manipulation of
China. All across the countryside, from snowy Heilongjiang in the north to the sweltering
jungles of Guangxi to the south, Boxer cells rose in open rebellion against foreigners and
pro-western government leaders. Pro-Western governors have therefore called men to arms,
sparking a conflict that seems poised to tear the country asunder, with conservatives on one
side and reformers on the other.
The eight powers of Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Germany, France, Japan, the United
Kingdom, and the United States have taken refuge in the Beijing Legation Quarter due to the
Boxer threat. However, the situation is as tense as ever, with bellicose Boxers having just
cut a main railroad line, effectively isolating Beijing; the combination of foreign troops
protecting the legations and swarming numbers of Boxers makes the situation incredibly
volatile. In order to deal with the current issue as well as any potential future crises, the Qing
court must be able to also resolve internal differences. Currently, officials are divided into
two distinct blocs: the anti-Foreign conservatives, consisting of the old guard in the court,
and the pro-Foreign reformers, composed of mostly younger officials. This is a mercurial
time for all of China, and the court must meticulously navigate this situation to retain any
hope of sustaining the Qing dynasty.
Character Portfolio
The character portfolio is to explain your character and role briefly in order to give you an
idea of what position you shall be representing. This specific committee will be a special
summit of various Imperial Court members of importance to discuss Chinese issues, and
will amalgamate different bodies and groups. Each member will have limited portfolio
powers that allow each delegate to act independently on their own, but the goal is for the
committee to come together to decide upon what courses of actions to take. It is vital that
you adhere to your position and stances on issues so committee runs smoothly.
1. Empress Dowager Cixi-The effective leader of the Qing Dynasty and China, she has
consolidated control in her bureaucracy despite the interference of many Western
nations. In this simulation, she will be chairing the committee and serve as the
moderator for debate and discussion. Unlike a real life scenario, she will only offer
input, but allow committee to make the decision. (Note: Though historically the
imperial court and grand council were led by the Emperor, in order to simplify the
dynamics of Chinese internal politics, the Dowager Empress herself shall be in
charge of the committee from the start as by this time she had put the Guangxu
Emperor in her tutelage and effectively ruled the nation)
2. Prince Qing- A major Chinese bureaucrat, he serves as the pro-foreign voice in the
Grand Council and a supporter of the status quo. He is well known for his ability to
make politically savvy deals and find difficult compromises. Considered progressive
by many of his peers, he has always been a friend to the West and hopes to achieve
greater ties with the external powers.
3. Prince Duan- Another major Chinese bureaucrat, he serves as the leader of the proBoxer faction in the Grand Council. He has several military legions under his
influence or control, and is well known for his conservative beliefs on Chinese
culture. He seeks to preserve tradition and maintain the Qing Dynasty’s control over
the Mandate of Heaven.
4. Representative of the Han- The Grand Council’s voice for the ethnic Han peoples of
China, this representative’s goal is primarily to speak out on issues concerning the
Han and their well-being. Though the Representative may not necessarily support in
full the Manchurian Qing Dynasty, he is a loyal vassal at the time being in order to
preserve stability for his nation.
5. Minister of Civil Appointments- Responsible for civil officials and their training, this
minister is in charge of the complex bureaucracy entwined with the Qing Dynasty.
Though the minister does not directly deal with minister affairs, his responsibility for
local bureaucracy requires his presence at committee meetings in order to address
governance.
6. Minister of Revenue-Roughly equivalent to a Minister of Finance, this minister is
primarily responsible for the collection of taxes and other sources of revenue in order
to finance the Qing government. Given China’s large and often rural population, this
is vital to preserve government involvement in local affairs.
7. Minister of Rites-This Minister is in charge of ancestor worship and other traditional
Chinese customs. Mainly concerned with religious affairs, this Minister is also in
charge of civil examinations and must work closely with the Minister of Civil
Appointments and the Emperor to effectively uphold the Chinese bureaucracy.
8. Minister of War-Administrative in nature as individual generals communicate with
the Emperor and the Grand Council, this body mostly deals with military discipline
and preparedness as opposed to specific uses. It may be able to recall or meet with
Generals and other military forces and certain times.
9. Minister of Punishments-In charge of administrative duties regarding crimes and law
and order, this position is vital to keep order in a turbulent nation. The ministry may
often resort to ruthless tactics, but usually only attempts to do so for the purpose of
keeping order. Of all the ministries, it is the one the Empress usually has the most
control over.
10. Minister of Works-In charge of public infrastructure such as roads and bridges as
well as transportation, this is an extremely vital role in Chinese growth and
development. Recent failures in projects have allowed the Chinese to grow even
more dependent on Western nations, and the Minister has a tall task ahead of him in
attempting to improve his nations struggling infrastructure.
11. Head of the Imperial Household Department-In charge of assisting the royal family,
this department has a wide variety of tasks and responsibilities, many considered
extremely important to the nation’s functioning. This group maintains order in the
royal palace and is extremely loyal to the Dowager Empress, fulfilling her every
wish and controlling various other agencies.
Useful Sources of Information
Books and Websites
Bodin, Lynn E., and Christopher Warner. The Boxer Rebellion. London: Osprey, 1979.
Print.
Bickers, Robert A., and R. G. Tiedemann. The Boxers, China, and the World. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print.
Harrington, Peter. Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion. Oxford: Osprey Military,
2001. Print. Ko, W. (2001). The Boxer Movement. Chinese American Forum, 16(4),
14.
Salem, P. (1999). The Boxer Rebellion Fails to Remove Foreign Control in China. Great
Events (p. 4). US: Salem Press.
Weider History, G. (2012). David Silbey: China’s Boxer Rebellion. Military History, 29(1), 1415
http://www.britannica.com/event/Boxer-Rebellion
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Grand-Council
http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/whychina/qing.php
http://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/q/Qing_Dynasty.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/boxer-rebellion
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/boxer.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/filmmore/reference/interview/lafeber_boxerrebellion.html
http://www.sacu.org/cixi.html