Foreigners' Lens of the Eight-Nation Alliance (Illustrated Chronicle of the Boxer Protocol Centennial (Chinese-English Parallel Edition))

Author: Editorial Committee of "A Visual Chronicle of the Boxer Protocol Centennial"
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-09-01
Features: On September 7, 2001, a day of special significance for China and some developed countries. Exactly a century earlier, on this day in 1901, the Eight-Nation Alliance, composed of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Austria, and Italy, forcibly compelled the Qing government to sign a brutal and unequal treaty in human history. This year was the Xin year in the Chinese lunar calendar, hence the name "Boxer Protocol." This album presents photographs that authentically reflect this period of history. The images were primarily taken by foreigners. One-third of them were unseen before, captured by a British soldier who personally participated in the invasion of China. In 1996, Mr. Chen Jun, a British-born Chinese, purchased these photographs at Christie's auction house in London, London, and subsequently donated them to the Chinese Historical Archives. These lenses from a century ago offer profound historical lessons. Under the bombardment, killing, looting, and plunder by the Eight-Nation Alliance, dozens of towns and hundreds of villages in the Beijing and Tianjin regions were reduced to ruins, with broken walls and ruins scattered everywhere. The Boxers, Qing soldiers, and innocent civilians who rose in resistance were brutally slaughtered, leaving corpses strewn across the streets. Royal treasures and scientific instruments were looted, merchants and wealthy households had their property stolen, even the valuables of Tibetan Buddhist temples were plundered. Countless common people were left destitute and homeless. These photographs truthfully document the immense trauma inflicted upon the Chinese people by the war. The Eight-Nation Alliance forced the Qing government, which had an annual income of only 80 million taels of silver, to pay indemnities of 450 million taels of silver to the powers, with the debt to be repaid over 39 years, totaling 980 million taels. The enormous indemnity, the depletion of the national treasury, and the heavy oppression of the people pushed the already impoverished and weak China further into the abyss of disaster. These photographs provoke deep reflection. Every nation's development follows a process of accumulation and gradual progress. Many developing countries have suffered plunder and devastation by colonial powers. Today, as economic ties between nations grow stronger, developed countries have a responsibility to support the rapid development of developing countries. The Eight-Nation Alliance forced the Qing government to disarm strategic locations such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Tangshan, allowing the powers to station troops, suppress popular resistance, severely punish officials who supported the Boxers, and recognize the expansion of the powers' legation districts in Beijing and their permanent, granting them extensive consular jurisdiction, regulated tariffs, customs control, coastal trade, navigation rights on rivers and lakes, mining and railway construction, and concessions. In the vast China, sovereignty was nearly non-existent, and the Chinese people suffered arbitrary humiliation and slaughter, with no human rights to speak of. The historical facts reflected in these photographs clearly show that without national sovereignty, human rights are merely a dream. The Chinese people and people around the world yearn for all nations to respect each other's sovereignty and human rights, and to achieve common development and prosperity. Peace in the world, cooperation among people, development of nations, and progress of society are irreversible trends of the times. This is the historic lesson imparted by this album.