I remember learning about the Boxer Rebellion in my high school world history class. The only things I remember being told were, "1900. Boxers thought they could catch bullets. Eight Power Alliance invades China." I spent last month reading about this interesting historical event.
China's relationship with the Boxer Rebellion is much different, though no less complex, than its relationship with the Opium Wars. Chinese governments have fallen in and out of love with the Boxers and their anti-foreign sentiments since the beginning of the movement in the late Qing Dynasty. Even the Qing themselves didn't know whether to treat the Boxers as friend or foe, eventually siding with them in hopes they wouldn't turn their outrage against the Qing government.
China's relationship with the Boxer Rebellion is much different, though no less complex, than its relationship with the Opium Wars. Chinese governments have fallen in and out of love with the Boxers and their anti-foreign sentiments since the beginning of the movement in the late Qing Dynasty. Even the Qing themselves didn't know whether to treat the Boxers as friend or foe, eventually siding with them in hopes they wouldn't turn their outrage against the Qing government.
Today the Chinese Propaganda Machine treats the Boxer Rebellion like a cheaper, less entertaining sequel to the Opium Wars, letting it languish in historical memory. It doesn't get near the amount of attention awarded to other "acts of foreign aggression", probably because Chinese history books look less kindly on the Qing Government of 1900 than of 1840. Fanatical Boxers are a harder sell than inept Chinese crusaders against opium. Also it's rather had to defend a movement which only accomplishment was killing defenseless missionaries and leading a genocide against Chinese Christians.
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao and other Chinese leaders praised the Boxers as patriots and leaders, sometimes painting them as proto-communists. This isn't surprising considering the parallels between China during Cultural Revolution and China during the Boxer Rebellion. Both movements attempted to rid China of negative, internal elements and expel all foreign influences. Unlike China in the 1960's, China in 1900 still had a large contingent of foreigners, living, working, and preaching in China. Sadly these foreigners proved an easy scapegoat for China's internal problems and many lost their lives during executions in villages and the sieges of the foreign legations in Beijing.
As the smoke cleared and the siege lifted, the foreign armies, along with the general Chinese population, looted everything that wasn't nailed down. Many Chinese treasures ended up in the hands of private collectors and European Museums. Considering what happened to many historical relics during the Cultural Revolution, this has probably been a good thing for their preservation for future generations. Despite Communist fervor for the cause of the Boxers during the Cultural Revolution, the extremism of the movement usually resulted in the opposite outcome of what the Boxers attempted to do in 1900. The extremism of the Red Guards famously led to the decimation of traditional Chinese culture and the destruction of countless priceless artifacts.
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