Empress Cixi's Changes To Boxer Rebellion

Empress Dowager Cixi was a Manchu regent who effectively ruled over China from her appointment in 1861 until her death in 1908. She ruled during the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising led by a splinter group called the Boxers towards the end of the Qing Dynasty from 1899 to 1901. Empress Cixi’s changes to Boxer ideologies to reflect those of the state and her actions to preserve the state, doctrine, and race of China express her use of the Boxers as a nationalistic mechanism to eradicate Western influence and preserve Chinese culture. As a result, the Boxers did uphold the image as true Chinese patriots who loved their country and protected China from foreign incursions because they fulfilled the Confucian standard …show more content…
She gave money to the Boxers and publicly signaled her views by beheading a number of anti-Boxer politicians.” By publicly supporting the Boxers and making a radical stance, Empress Cixi has sided with the Chinese peasants, who represented the majority. The Chinese peasants despised the foreigners and saw them daily, from the missionaries to the railway workers to the engineers. This represented the kind of modernity that had disrupted Chinese society, and the rebellion represented a chance for society to move back into his traditional ways, something that Empress Cixi had strived to accomplish during her reign as regent. The endorsement of the Boxers continued throughout the rebellion, as Cixi gave the Boxers legal status, rewarded them with silver, and opened warehouses where she distributed weapons to them. [evidence 2] [analysis 2] Another thing that Empress Cixi accomplished during her reign as regent was preserving the state, doctrine, and race of China from Western