"The Fist of Righteous Harmony" (Europeans called them "Boxers") rose up in 1899-1900 and attacked all the symbols of foreign presence: embassies, traders, and missionaries. Some thirty thousand Chinese Christians and several hundred foreign missionaries were killed before the rebellion was quelled.

 

It can be argued that qigong movements since the dawn of the modem world have been threatening to the status quo in China. The next example that supports this position thus would be the Boxer Uprising. Still, under the Qing dynasty, the Boxer Uprising took place from 1899-1901. Qigong was not only a central practice of the Boxers but 'also a major motivating factor behind the uprising. The term "Boxer Rebellion" in fact is inaccurate because this implies that the Boxers rebelled against the Chinese government, the Qing dynasty. Thus in actuality, the Boxers never rebelled  but rather the Boxers rose up against the presence of foreigners in China particularly Christian missionaries. (Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1987), xiv.) This raises the question, who were the Boxers?

In fact  they descended from a group linked to rebels of the millenarian White Lotus sect a Chinese religious sect that originated in approximately the 13th century. In fact one could argue that the Ming Empire rose from the White Lotus  inspired, "Red Turban" rebellion against the Yuan Dynasty and its 'foreign Mongol,' elite. Hence the Ming derived their name from the White Lotus' messianic figures of "Big and Little Ming Wang" (Brilliant Kings), who were thought to have been sent by Maitreya (a believed future return of the Buddha) to the world to restore order.

A form of 19th Century split of from the White Lotus sect, the Boxers included participants from a wide range of social strata and occupational backgrounds. Also those who joined the Boxers bad a great diversity of motives. (Paul Cohen, History in Three Keys. The Boxers as Event. Experience. and Myth (New York, 1997), 111.)

According to Paul Cohen the Boxers included not only ordinary peasants but also Taoist priests, Buddhist monks and nuns, demobilized soldiers, members of martial arts organizations, seasonal farm laborers, transport workers hurt by the advent of the railway and stearnship, urban gang members, and vast numbers of unemployed drifters made indigent by the successive natural disasters that struck North China in the final years of the nineteenth century. But most important, the foundational practices of the Boxers were qigong routines which were also religious in nature, including invulnerability rituals, mass spirit possession, the swallowing of charms, and the recitation of spells. The Boxers also practiced martial art form which is described as „Iron shirt Qigong” in the form of visualization, which along with the so called protective charms, making them believe they were inpenetreteable. And to the  practices that were most prevalent would belong  qigong, boxing, and mass spirit possession. In fact by by the summer of 1900 the practice of spirit possession by appears to have become virtually omnipresent within the movement. The phrase jiangshen futi (spirit possession), refers to a process in which a god comes down and goes into (literally, "attaches itself to'') the body of a Boxer. Once the Boxer believed him herself to be possessed, the Boxer entered an altered state of consciousness, accompanied by behavioral changes and often greatly enhanced courage. (Cohen, 1997, p. 98).

For what attracted prospective Boxers, Spirit possession thus became a major attraction. Although it is claimed that during most of Qing rule, things such as qigong and martial arts were practiced secretly. One reason for this would be when the Manchus conquered China in 1644, many practitioners of qigong and martial arts did not wish to share their knowledge with the invaders, so they practiced underground. However, eventually it became a mass movement. The Boxer Uprising would be a prime example.

Important in this context is to understand  that  the Ch'ing's greatest achievement had been to attach the vast Inner Asian hinterland of Tibet, Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manchuria to the East Asian heartland of China proper. Foreign penetration of this imperial periphery threatened to unravel this far-flung network of power. In the 1880s the Russians pressed forward from Central Asia, the British conquered upper Burma and  France forced Peking to abandon its claim to the suzerainty of Annam (much of modern Vietnam . But it was the fate of Korea that brought on the crisis. Korea was vulnerable to external pressure from Russia (which envied its ice-free ports) and Japan. Its Confucian polity had been badly shaken by domestic opponents, some of them Christians. Yet the Peking court could not run the risk that Korea might lean towards another power and cut its long-standing ties with China. The 'hermit kingdom' was the maritime gateway into Inner Asia. It was the springboard for advance into the empty space of Manchuria. Its loss might destabilize much of China 's steppe diplomacy, turning Inner Asia into a hostile borderland. So when a Japanese-backed coup overthrew Korea 's sinophile regime in 1894, Peking refused to back down. But, in the short war that followed between July 1894 and March 1895, it was China that suffered a humiliating defeat.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (in April r895) unleashed a whirlwind of change. It forced China to recognize the independence of Korea. Part of Manchuria was to be transferred to Japan, as well as Taiwan and the Pescadore islands. China had to pay a huge financial indemnity, equal to a year's worth of its public revenue. Among China 's literate class - the provincial scholar-gentry on whose loyalty it depended - the Ch'ing dynasty suffered a devastating loss of prestige. To make matters worse, the imperial government was now forced to borrow abroad to help pay the indemnity and recoup its shattered military strength. Among the European powers, already alarmed by symptoms of impending collapse, this set off a race to lend China money, secured against the collateral of territorial and commercial rights. Russia led the way with a loan in return for Peking's permission to build a railway across Manchuria to its new eastern city at Vladivostok, along with an eighty-year lease to exploit the economic resources found along the line. (R..K..I. Quested, Matey Imperialists?:The Tsarist Russians in Manchuria, Hong Kong, 1982, pp. 21-2.)

In 1898 Germany, Russia and Britain each acquired a naval base in North China near the maritime approach to Peking . The great powers made agreements among themselves on the zones where they would have preference in the concessions for railways that the Ch'ing government now seemed poised to grant. In this feverish climate, the imperial court suddenly announced a long list of decrees to reform education, the army and the bureaucratic system, along lines broadly similar to Meiji Japan . Before they could be implemented, the emperor's mother, the notorious dowager empress (Tz'u-hsi), staged a coup d'etat and dismissed the reformers. Into the bitter atmosphere of political conflict burst the violent disorders aimed against Christian conversions in north-east China , the Boxer Rebellion. With the complicity of the court, the Boxers occupied Peking , cut off the city, and besieged the foreign legations. If the aim was to enlist xenophobic mass feeling in defence of the dynasty (the Boxer slogan was 'Support the Ch'ing. exterminate the foreigner'), it backfired spectacularly. The foreign-powers (the Europeans, Americans and Japanese) sent a large armed force (45,000 men) to rescue their diplomats and punish the Boxers, It seemed that China 's rulers had blundered willy-nilly into an armec confrontation with the rest of the world.

The outcome inevitably was further humiliation. The dowage: empress and her court fled the city. Another huge indemnity ,vas imposed upon China . Under the terms of the Boxer settlement, the Chinese government was also forced to agree tariff reforms that would favor foreign trade. Browbeaten by the 'diplomatic body' - the collective weight of the foreign ambassadors it seemed almost certain that Peking would yield railway concessions that extended foreign control deep into the Chinese interior. At the same time, there was every sign that the invading armies that had suppressed the Boxers would be slow to leave. More than two years later, despite a promise to go. Manchuria was occupied by nearly 150,000 Russian soldiers.

The majority of the Boxers were peasants trained with the very basics of qigong and martial arts, combined with initiation ceremonies to give the peasant Boxers the belief that they were being empowered. Approximately ten days before the war was declared, the Boxers had overrun the capital and destroyed churches and foreign residencest killed Chinese Christian convertst and exhumed graves of foreign missionaries.

And as described the conclusion of the uprising was quick and catastrophic. When by the middle of August in 1900, the annies of several foreign powers, including British, French, Russian, American, Genoan, and Japanese troops, had entered the capital they begun unleashing a dreadful retaliation. Not only did killing of many of the rebels take place, but regiments of innocent Chinese people, who were either confused for Boxers or who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were slaughtered. (Wang Ke-wen, Modern China: An Encyclopedia 0f History, Culture, and Nationalism (New York: 1998), 34.)

Shown in a number of modern Chienese movies, the foreign forces also took part in looting, rape, and arson. Even though the Empress Dowager initially supported the Boxers, when it- became apparent that Boxer success was impossible, she turned against them. The lack of imperial support contributed to the-defeat of the Boxers. The the Empress Dowager requested the destruction of the training halls and  executed the leaders. But regardless of this outcome, the Boxer Uprising illustrates both widespread belief in the power of qigong and the potential of qigong movements to threaten the status quo in China. (Earl C. Medciros, The History and Philosophy of Kung Fu, 1974,54.)

Thus with the great upheavals, from peasant revolts through the Taipings and the later Fists of Righteousness (or "Boxers"), down to the secular cult of Mao, that have had a messianic, millenarian character China today is aware of such internal weaknesses. And China 's present rulers dread the rise of a new, seductive religion within the country more than they do any external threat. The most instructive action taken by the Beijing government in the past ten years hence was the ferocious response to the spread of the Falun Gong cult. Cognizant of their national history, China 's rulers feared the rapid spread of a charismatic religion to which we will turn next.

Furthermore discussing of the interelationship between qigong and modernization in this case can furthermore serve as a case study for a well-rounded understanding of modernization theory and modern world history. Concepts that are commonly intertwined with modernization such as secularization, cultural imperialism, and scientific Marxism are among the themes that would be present in such a discussion.

In fact the CCP interacts with China' s diverse qigong practices in diverse ways. There are numerous qigong organizations in China. The relationship between each qigong organization and the CCP differs. For example members from certain qigong organizations in the past were invited to teach qigong to government officials for health purposes whereas other qigong organiations were banned. The relationship between a qigong organization and the CCP depends on how well the ideas advocated by the particular qigong organization fit into Chinese communist ideology. Qigong organizations that do not challenge communist thought can usually exist in Chinese society without oppression. However if the organization advocates ideas incompatible with CCP ideology or iso viewed as a threat to the CCP in any way, then there is a good chance that the organization will be suppressed.

 Case Study: Taoist Qigong History as Supported or at least not Opposed by the CCP.
 

For updates click homepage here