Media Appeal And War Mobilization:Observations On The Boxer Movement In English Newspapers In China

The Boxer Movement,which took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries,was a major event that shocked the world.It was not only the product of multiple domestic conflicts and contradictions,but also involved complex international relations,which attracted the observation of diplomats,travelers and missionaries in China,and left many writings published in foreign language periodicals.These articles were written by Westerners and published in the English-language newspapers founded in Shanghai,which became a source of information for the Western community in China to understand the situation in China and reflect what they saw and felt in a more objective and realistic way.These considerable English-language writings on the Boxer Movement present the history of Westerners’observation,depiction,and interpretation of the Boxer Movement in modern times,and have influenced to some extent the direction of Western powers’ policies toward China as it spread to Europe and the United States.As early as the origins of the Boxer Movement in the Chili and Shantung region,some English-language newspapers in China took note of this new organization,analyzing its causes and organizational origins as well as the foreign-related image of the local government.Some newspapers,from the perspective of the conflict between the people and the church,traced the origins of the Boxer Movement to the Juye case,argued that the Great Sword Society of Shandong was the main organizational source of the Boxer Movement,and attributed its rise to the connivance and instigation of the local government.Some newspapers,on the other hand,believed that the Liyuantun case was the source of the Boxer Movement,and made much of the violent anti-religious activities of the Boxer Movement-people in the Sino-foreign conflict in their reports.Since the Boxer Movement was mainly fought in Shandong during this period,the English-language press in China also focused on the personalities of the successive governors of Shandong,Zhang Rumei,Yuxian,and Yuan Shikai,and the initial intentions and changes in their foreign policies during the Sino-foreign conflicts.As the movement progressed,the Boxer Movement raised the banner of "supporting the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreigners" and pointed directly at all groups of Westerners in China,including missionaries,and their activities gradually became the focus of coverage in the English-language press in China.However,with the breakdown of communication between Shanghai and northern China,a series of political rumors and cultural misinterpretations often appeared in the English-language press.These rumors and misinterpretations were either cultural misinterpretations of folk religious rituals such as the Boxer seance and the invulnerability of swords and spears in the dimension of cross-cultural understanding,or rumors of "massacres" in areas where the Boxer Movement was at its height in the context of collective anxiety,or political distortions of the Qing government’s foreign policy in the context of the failure of Sino-foreign communication.The result was that the Westerners in China were thrown into panic,and with the circulation of the newspaper content in Europe and the United States,it provided public opinion support and a factual basis for policy formulation for the Western powers to intervene by force.As the "leader" of the powers in China at that time,the direction of the British policy toward China was a guidepost.The English-language press in China focused on the outbreak of the Boxer Movement and reported on the cases involving the British Church with the obvious purpose of influencing the British government’s policy toward China and inciting and encouraging Britain and its powers to make the decision to invade China by force.The English-language press in China followed the Feicheng case,analyzing in particular the impact of this regional civil-religious conflict on Sino-British relations,and elevating the question of whether the case would end successfully to the status of Britain in China and the image of the British state,and calling on Britain to change its initially sluggish and rigid foreign policy toward China.As the civil-religious conflict escalated in other regions,the English-language press in China also focused on the contradictions in the policies of the British,German and Russian imperialists toward China,and along with the increased coverage of the military actions of Russia,France,Germany and the United States,called on Britain to participate in the joint actions of the ministerial corps of various countries and to join in the acts of war against China by the Eight-Power Allied Forces.