The Game Of Education: The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship In The Perspective Of US China Policy In The Early 20th Century

The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship was a study-in-the-US scholarship program provided to elite students in China, based on the American remission of the famous Boxer Protocol indemnity, in the early twentieth century. Since the establishment of official relations between the Chinese and the US governments, the latter has been adjusting its foreign policy toward China, a country with great strategic significance and huge potential. The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed the introduction of the Open Door policy as the US foreign guideline toward China. The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship and related educational programs constituted a significant component of the Open Door policy.This thesis falls into three parts. It first examines the development of American presence and interests in China in the pre-Boxer period to give a large picture. As the US strengthened its national power, it began to take on a more assertive position in the Chinese affairs. The Open Door policy in the very beginning of the twentieth century signaled such assertiveness of the US foreign policy. Then it makes efforts to elaborate on the American remission of the Boxer Indemnity money and the remission-based Scholarship program. The US push for the educational utilization of the remitted indemnity provided proof of the educational scheme as a tool for advancing the US interests in China. Finally, it sums up the stimulating effects of the educational mission on US interests in China as being propagating the American model, raising the US influence in the Chinese affairs and facilitating the US trade growth in China. It concludes that the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship and related educational programs were part and parcel of the US Boxer Diplomacy. The remission-based educational mission, on one hand, gave the US leverage to counter influence from Britain, Germany, Japan and other imperialist powers and keep a balance of power. On the other, to exert an educational influence on China was in the interest of the US construction of national identity.The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship could be viewed as the first educational diplomacy attempt by the United States, and a successful one. It appealed greatly to the educational and cultural circles of China, though the lack of two-way exchanges impeded the program to play a bigger role in the Chinese society.