Events
Troops of the eight countries entered and occupied Beijing on August 14, 1900. Empress Dowager Cixi, the Emperor, and higher officials fled the Imperial Palace for Xi'an, and sent Li Hongzhang for peace talks.
Participants of the Eight-Nation Alliance were responsible for the ransacking and pillaging of many historical artifacts of Chinese origin, such as those found in the Summer Palace, and instigated the burning of many prominent Chinese buildings in an effort to rout the Boxer rebels. "Following the taking of Peking, troops from the international force, except British and American, looted the capital city and even ransacked the Forbidden City, with many Chinese treasures finding their way back to Europe." However, the neutrality of the statement is questionable, since the British Museum has one of the finest Chinese Artifacts Collections in the world.
In fact, the Eight-Nation Alliance is most remembered today in China for the destruction of the Old Summer Palace, once considered the crown jewel of the empire. Priceless artifacts were destroyed in the Palace fire, set by the Alliance soldiers, including a large number of books and scrolls dating as far back as the Tang Dynasty.
Perception by modern Chinese
This event has been largely viewed by the Chinese around the world with shame and as foreign aggression. The events have been made into film a number of times.
Though the reaction of the Boxers against foreign imperialism in China is regarded by some as patriotic, the violence that they caused in committing acts of murder, robbery, vandalism and arson cannot be considered much different from the events of other rebellions in China, if not worse. However, the actions of the Eight-Nation Alliance soldiers, who committed similar acts of looting, murder, and **** after taking over the capital city are considered equally heinous.
In January 2006, Freezing Point, a weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily newspaper, was closed partly due to its running of an essay by Yuan Weishi, a history professor at Zhongshan University, who criticized the way in which the Boxer Rebellion and 19th century history about foreign interaction with China is now portrayed in Chinese textbooks and taught at school.
