enjoy similar, though preferably lesser, advantages. And the
other Western powers inevitably followed suit. Nor were
British interventions by any means So calculated as
simplified histories-or even more simplified sketches such
as this-tend to make out: on closer examination policies
prove, as usual, to be largely a matter of improvisation and
short-term responses. We stumble into history. Nevertheless
the general trend, British and Western intrusion and
dictation, was clear. By the end of the century China was in
the condition Mao Zedong vividly described as half-feudal,
half-colonial: foreign missionaries and traders, enjoying
special protection, penetrated deeply into the interior;
foreign merchants, under special treaty regimes, dominated
the ports; significant parts of the territory were under
foreign laws or
or in actual foreign possession. The final
partition of China seemed very close. The strange, irrational
outburst of the Righteous Harmony Fists" (the Boxers) in
1900, mingling magic, violence and xenophobia, reflected the
strains and confusion among a suffering but still
uncomprehending population. Beginning as a rural insurgency
movement against the alien Manchu dynasty, it was hijacked by
the Empress Dowager and directed against the European and
Japanese interlopers; and when it failed to exterminate these
pests was rapidly dropped. The suppression of the rising was
inevitably followed by further foreign exactions.
On both sides throughout the nineteenth century there
were divided councils on how to handle the new opportunities,
or threats, divisions which curiously foreshadow more modern
debates. In the treaty ports British merchants, the original