TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 93

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 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