Trouble in China | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 11.

Trouble in China.

At the time the peace protocol between the Chinese Government and the allied powers was signed, there were predictions by those who best knew the situation that peace would not last long. Recent advices indicate that the Boxers are active in nearly all the provinces. The old Boxer leaders were not punished according to agreement, and were soon restored to favor. The latest news indicates that the whole of the Yang-tse Valley is fermenting in rebellion, as well as the northern and western provinces previously mentioned. Of course the uprising, which is called rebellion, as in the former troubles, is not so much against the government, as against the foreigners. There is hardly any doubt that the government is and always has been the real instigator of the Boxer movement. In the former trouble the government plead inability to put down the “rebels,” and now the same leaders who are at large because their sentences were not executed, are again at the head. A recent plot to pillage the city of Canton was frustrated through information given to the police by one who was in the secret. He was given a handsome reward, but was soon afterward killed. The men arrested for complicity in the plot were held a few days and released “for want of evidence.” A native correspondent of the Shanghai Mercury says that the governor of Kwangsi purposely allowed the Boxers to accumulate in his province and is on friendly terms with the famous Prince Tuan, who is known as a Boxer leader. It is also alleged that the reported defeats of imperial troops by Boxers were intentional on the part of government forces. Missionaries in several localities have petitioned the government for protection.