Sir Robert Hart on the Boxer Movement
SIR ROBERT HART, director general of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, has been in China for more than twenty-five years. Accordingly, he is acknowledged to be more familiar with official China than any living foreigner. He declares, in a published article written by himself, that the Boxer movement “has taken hold of the popular imagination, and will spread throughout the length and breadth of the country.” He says that the Boxer patriot of the future will possess the best weapons that money can buy, and then the “yellow peril” will be beyond ignoring. He expresses his fears that the remedies “are outside the range of practical politics,” and looks to a future “full of foreboding.” China is the center of the greater Eastern question, and that question will never be settled.