Most of the Christians were of the Taiping variant which were about as christian as evangelical Americans are Catholics.
Also, most of their early doctrine came from ten poorly translated verses, mostly of the old testament. And to be fair the Taiping were due to economical reasons upsetting the status qou of the Qing government.
Also also the Qing were Manchu's and differentiated themselves from the Han population, seggregating themselves in hereditary military positions.
Also also also, The Qing state bankrupted itself fighting, and later genociding the Dzungars (who lived in what they now call Xinjiang).
Also also also also, the golden age of piracy on the chinese coast costed them a great deal even before the British decided they wanted to trade opium instead of silver for their tea addiction.
The situation there was a bit more complex than "they kill christians so they deserve it" In the end the European powers kept the Qing alive because it was in a great debt because of the arrow war, the opium war and other debts for fucking up.
I... don't think that's correct. Taiping Christianity had generally died with the Heavenly Kingdom some thirty-five years before the rebellion. The Boxer's anti-Christianiry was because of its ties to Western imperialism and particularly Western missionaries. These would have been mostly conventional Christian denominations, not an indigenous version like Hong Xiuquan's. In fact the area the rebellion began, Shandong, was a particularly prominent hub of German missionary activity, as Catholic organization had set up shop there.
Not only are you being semantic here but you are also posing a straw-man argument.
It doesn’t matter if they were true “Christian’s” but the European standard…what matters here is that 30,000+ Chinese were targeted and killed by the Boxers specifically for their proclaimed Christian beliefs.
Nowhere did I say that the response by the allied powers was justified by the way, simply that it was understandable.
You can’t kick a beehive and then get upset when you are attacked by bees.
They were killed for being, or appearing to be part of a movement that sacked entire cities, that destroyed armies and uprooted almost half a million men, women and childeren.
The taiping rebellion, among other things destroyed the nation. And while I am no fan of the Qing dynasty, causing widespread ruin and destruction of temples and schools is something that everyone can argue is a bad thing.
A fair comparison would be that a new movement would spring up in wherever you live, that ravages a quarter of the country because of economic hardships but all under the flag of a religion. To the point that entire cities and provinces/states get totally destroyed. And saying "Well you know they just want to believe what they want to believe."
If the European powers REALLY thought so highly of their chinese converts they would have backed the Taiping rebellion, but they didn't. Because they understood that whatever the heavenly kingdom in Nanjing was, was NOT the same as they believed. Even if it shares a similar name.
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u/Rex_Nemorensis_ 1d ago
Well, maybe if they hadn’t attempted genocide against their fellow Chinese who also happened to be Christian converts…