was seizing India and Myanmar, it cast its eyes on Yunnan. In 1874, the British attempted to enter Yunnan via Myanmar. The British Embassy in Beijing sent an interpreter to greet them, though they clashed with the Chinese at the border. The Qing government tried its best to prevent the situation from growing worse while the British Ambassador exploited the incident and asked for a more powerful military presence from London.25 Robert Hart, who then supervised Qing’s Customs, wrote in his diary that he would not hesitate to use force to punish the Chinese.26 The British forced Qing to sign the Yantai Treaty in 1876. Not only were the British given indemnity but they were also given permission to enter Tibet, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Gansu. The British Empire continued to extend its tentacles further into China.
Exploiting the Yantai Treaty, the British attempted to invade Tibet. In 1884, British troops illegally entered Tibet (the region of Rikaze 日喀则 [Shigatse]) via Sikkim. The British tried to drive a wedge between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the two most significant spiritual leaders of the Tibetan people. Two years later, Britain stationed its troops east of Yadong, Tibet. In 1888, the British started to attack the Longtushan 隆吐山 Garrison. The defending army and local people rose up to resist the invaders. Finally, the Qing government dismissed the imperial agent in Tibet and signed two treaties with Britain. According to the two treaties, Sikkim would be placed under the control of Britain and Yadong would be made commercially open to the British. France and Russia also tried to involve themselves in Tibetan affairs at this time.
The SSM motivators, most of whom were high governors or generals, adopted the policy that China should avoid direct conflict with the colonial powers and should instead promote reforms internally as much as possible. Li Hongzhang, who was then regarded as Qing’s leading diplomat, almost conceded to the foreign power’s demands in exchange for peace. Consequently, not only was China’s sovereignty trampled on, but the invaders also grew increasingly arrogant and avaricious. Put simply, making concessions and compromising could in no way guarantee friendly and beneficial international relationships for China, as confirmed by the Sino-French War (1883–1885).
As early as the seventeenth century, France began its invasion of Vietnam with the intention of turning all of what was then called Indo-China into a French colony. Vietnam thus became the base for French aggression against China. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, France launched a full-scale invasion of Vietnam. China, Vietnam’s suzerain state, could not overlook this. The Qing army stationed in Vietnam at first remained controlled. The Black Banner Army, which was made up of the rebels who had taken part in the Taiping Rebellion and who had finally retreated to Vietnam, took the offensive and defeated the French troops. Vietnam’s sovereign appointed the leader of the army as high governor to help the government army defend north Vietnam. In 1883, the French army captured Vietnam’s capital and forced the Vietnamese king to sign the Treaty of Hue, making Vietnam a French protectorate. In the last month of 1883, the French started to attack Qing’s army as well as the Black Banner Army. The next year, French troops began to advance toward the Chinese border. Some of Qing’s leading officials, including Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong, and others, recommended that China fight against the French invaders. Others, such as Li Hongzhang, pushed for peace talks.27 The Empress Dowager Cixi chose to begin negotiations with the French. Li, on behalf of the Qing government, signed a short treaty with France in Tianjin, recognizing France’s right to protect Vietnam.
The French army, however, began to seize land even before the withdrawal of the Chinese troops. The Chinese soldiers were forced to fight back. Enraged, French media outlets began calling for war. France’s Chargé D’affaires in Beijing demanded that the Chinese troops immediately withdraw from northern Vietnam and that the Chinese government should pay compensation of 250,000,000 francs. Should China fail to comply with these demands, France threatened to occupy China’s ports.28 In July 1884, the French fleet closed on Mawei, a strategic naval port in Fuzhou. One month later, some French gunboats attempted to invade northern Taiwan but were driven off by Qing’s defending army. Then the French pointed their guns at Fuzhou.
Although the enemy was already at the gates, Qing did not prepare for war but instead pinned its hopes on negotiations. However, the French navy began attacking and Chinese warships were sent to the dock. A day later, Qing’s fleet was destroyed by French torpedoes. In this battle, the Fujian Navy lost nearly thirty warships and eight hundred men. The French troops began killing, burning, and looting; shockingly, foreign reporters called it not a war but a massacre. The reason for China’s failure was twofold, the first being Qing’s passivity and the other the differences between the French and Chinese navies (see table below).
| French Navy | Chinese Navy | |
| Number of warships/total tonnage | 8/14,514 | 11/6,500 |
| Types of warships | 2 iron battleships 5 cruisers | 9 small wooden gunboats |
| Number of artillery | 77 | 45 |
| Types of artillery | heavy breechloader | light muzzleloader |
Qing formally declared war on France after the Mawei Battle and severed diplomatic relations.29 Liu Yongfu 刘永福 (1837–1917), the leader of the Black Banner Army, was formally given an imperial title. His army continued to fight against the French invaders. The Chinese people were furious and many enlisted to fight against the French colonialists.30 Even Chinese living overseas participated in the campaign against the French invaders. In Hong Kong, for example, workers refused to repair a damaged French warship on the grounds that it had bombed Taiwan and attempted to enter Fuzhou. The Chinese in San Francisco, Kobe, Yokohama, Singapore, and Cuba donated money to the war effort against imperialistic France.31
Fighting broke out in Zhennanguan, a strategic garrison on the Sino-Vietnamese border. In March, 1885, the French army attacked Zhennanguan. Zhang Zhidong, then Governor General of Guangdong and Guangxi, appointed Feng Zicai, a veteran general, to supervise the defense. Defending this garrison, Feng, who was in his seventies led his troops against the French and annihilated more than 1,000 of the enemy. Qing’s army pursued the remaining enemy troops and recaptured the key region of Liangshan, or Lang Son, in north Vietnam. This campaign directly led to the downfall of France’s Jules Ferry government. General Feng planned to drive all French troops out of north Vietnam. However, the Qing government decided to start peace negotiations instead of fighting. In April 1885, China and France signed a truce in Paris. Two months later, Li Hongzhang and the French delegates formally signed a treaty in Tianjin. This treaty was Qing’s acknowledgement of France’s colonial rule over Vietnam. The Black Banner Army was brought back into China and then sent to Taiwan. Despite their military victory, Qing’s army did not receive an equal deal in the signing of the treaty.
Endless Incidents Involving Christian Missionaries
Ambitiously aspiring to conquer the entire globe for Christ, Christian missionaries began arriving in China as part of the colonial project. Jiao’an (literally, the Christian cases), which refers to the historic incidents involving Christian missionaries in China, was the result not only of the contradiction between foreign imperialism and the Chinese nation, but also of the conflict between Chinese tradition and Christian culture. To some extent, Christian missionaries were at the center