So really, what would have happened had the Boxer Rebellion been successful?

The Boxers are successful! There are no more foreigners in Peking for the moment! Well, what happens next, as in how do events in China unfold after that?
Are the Qing strengthened or weakened, and can we expect massive foreign intervention that would make China an even worse victim of Western (and Japanese) Imperialism?
 
Said massive foreign intervention was basically OTL. If you mean that the siege of the Legation is successful, then there may be more indemnities and harsher terms, but to be honest, AFAICS, the allies basically extracted everything they could think of from China.
 
Pretty much the only thing I can think of that the foreign powers didn't do OTL would be to force China to cede some of the leased territories. i.e. Port Arthur, Hong Kong's New Territories, Fort Bayard, Tsingtao. You get the idea. Also countries might be less likely to return the indemnities later on.
 
Yup More sacking, probably much more--can you imagine what the western papers would have said if the Boxers overran the legation quarters and killed everyone there? Then follow it up with more concessions and less chance of leniency. And it would make a perfect way for imperialist minded folk to shut down debate against them.
 
I wonder whether it was possible to just partition China wholesale after a massacre.
I mean, the Powers would be Pissed, with capital Ps.
Basically, there is no way that anything closely resembling the Boxers in their aims and methods could "succeed" at the turn of the century, if you define "succeed" as "achieving the established objectives in a mid-long term".
Any short term success the Boxers can have is almost surely going to backfire horribly, bloodily and beyond recovery.
 
The big problem with partitioning China was that following the Boxer uprising, the only reason large slices of China weren't sliced off was precisely because the Great Powers felt that it was in their best interests to rule China indirectly, through the Qing Dynasty. With the Qing Dynasty in place, and utterly subservient (to who precisely was kept distinctly ambiguous; since having the Qing Dynasty be the obvious puppet of one power would have killed the whole point of the exercise), but reasonably stable, everyone gets a little something, and more importantly, nobody is getting into ugly, potentially major war-triggering spates over chunks of China. Likewise, the experience of the Boxer rebellion suggested that directly annexing large portions of China would have backfired horribly, and merely created a series of running ulcers (which is also why the Great Powers decided ultimately to use the Qing bureaucracy for this role) stemming from increased anti-foreign sentiment.
 
The big problem with partitioning China was that following the Boxer uprising, the only reason large slices of China weren't sliced off was precisely because the Great Powers felt that it was in their best interests to rule China indirectly, through the Qing Dynasty. With the Qing Dynasty in place, and utterly subservient (to who precisely was kept distinctly ambiguous; since having the Qing Dynasty be the obvious puppet of one power would have killed the whole point of the exercise), but reasonably stable, everyone gets a little something, and more importantly, nobody is getting into ugly, potentially major war-triggering spates over chunks of China. Likewise, the experience of the Boxer rebellion suggested that directly annexing large portions of China would have backfired horribly, and merely created a series of running ulcers (which is also why the Great Powers decided ultimately to use the Qing bureaucracy for this role) stemming from increased anti-foreign sentiment.

That's why I asked.
A sensible person of the time would have probably thought that partion was worse than worthless - it is quite apparent even without hindsight.
However, sensible people were exactly what was sorely lacking among the Great Powers higher leaders of this era. They were perfectly willing to carve and partition almost the whole of Africa, for Assurbanipal's sake, in what was largely a series of money-wasting prestige projects.
One would think that at some point diplomacy was about creating large, nice-looking blobs of given colors on the maps.
OTOH, a partition assumes that the Powers were able to agree at least the general outlines of a division where nobody was too blatantly unsatisfied, and for the reasons above and others, I think that part would be exceedingly difficult to figure out.
Not to mention that the US would not be happy. At all.
 
By partition do you mean the wholesale division of China into colonies or just the annexation of concessions? I was most definitely thinking of the later as a way for the Powers punish China/benefit themselves without majorly upsetting the status quo in the region.
 
The problem with this time period, imho, is that it coincides with the height of "yellow journalism" over much of the Western nations. Even if the Tokyo, Paris, London, et. al. don't want to rock the boat, the newspapers in Europe and the US will be full of atrocity stories--heathen Chinee slaughtering white woman sells papers, you know. So I think if the legations are sacked and the many thousands of foreigners are murdered, there will be a lot of public pressure to do something. Look at the example of the Indian "munity" in 1857: a lot of the educated elites wanted a measured response, in order not to alienate common Indian opinion any more than necessary. Queen Victoria herself spoke of the need to punish only the rebels, in her words, to show "that there is no hatred of a brown skin". But soldiers on the ground, and even many of the officers, would indeed respond to Indian atrocities with atrocities of their own. One hears of widespread summary executions of Indian adult males in a given area, or of forcing Indian prisoners to lick up the blood off of floorboards with their tongues, prior to their own executions. If the sense of Western outrage is much higher here than in OTL, you may see more Chinese dead, too.

What Zmflavius says is true: the various imperialist powers tended to prefer a decrepit Qing Empire, that would honor the various agreements, over anything that risked setting up a new government that did not. However, that still leaves the question of the role of court politics in allowing or even encouraging the rebellion. The support given to the Boxers in OTL was bad enough. If more support is given, or the Boxers are simply much more successful in the original run, then I think you might see some broad interference in court affairs behind the scenes. This would not be in order to extract more concessions (although that may happen as well), but primarily to prevent another such uprising. If the Europeans can find a way to agree on who (a big if), I think you could see the installation of more Western "advisors" to the throne, for example. You might also see the creation of a new, modern-style palace guard under Western instruction. The Empire of Japan trained the Korean palace guard after 1895, which was quite effective at increasing their control over the government in a fairly non-obtrusive way.

I agree with those that say true partition--along the lines of the Scramble for Africa--is unlikely. After 1897 in OTL, the Germans did set off a mini scramble for China, but it took place under the Qing Empire. and I think the powers will be more than happy to see it continue, especially if it can be made more pliant. Of course, huge indemnities will go a long way toward smoothing things over. It's possible that we would see more concessions. However, if this happens, I assume it will be less "old-style" concessions--e.g. actual tracts of land for naval bases and traders, and more "Nishihara Loan" style concessions--e.g. Japanese companies are the only ones with the legal right to operate coal mines in Manchuria.
 
The most likely PoD for this is to have Cixi's orders (i.e. to attack the foreigners) actually carried out by her generals. As Zmflavius said, the structure of the Qing dynasty was useful as a means for the European powers to do what they wanted in China without having to deal with a nasty geopolitical mess. You would see harsher terms and more of a leash put on the Qing government, but nothing that was overtly threaten its existence any more than necesary. Cixi might well be removed from power as she would make a great figure to lay the blame on.

mcdo said:
...then I think you might see some broad interference in court affairs behind the scenes. This would not be in order to extract more concessions (although that may happen as well), but primarily to prevent another such uprising. If the Europeans can find a way to agree on who (a big if), I think you could see the installation of more Western "advisors" to the throne, for example. You might also see the creation of a new, modern-style palace guard under Western instruction. The Empire of Japan trained the Korean palace guard after 1895, which was quite effective at increasing their control over the government in a fairly non-obtrusive way.
Yeah. If the Boxers are seen as connected to the Qing government, then said government will have to be made more subservient.
 
So if Herbert Hoover dies before he goes into politics, who becomes President and could anyone else have won against FDR in 1932?
 
The western powers would have sent more and more forces until the Boxers and Chinese army were defeated. China was so behind technologically that they were doomed to defeat.
 
The western powers would have sent more and more forces until the Boxers and Chinese army were defeated. China was so behind technologically that they were doomed to defeat.

It wouldn't have taken much more force. The Chinese armies were so entirely outclassed that they would have surrendered after the first real battle. The Chinese generals IOTL were aware of this and that's why they didn't attack the foreign quarters. The potential PoD here is that they do attack, but even then it will be over quickly.
 
While I agree with most of the thread that China won't be split up like Africa, Captain Jack did make a good point about ceding either already leased territories, or ones that were leased IOTL after the Rebellion was put down.

One thing this could do is help a pet peeve of mine, an independent Hong Kong. Since the British wouldn't have to worry about an eventual end of lease hand over, there's a slightly bigger chance to foster a Singapore-style city state.

Also expect foreigners taking over more Chinese government bureaus, not just the Imperial Customs and Post Office.
 
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