Editing Qing dynasty (section)

===Self-strengthening and frustration of reforms===
Following the death of the Xianfeng Emperor in 1861, and the accession of the 5-year-old [[Tongzhi Emperor]], the Qing rallied. In the [[Tongzhi Restoration]], Han Chinese officials such as [[Zuo Zongtang]] stood behind the Manchus and organised provincial troops. [[Zeng Guofan]], in alliance with Prince Gong, sponsored the rise of younger officials such as [[Li Hongzhang]], who put the dynasty back on its feet financially and instituted the [[Self-Strengthening Movement]], which adopted Western military technology in order to preserve Confucian values.Their institutional reforms included China's first unified ministry of foreign affairs in the [[Zongli Yamen]], allowing foreign diplomats to reside in the capital, the establishment of the [[Imperial Maritime Customs Service]], the institution of modern navy and army forces including the [[Beiyang Army]], and the purchase of armament factories from the Europeans.{{sfnp|Wright|1957|pp=196–221}}

The dynasty gradually lost control of its peripheral territories. In return for promises of support against the British and the French, the [[Russian Empire]] took large chunks of territory in the Northeast in 1860. The period of cooperation between the reformers and the European powers ended with the 1870 [[Tianjin Massacre]], which was incited by the murder of French nuns set off by the belligerence of local French diplomats. Starting with the [[Cochinchina Campaign]] in 1858, France expanded control of Indochina. By 1883, France was in full control of the region and had reached the Chinese border. The [[Sino-French War]] began with a surprise attack by the French on the Chinese southern fleet at Fuzhou. After that the Chinese declared war on the French. A [[Keelung Campaign|French invasion of Taiwan was halted]] and the French were defeated on land in Tonkin at the [[Battle of Bang Bo]]. However Japan threatened to enter the war against China due to the Gapsin Coup and China chose to end the war with negotiations. The war ended in 1885 with the [[Treaty of Tientsin (1885)|Treaty of Tientsin]] and the Chinese recognition of the French protectorate in Vietnam.{{sfnp|Hsü|1990|pp=328–330}} Some Russian and Chinese [[Gold mining|gold miners]] also established a short-lived [[proto-state]] known as the [[Zheltuga Republic]] (1883–1886) in the [[Amur River]] basin, which was however soon crushed by the Qing forces.<ref>{{Cite web |title=California on the Amur, or the 'Zheltuga Republic' in Manchuria (1883–86) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291758359 |access-date=September 9, 2023}}</ref>

In 1884, Qing China obtained concessions in [[Korea]], such as the [[Chinese concession of Incheon]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fuchs |first=Eckhardt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pZlBDwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA97 |title=A New Modern History of East Asia |publisher=V&R |year=2017 |isbn=9783737007085 |page=97}}</ref> but the pro-Japanese Koreans in [[Seoul]] led the [[Gapsin Coup]]. Tensions between China and Japan rose after China intervened to suppress the uprising. The Japanese prime minister [[Itō Hirobumi]] and Li Hongzhang signed the [[Convention of Tientsin]], an agreement to withdraw troops simultaneously, but the [[First Sino-Japanese War]] of 1895 was a military humiliation. The [[Treaty of Shimonoseki]] recognised Korean independence and ceded Taiwan and the [[Pescadores]] to Japan. The terms might have been harsher, but when a Japanese citizen attacked and wounded Li Hongzhang, an international outcry shamed the Japanese into revising them. The original agreement stipulated the cession of [[Liaodong Peninsula]] to Japan, but Russia, with its own designs on the territory, along with Germany and France, in the [[Triple Intervention]], successfully put pressure on the Japanese to abandon the peninsula.
[[File:Empress-Dowager-Cixi1.jpg|thumb|upright|Oil painting of Empress Dowager Cixi by [[Hubert Vos]] ({{circa|1905|lk=no}})]]

These years saw the participation of [[Empress Dowager Cixi]] in state affairs. Cixi initially entered the imperial palace in the 1850s as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor, and became the mother of the future Tongzhi Emperor. Following his accession at the age of five, Cixi, Xianfeng's widow [[Empress Dowager Ci'an]], and Prince Gong (a son of the Daoguang Emperor), staged [[Xinyou Coup|a coup]] that ousted several of the Tongzhi Emperor's regents. Between 1861 and 1873, Cixi and Ci'an served as regents together; following the emperor's death in 1875, Cixi's nephew, the [[Guangxu Emperor]], took the throne in violation of the custom that the new emperor be of the next generation, and another regency began. Ci'an suddenly died in the spring of 1881, leaving Cixi as sole regent.{{sfnp|Crossley|2010|p=117}}

From 1889, when Guangxu began to rule in his own right, until 1898, the Empress Dowager lived in semi-retirement, spending the majority of the year at the [[Summer Palace]]. In 1897, two German Roman Catholic missionaries were murdered in southern [[Shandong province]] (the [[Juye Incident]]). Germany used the murders as a pretext for a naval occupation of [[Jiaozhou Bay]]. The occupation prompted a [[Scramble for China]] in 1898, which included the [[Kiautschou Bay concession|German lease of Jiaozhou Bay]], the [[Kwantung Leased Territory|Russian lease of Liaodong]], the [[Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory|British lease of the New Territories of Hong Kong]], and the [[Leased Territory of Guangzhouwan|French lease of Guangzhouwan]].
[[File:China imperialism cartoon.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]], [[German Empire|Germany]], [[Russian Empire|Russia]], [[French Third Republic|France]], and Japan dividing China]]

In the wake of these external defeats, the Guangxu Emperor initiated the [[Hundred Days' Reform]] in 1898. Newer, more radical advisers such as [[Kang Youwei]] were given positions of influence. The emperor issued a series of edicts and plans were made to reorganise the bureaucracy, restructure the school system, and appoint new officials. Opposition from the bureaucracy was immediate and intense. Although she had been involved in the initial reforms, the Empress Dowager [[Wuxu Coup|stepped in to call them off]], arrested and executed several reformers, and took over day-to-day control of policy. Yet many of the plans stayed in place, and the goals of reform were implanted.{{sfnp|Reynolds|1993|pp=35–36}}
[[File:Within historic grounds of the Forbidden City in Pekin, China, on November 28 celebrated the victory of the Allies., ca. - NARA - 532582.jpg|thumb|The foreign armies of the [[Eight-Nation Alliance]] celebrating their victory in the [[Battle of Peking (1900)|Battle of Peking]], within the walls of the [[Forbidden City]] on 28 November 1900]]

Drought in North China, combined with the imperialist designs of European powers and the instability of the Qing government, created background conditions for the [[Boxer Rebellion|Boxers]]. In 1900, local groups of Boxers proclaiming support for the Qing dynasty murdered foreign missionaries and large numbers of Chinese Christians, then converged on Beijing to besiege the Foreign Legation Quarter. A coalition of European, Japanese, and Russian armies (the [[Eight-Nation Alliance]]) then entered China without diplomatic notice, much less permission. Cixi declared war on all of these nations, only to lose control of Beijing after a short, but hard-fought campaign. She fled to [[Xi'an]]. The victorious allies then enforced their demands on the Qing government, including compensation for their expenses in invading China and execution of complicit officials, via the [[Boxer Protocol]].{{sfnp|Spence|2012|pp=223–225}}