The anti-foreign uprising in China around 1900 that was suppressed by an international force was the Boxer Rebellion. It began in northern China in the late 1890s and was led by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, whose members were called “Boxers” because they practised martial arts.
The movement grew from opposition to foreign influence, Christian missionary activity, unequal treaties, and economic hardship. In 1900, Boxers attacked missionaries, Chinese Christians, railways, and foreign property before converging on Beijing. The Qing government eventually supported them, turning the crisis into a broader conflict.
The Eight-Nation Alliance—Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States, and Austria-Hungary—sent troops to relieve the siege of foreign legations in Beijing. The alliance captured the city in August 1900, and the Boxer Protocol of 1901 imposed heavy indemnities and other penalties on China.
The Boxer Rebellion is sometimes confused with the Taiping Rebellion, but the Taiping movement was an earlier, much larger civil war from 1850 to 1864.