Tianjin Religious Persecution was a voluntary anti-imperi- alist movement from the people which inspired many others na- tionwide. The Anti-foreign church movement was not stopped by the cruelty of the feudalistic government; on the contrary, it became more violent. In the Spring of 1873, Joseph Fan, the bishop of Chuandong, sent Father Yu Kelan to Qianjiang County to buy houses with the intension to build a local church. In Au- gust, French missionary Yu Kelin and Chinese priest Dai Mingqin were bitten to death by the local people. French government once again asked for compensation. The result of this case was that two leaders were executed and China paid 40,000 Francs for reparations. This kind of anti-church movement kept occurring in Sichuan, Xanchong, Yingshang, Linshui, Jiangbeiting, Neishan and Peizhou, and many churches, priests‘ residences and lay people"s houses were burned down.
Later, Shandong, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Xizang, Yunnan, Taiwan, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan and Heilongjiang provinces had similar confrontations between churches and local people, though on different scales. The worst ones were in Dazu in Sichuan Province, Wuhu in Anhui Prov-ince and in Juye in Shandong Province.
The Qing government realized the severity of such con- frontations and the Zongli Yamen (State Council) decided to draft a law "Chuan Jiao Zhang Cheng‘(Constitution of Missions) in1871, but this was rejected by the European countries. In the following years, Guo Sontao in 1876, Li Hongzhang in 1892 and Yu Deti in 1897 suggested the same rules in order to stop the confrontations between the local people and the churches, but they all failed. In 1899 (the 25th year of Guang Xu), the Zongli Yamen issued a law in order for local government leaders to accept the missionaries. Though the combination of politics and missionary works was strange enough in the feudalistic cultural atmosphere, some missionaries still liked this legal protection and some even enjoyed traveling in the official costumes.
The Qing government was too kind to the strong European countries and to the missionaries, while treating its own people very differently. Whenever religious persecution started, the policy of "Bu Ren Min Jiao, Dan fen Liang You‘ (no matter local people or the church, as long as the party is in good standing) would become "Bu Fen Lian You, Dan Feng Min Jiao’ (No mat- ter which party is good, as long as you distinguish who is who)? This government"s action greatly offended the people. In 1894,the Sino-Japanese war broke out leading to Chinese defeat. In April 1895, the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed and patriotism and the anti-church movement once again peaked in China.
Another anti-imperialism and patriotic movement broke out in 1900, which was called Yi He Tuan Movement (Boxer Rebel- lion)? Most of the members were farmers, peasants and the job- less. They hated Westerners and were rather patriotic. They had a slogan "Destroy the Westerners and safeguard the Qing Dy- nasty‘? As a secretive group, they certainly had their own super- stitious ideas and xenophobic feelings; therefore, they hated any- thing that was foreign to them, including the Catholic Church. They thought all the natural disasters and social problems were caused by the foreign church. The anti-imperialist and anti-church movement was countered by the creation of an eight-nation Western alliance in Tianjin in June to attack Beijing. On the 21st, the Qing government decided to declare war against the eight countries and encouraged the Yi He Tuan (Boxers) to resist the foreigners. As rapid as fire, the movement spread from Tianjin and Beijing to Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces.
Overall, the Catholic Church suffered terribly because of the Boxer Rebellion. Statistically, five bishops, 31 European?
priests and nine nuns were killed.
More 30,000 Chinese Catho-lics were killed and about three-quarters of the Catholic churches were destroyed. In some places, the church organizations were nearly wiped out.
