Discuss the Following Statement: “the Student Participants of the May Fourth Movement Were Loyal Successors to the Boxers.”

Only to a short extent that the student participants of the May Fourth Movement were loyal successors to the Boxers. The May Fourth Movement and the Boxer Rebellion were different in terms of purpose, stance towards the Chinese Gov’t, and the means of protesting.

Firstly, in terms of their purpose, the Boxers rebelled because they wanted to resist western supremacy and imperialism in China and strengthen the Qing. They used the slogan ‘’Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners’’ The boxers were mostly feeling dissatisfied for the western’s foreign imperialism so they decided to rebel. While on the other hand, the student participants initiated the movement because they were dissatisfied for the weak response of the Chinese government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles and especially allowing Japan to receive territories in Shandong. They shouted slogans such as ‘’Struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home’’.The students of the May Fourth Movement also did not like western supremacy, but what they did not like mainly is the incapability of the government. Therefore we can tell that the students are not the loyal successors of the boxers.

Secondly, in terms of their stance towards the government. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Boxers were supportive towards the government and wanted to protect it from foreign imperialism and strengthen it at the same time. On the contrary, the students didn’t supported the government for their cowardice and rebelled. Thus, the students were not loyal successors of the boxers.

Thirdly, in terms of the means rebelling, they were not the same. The students participants were more ‘civilized’ while the Boxers were more brutal. The Boxers mainly used violence to rebel against the foreigners as well as the locals. During that period, Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred. Moreover, the governor of Shanxi, Yuxian implemented a brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy where 44 foreigners were executed known as the Taiyuan Massacre. During the Boxer Rebellion, a total of 136 Protestant missionaries, 53 Children, 47 Priests and Nuns, 30,000 Chinese Catholics, 2000 Chinese Protestants and around 300 Russian Orthodox Christians were killed. While on the other hand, the students of the May 4 Movement voiced their dissatisfaction by calling a boycott for Japanese products, demonstrating, protest etc. The most serious incident will be the burning of the residence of one of the Chinese Official and beating his servants. Hence this is a vivid evidence that the Students were not loyal successors to the Boxers.

Some might argue that the students were the loyal successors of the Boxers because they were against foreign supremacy in China. Yet they were not loyal at all because although they were both against foreign supremacy,