Study On The First Remission Of The American Boxer Indemnity

At the early twentieth century, the United States decided to remit to China theboxer indemnity arising out of the Boxer Protocol, which could be said to be animportant event in Sino-American relations. However, although this episode haspassed for almost a century, both sides still have disparate views on the basic elementsof the historical scenario. Firstly, how did the surplus boxer indemnity to the UnitedStates come about? It is an important issue in this incident, but few scholars have everdelved into it. Secondly, who on earth initiated the remission and did America return itvoluntarily? Again, no consensus has been reached among historians. Thirdly, whowas the first to advocate the use of the remitted money to send Chinese students tostudy in American higher learning institutions and did China do it on its own initiative?There are as many answers to these questions as there are the scholars. This thesisresorts to historical facts by probing the historical records of both the Chinese andAmerican government to give satisfying answers to the whole array of controversiesaforesaid. Finally, on the basis of the conclusion the thesis have already come to, thisthesis explores the underlying motives of the United States to undertake the remissionand educational campaign and its historical significance to China.