Boxer Rebellion - Terminology of The Boxers: "rebellion" or "uprising"?

Terminology of The Boxers: "rebellion" or "uprising"?

The first reports coming from China in 1898 referred to the village activists as “Yihequan,” (Wade-Giles: I Ho Ch'uan). The first known use of the term "Boxer" was September 1899 in a letter from missionary Grace Newton in Shangdong. It appears from context that "Boxer" was a known term by that time, possibly coined by the Shandong missionaries Arthur H. Smith and Henry Porter. Smith says in his book of 1902 that the name

I Ho Ch'uan... literally denotes the 'Fists' (Ch'uan) of Righteousness (or Public) (I) Harmony (Ho), in apparent allusion to the strength of united force which was to be put forth. As the Chinese phrase 'fists and feet' signifies boxing and wrestling, there appeared to be no more suitable term for the adherents of the sect than 'Boxers,' a designation first used by one or two missionary correspondents of foreign journals in China, and later universally accepted on account of the difficulty of coining a better one.

On 6 June 1900 the Times of London used the term “rebellion” in quotation marks, presumably to indicate their view that the rising was in fact instigated by the Empress Dowager. The historian Lanxin Xiang refers to the “so called ‘Boxer Rebellion,’” and explains that “while peasant rebellion was nothing new in Chinese history, a war against the world’s most powerful states was.” The name “Boxer Rebellion,” concludes Joseph Esherick, another recent historian, is truly a “misnomer,” for the Boxers “never rebelled against the Manchu rulers of China and their Qing dynasty” and the “most common Boxer slogan, throughout the history of the movement, was “support the Qing, destroy the Foreign.” He adds that only after the movement was suppressed by the Allied Intervention did both the foreign powers and influential Chinese officials realize that the Qing would have to remain as government of China in order to maintain order and collect taxes to pay the indemnity. Therefore in order to save face for the Empress Dowager and the Manchu court, the argument was made that the Boxers were rebels and that support from the court came only from a few Manchu princes. Esherick concludes that the origin of the term “rebellion” was “purely political and opportunistic,” but it has shown a remarkable staying power, particularly in popular accounts.

Other recent Western works refer to the "Boxer Movement," "Boxer War," or Yihetuan Movement.

Chinese studies use 义和团运动 (Yihetuan yundong), that is, "Yihetuan Movement."