THOSE WHO FALL BEHIND GET BEATEN UP

摘要

One day in late March, People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, shared a pair of photos on Chinese social media.The first, in black and white, was of the signing of the Boxer Protocol, a 1901 treaty between the Qing empire, which ruled China at the time, and 11 foreign nations. Troops from eight of these countries, including the US, had occupied Beijing following sieges on their embassies by a peasant militia known as the Boxers. Among a litany of concessions, the Qing government agreed to pay the eight occupying powers an indemnity of 450 million taels of silver (about $10 billion in today's dollars), almost twice its annual revenue. The Boxer Protocol is etched into the Chinese consciousness as a searing reminder of the country at its weakest.