After foreign armies crushed the Boxer Rebellion, eleven nations forced the Qing dynasty to sign the Boxer Protocol in Beijing, demanding the execution of officials, the stationing of foreign troops in China, and an indemnity of 450 million taels of silver payable over 39 years. The treaty deepened Chinese resentment of foreign powers and hastened the dynasty's collapse a decade later.
The Boxer Protocol was less a negotiated treaty than a bill presented to a defeated empire. Eight nations—including Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and the United States—had sent an international relief force to break the siege of foreign legations in Beijing, and now they demanded payment in silver, blood, and sovereignty.
The indemnity, roughly 450 million taels, was calculated so that every Chinese person would owe one tael—a punitive gesture as much as a financial one. Qing officials associated with the uprising were ordered executed or exiled, and foreign troops were permanently garrisoned along the route from Beijing to the sea.
The humiliation radicalized a generation of Chinese reformers and revolutionaries, including many who would later topple the Qing dynasty in 1911. Ironically, the United States later returned part of its indemnity share to fund Chinese students studying abroad—money that helped establish Tsinghua University.