The Boxer Rebellion; Nationalism; and the Inconsistent Foreign Policy Making in the Late Qing China (1896-1911).

In this paper, I will analyze how a totalitarian state like China in its imperial period would also be constrained by its domestic elements in making foreign policies. Although the state with centralized power may have strong inclination in pursuit of its interests in international arena, the study of the Boxer Rebellion and the evolvement of nationalism in the late Qing China showed us that the masses could still intensively pressure the government to react in a specific but somewhat inconsistent and irrational way to external shocks. This paper tries to argue that even a state with highly concentrated power like the imperial China could not act unitarily and rationally in foreign policy making. The policy process, however, had to be conditioned by some seemingly infinitesimal elements despite elites? claim that these constraints could be detrimental to national interests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]