Die for the Boycott and Nation: Martyrdom and the 1905 Anti-American Movement in China

On July 16, 1905, an overseas Chinese, Feng Xiawei, committed suicide in front of the American consulate in Shanghai. The impetus for Feng's sacrifice was a labor treaty being negotiated with the United States, which had placed obstacles to the Chinese who would like to go to the United States to make a living. Two months before Feng's suicide, merchants in Shanghai had asked Americans to revise their immigration policy or face a boycott in two months. The Americans showed no sign of yielding. Four days before the deadline, Feng killed himself. This previously unknown individual became a hero in the 1905 boycott movement. For an overview of the boycott movement see Zhang Cunwu, Guangxu sayinian Zhong Mei gongyue fengchao [The Chinese Boycott of American Goods, 1905-1906] (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1966); Margaret Field, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905”, Papers on China 11 (1957): 63-98; Edward J. M. Rhoads, ‘Nationalism and Xenophobia in Kwangtung (1905-1906): The Canton Anti-American Boycott and the Lienchow Anti-Missionary Uprising’, Papers on China 16 (1962): 154-97; Delber L. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 1900-1906: Clashes over China Policy in the Roosevelt Era (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1977), especially chapter 7; Sin-Kiong Wong, ‘The Genesis of Popular Movements in Modern China: A Study of the Anti-American Boycott of 1905-06’. Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1995.