100 years ago, China was very backward, under the control of Cixi, the entire Qing Dynasty was closed to the country, and when others already had aircraft cannons, we were still big knives and long guns.
At this time, China was the fat on the chopping board, casually slaughtered, the first to bear to move was Japan, and then the Western powers organized the Eight-Power Alliance to invade China together.
It is ironic that China, as a victim, actually had to pay compensation for the land cut off by these countries, and these eight countries committed aggression against Beijing under the slogan of justice, and the Qing government, which was powerless to resist, could only sign the humiliating "Xinugu Treaty" and then use its national strength to compensate these powers.
But in the subsequent protests, the Eight-Power Coalition took the initiative to return the reparations to China, and only one country remained indifferent and used the money to attack China in World War II.
1. Disposal of refunded funds
After the Qing Dynasty and the international powers began to fight, the army was defeated like a mountain, and the Eight-Nation Alliance army effortlessly invaded the Forbidden City. After that, the killing and looting began, and a fire ignited the Yuanmingyuan, and the head of the world's gardens was reduced to ashes in this disaster.
In September 1901, in the face of great power, the Qing government and 11 countries were forced to sign the Treaty of Xinugu, paying huge amounts of reparations to various countries. This was originally a very unfair treaty, but in the end they decided to return some of the money, and they did not want to pay it back later.
The refund has also sparked a bickering in the education community, because it is a question of who should manage the money, how to distribute it, and there is no clear plan.
When the refunds were returned to China, China's finances were at an unprecedented and difficult time, and it could even be said that there was no economy to speak of, and the teachers in the schools could not even afford to pay their salaries.
Against this backdrop, the reparations would provoke a massive quarrel, because when the powers returned the money, they explained their conditions: they would spend a part of the money on China's education.
At that time, China was not in good health, and it was very much in need of the country's pillars, and cultivating talents was the top priority, so the eyes of the entire education community were closely focused on this money. There was even an extremely fierce conflict, which lasted for more than a decade.
After a fruitless quarrel, the Nationalist government decided to deposit the money in the national treasury in case of emergency. The idea of using this money to cultivate education did not come to fruition in the end.
2. Refund of compensation
At that time, the Eight-Nation Alliance and the Qing government went to war, and after they defeated the Qing government, they demanded compensation from the Qing government. The reason for the reparations was actually because the Qing government had caused losses to them in the war with the great powers.
This is nonsense, knowing that we are the party being invaded, but we are also required to pay compensation. However, in the face of absolute strength, naturally there is no right to speak, and can only obediently take out 450 million yuan of compensation, using the method of installment payment, with an annual interest rate of 4% per year, for a total of 39 years.
There were more than 980 million taels of silver in interest alone, and even if the Qing government hollowed out the treasury, it would not be able to come up with so much money. So they turned their attention to the people and began to find reasons for the people to pay all kinds of unknown taxes, which caused great pressure on everyone's life.
Later, the Qing government also felt that this was not the way to go, so it negotiated with the great powers, and finally after unremitting efforts, the great powers agreed to return part of the money.
They are simply calculating China all the time, and when they return the money, they add some extra conditions, and the establishment of Tsinghua University is also related to this refund.
The United States said that it would use this refund on the sending of students to the United States, which means that it does not directly pay money, but converts it through the way of cultivating talents. After consultation, China and the United States established a training school in Beijing to study in the United States, and in 1909, Beijing set up the College of Tourism in the United States, which was the predecessor of Tsinghua University.
By 1911, the Tsinghua Preparatory School for Studying in the United States was officially established, and more than 1,000 students in the United States came out of it. In 1924, with the consent of the US Congress, the China Cultural and Educational Promotion Foundation was established, which was in charge of more than 10 million US dollars of refund compensation, and a part of it was provided to Tsinghua University in the form of scholarships.
In 1928, the school was officially renamed Tsinghua University, so this refund was directly related to the construction of Tsinghua University.
Third, the conspiracy of the Americans
Why are Americans doing this? Are they stupid? Don't put real money and silver, but also be kind enough to help China cultivate talents.
Far from it, on the surface it seems that we are benefiting, but in fact, the benefits are even greater for Americans, which is where American values lie. Because for Americans, exporting their own culture to other countries is much more important than that little money, instilling their own ideas in the youth of other countries can play a great role in assimilation.
Especially in China at that time, there was no decent ability to train scientists, educators, and military experts. In doing so, the United States wants to fundamentally weaken China, and after the United States has trained China's young people, it is the biggest beneficiary in spirit and business.
By supporting China's economic market, so that Chinese become rich, they can buy American goods. After all, Chinese many markets are large, and it is really superb to use China's reparations to support pro-US forces in China.
Fourth, the shameless Japanese
In the Eight-Power Alliance, the seven countries took the initiative to refund the money in various ways, but only one country refused to refund it, that is, Japan. In 1894, china was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Western powers saw China's strength and then began to invade together.
Why would Americans refund money? It was because their bill to discriminate against the Chinese made the Chinese excited and angry, and everyone boycotted American products together, so the ambassador to China suggested that the president refund the reparations.
The remaining countries saw the United States doing this before they followed suit, and they returned the money under the leadership of the United States. Of course, not all of them were repaid, only a small part was repaid, but until the collapse of the Qing government, the arrears were not paid off, to which Germany said after World War I: This money is not needed.
After the October Revolution, Russia said that it would not want it, and other countries gradually forgot about it, and only Japan had been brazen and shameless, demanding reparations from China until the outbreak of the War of Resistance.
5. Summary
Their ambitions were the greatest, and Japan turned these reparations into its own military expenses, and after the 918 incident, China fell into a new round of great disasters. It was the crazy demand for the Qing government that made them reap great benefits, and the reason why the country construction and the army developed incomparably rapidly was the result of sucking blood from the Qing government.
Japan tried all kinds of ways to invade China, and the heavens were good, and they finally suffered atomic bombing.
The only miscalculation in the United States is that it did not expect that there were a considerable number of chinese descendants who refused to enjoy the "upper class civilization" in the United States after studying and learning, but returned to China to start from scratch with their own compatriots. They used all kinds of coercion and inducement, and all kinds of means failed to retain Qian Xuesen, Deng Jiaxian, and others.