Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program

The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program (Chinese: 庚子賠款獎學金; pinyin: Gēngzǐ Péikuǎn Jiǎngxuéjīn) was a scholarship program funded by Boxer Rebellion indemnity money paid to the United States that provided for Chinese students to study in the U.S. It has been called "the most important scheme for educating Chinese students in America and arguably the most consequential and successful in the entire foreign-study movement of twentieth century China."

Although there had previously been some higher education opportunities for Chinese in the U.S. associated with Yung Wing's Chinese Educational Mission, this short-lived effort was disbanded in 1881, a year prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and there was little subsequent activity.

Following the Boxer Rebellion, the defeated Qing Empire were to pay 450 million taels of fine silver as indemnity over a course of 39 years to the eight nations involved. Under the exchange rates at the time, this was equal to US$ 335 million gold dollars or £67 million. Including interest, the Qing finally paid 982,238,150 taels (~1,180,000,000 troy ounces (37,000 t) silver), of which the U.S. share was 7.32%.

When Liang Cheng, the Qing representative to the U.S., learned that the terms of the awarded the U.S. more than it had originally demanded, he initiated a campaign to pressure the U.S. into returning the difference to China. The American Minister in Peking campaigned for it to be used for education rather than projects the Chinese preferred. In 1906, the President of the University of Illinois, Edmund J. James, who led the University from 1904-1920, proposed to President Theodore Roosevelt a plan to establish a scholarship program to send Chinese students to the U.S., this would later be known as the "Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program." James' 1906 letter noted to President Roosevelt,

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