In front of you, behind a grey brick wall, rise the two spires of St Michael's Church. It looks like a corner of France, and in a way it was: you are on Dōng Jiāomín Xiàng, the street that gave its name to the foreign Legation Quarter.

1From rice to diplomats

Under the Mongols this was the “river rice lane”, home to the customs office for the grain that arrived along the Grand Canal. The Ming brought in ministries, including the Ministry of Rites, and hostels for the envoys of Korea, Vietnam and Burma. Everything changed in 1860: after the Second Opium War, the Convention of Peking forced the Qing to accept permanent diplomats in the capital. In 1861 the British, French and Russian legations opened here, and by 1900 there were eleven.

2The 55 days

In the summer of 1900, during the Boxer Uprising, the quarter was besieged from 20 June until 14 August, when the troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance arrived. Diplomats, soldiers and thousands of Chinese Christian refugees held out inside. After the Protocol of 1901 the quarter was walled off and placed under foreign jurisdiction until the Second World War.

The church you see was built between 1901 and 1904 for the quarter's Catholics, on land given by the French legation.

After 1958 it was closed for worship and used as a school assembly hall. It reopened in 1989.

3What to look for

  • St Michael the Archangel, carved above the main door.
  • The stained-glass windows along the sides, ordered from France.
  • The old banks with classical façades lining the street to the west.

Documented

The legations were established here from 1861, the siege lasted from 20 June to 14 August 1900, and St Michael's Church was completed in 1904.

Sources and credits

Peter Fleming, “The Siege at Peking” (1959); Catholic Diocese of Beijing, information on St Michael's Church; Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, listing for the Dongjiaominxiang historic buildings.

Photos:

  • The Gothic St Michael's Church, with its two grey spires, behind a brick wall on Dongjiaominxiang: Zhang Ai, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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