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.