八國聯軍
Despite pillage and the confiscation of private property being prohibited explicitly in the Hague Conventions of 1899, which each nation of the Eight-Nation Alliance had signed, James Hevia indicates that "looting in 1900 was a major point of contention and public debate in China, the United States, and Western Europe." Historian Thoralf Klein explains the paradoxical nature of the actions of the Eight-Nation Alliance: