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The article comments on the history of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service which led to the modernization of China. John King Fairbank guided research teams that co-edited two volumes of Robert Hart's letters from China to his London-based secretary James Campbell and the two volumes of Hart's journals. Hart was the Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service. Hart was British and was the only non-Chinese director of a Chinese bureaucracy.

The article comments on the reparation made after the Boxer Rebellion in China and the assistance provided by Peking legislation. Agreements which were made in connection to the indemnity lasted until after World War II and stopped only after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Maritime Custom Services in China, played a role during the initial stages of the negotiations.

The article focuses on the role of Robert Hart during the Boxer Rebellion in China, together with Gustav Detring, the German Commissioner of Customs at Tianjin. Their efforts paved the way for the reformed China of the twentieth century. A collection of Hart's manuscript at the Queen's University of Belfast showed evidences of his ability in convincing the Qing Empire and foreign nations to unite. Hart also participated in restructuring the Boxer Protocol on September 7, 1901.

The article discusses the role of Robert Hart, an Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service in China who was also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in Britain, in the statistical revolution in China. It is examined why the Statistical Dept. of the Customs had a minimal effect on other Chinese government bureaucracies. After the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Qing dynasty attempted to Westernize its bureaucracies but later turned to Japanese statistical models.