• Guangxu Emperor (14th year)^[1]
  • Regent: Empress Dowager Cixi

Viceroys edit

• Viceroy of Zhili — Li Hongzhang
• Viceroy of Min-Zhe — Yang Changjun then Bian Baodi
• Viceroy of Huguang — Yulu
• Viceroy of Shaan-Gan — Tan Zhonglin then Yang Changjun
• Viceroy of Liangguang — Zhang Zhidong
• Viceroy of Yun-Gui — Cen Yuying
• Viceroy of Sichuan — Liu Bingzhang
• Viceroy of Liangjiang — Zeng Guoquan

• Sikkim expedition, an 1888 British military expedition to expel Tibetan forces from Sikkim in present-day northeast India.
• March 12 — Qing government signed a treaty with the US banning Chinese laborers from entering the US in accordance with the Chinese Exclusion Act^[2]
• Lingnan University established in Canton, Kwangtung Province, China (now Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China). It was a private university established by a group of American missionaries in 1888
• October 1 — The Scott Act (1888) signed into law, was a United States law that prohibited Chinese laborers abroad or who planned future travels from returning, met with opposition in China, especially Guangdong

• Zhan Dabei (1888, Hubei - 1927) was a Chinese revolutionary and politician. He was an anti-Manchu rebel active at the time of the 1911 Revolution