[1] He was envoy to Belgium, France, Italy, Russia, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany for the Qing imperial court and led reforms in modernizing China's railways and public works.

In Article IIa of the Boxer Protocol of 1901, the Eight-Nation Alliance that had provided military forces (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) successfully pressed for the rehabilitation of Xu Jingcheng by an Imperial Edict of the Qing government:[3] Imperial Edict of the 13th February last rehabilitated the memories of Hsu Yung-yi, President of the Board of War; Li Shan, President of the Board of Works; Hsu Ching Cheng, Senior VicePresident of the Board of Civil Office; Lien Yuan, Vice-Chancellor of the Grand Council; and Yuan Chang, Vice-President of the Court of Sacrifices, who had been put to death for having protested against the outrageous breaches of international law of last year.Xu Jingcheng was born in 1845 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and received his jinshi degree after the 1868 imperial examination.

[4] He began his civil service as a bureaucrat in the Hanlin Academy serving as the Bachelor of the six offices of Scrutiny (翰林院庶吉士), a compiler (翰林院編修), and an Academician Expositor-in-waiting (翰林院侍講) until 1884.

[5] As a compiler, he was a keen analyst of foreign and current affairs and was first promoted and appointed as envoy to Japan but failed to journey abroad due to the death of his father and his responsibilities as the eldest son in filial mourning.

[2] The anti-Christian, anti-foreign, and anti-imperialist movement converged on Beijing in June 1900 after months of violence in Shandong and the North China plain, forcing diplomats, foreigners, and Chinese Christians into the Legation Quarter.

During his diplomatic career, Xu was also the mentor of the future Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, Lu Zhengxiang, and was instrumental in Lou's conversion to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism.

When the 1911 Revolution broke out while Lu was Ambassador in St Petersburg, he took it upon himself, against the advice of his colleagues at other European capitals, to cable Beijing that there could be no hope of assistance from the Great Powers.