"Medal exchange" during 1901 Boxer rebellion in China

[GREAKLY]

Gentlemen,

I have originally posted this in the Imperial German section of the forum, but I figured not all might read it. I recently purchased pre-WWI German medal bar (Medal of the Order of Prossian Crown, 1900-1901 China medal, 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm Centeniary medal and Russian Zeal medal (Nicholas 2nd era)). The bar is original is every respect, so the question is: how did this German soldier (or an NCO at the most) got the Russian medal? The presence of the China medal sort of gives me an idea. There were about 50 German soldiers participating in the legations defense in Pekin and another 800-900 took part in the relief expedition. Does anybody know if any of those soldiers got Russian (or any other country's, besides their own) medals for these events?

On a broader scale, does anybody know about any "international medal exchange" taking place in China in 1901? I mean, any country giving its medals to armed forces personnel (or civilians) of another country in connection with the Boxer rebellion. There is surprisingly little information about that in books and on the web. For the event that took place just 7 years after China (Italian Earthquake 1908) I've seen not only British, German and Russian medal bars/groups with "Messina" medal but also a lot of documents (at least Italian, Russian and British) covering the distribution of those medals. But almost nothing on this matter on 1901 China...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.