It became apparent early on that the adoption of one Western technological or diplomatic innovation would inevitably lead to the adoption of another. Modern guns and boats would require new military training, just as their manufacture would require machinists and engineers, and they in turn would demand support industries such as coal mining and a modern transportation infrastructure.
To finance these projects, the self-strengtheners branched out into money-making enterprises. A steamship company and textile mills followed, first under government purview, but eventually, under further pressure to combat cheap foreign manufactured goods, import-substitution industries were promoted, now completely in private hands, who were touted as patriotic entrepreneurs.
To meet demands, modern education was introduced. In the meantime, the foreigners—their enterprises, missionaries, and military might—continued to threaten the Qing Empire, extracting greater concessions each time there was an altercation or war, which the Chinese inevitably lost.
By the end of the 19th century, some Chinese began to realize that, if they were to become a modern nation, their political system had to be seriously reformed and, should that fail, changed. The combined effect of modern commerce, industry, and education had led to major diversification and enrichment of the Chinese elites.
They were now poised for greater say in the polity. When their demands were not satisfied, they deserted the Qing Court, and the dynasty collapsed in Seen in its immediate aftermath, all the efforts at reform or self-strengthening had failed. Over the long haul, the late Qing had laid the foundation for modern China.
There was no turning back. Given the nature of this topic, general overviews come largely in the forms of textbooks, of which several are notable. There is a slight emphasis on political leadership, particularly the imperial. Spence is written in smooth-flowing prose. Fairbank and Fairbank and Liu , though somewhat dated, contain excellent essays on late Qing, some of which will be discussed in relevant sections below. In Chinese, a number of works on the history of the Qing dynasty also provide extensive treatment of the period in question.
A notable example is Qingdai quanshi especially Vol. Xiao — , though dated, probably provides the most thorough treatment of the period, in nearly 3, pages. Both the Qing dynasty and the — periods are often viewed as the beginning of modern China. Either way, the implication is that modern China is a continuing process, giving rise to numerous studies of 20th-century China that devote substantial treatment of the pre era.
Fairbank, John K. The Cambridge History of China. The bulk of this work, from chapter 4 to the end chapter 11 , analyzes major political topics of this period. Western countries sent troops, but the Empress Dowager sided with the Boxers, declaring war on the West. Western forces defeated the Imperial Army and the Boxers in , executing government members who had supported the Boxers and imposing sanctions that weakened the Qing rule.
The Qing Dynasty fell in , overthrown by a revolution brewing since , when western-educated revolutionary Sun Zhongshan formed the Revive China Society in Hawaii , then Hong Kong. In , Sun united various revolutionary factions into one party with Japanese help and wrote the manifesto, the Three Principles of the People. In , the Nationalist Party of China held an uprising in Wuchang, helped by Qing soldiers, and 15 provinces declared their independence from the empire.
Within weeks the Qing court agreed to the creation of a republic with its top general, Yuan Shikai, as president. Xuantog abdicated in , with Sun creating a provisional constitution for the new country, which ushered in years of political unrest centered around Yuan. In , there was a brief attempt to reinstate the Qing government, with Xuantog being restored for less than two weeks during a military coup that ultimately failed.
Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Patricia Buckley Ebrey. The Dynasties of China. Bamber Gascoigne. China Condensed: Years of History and Culture. Ong Siew Chey. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Han Dynasty ruled China from B. Though tainted by deadly dramas within the royal court, it is also known for its promotion of Confucianism as the state religion and opening the Silk Road trade route to Europe, The Ming Dynasty ruled China from to A.
Known for its trade expansion to the outside world that established cultural ties with the West, the Ming Dynasty is also remembered for its drama, literature and world-renowned The Tang Dynasty is considered a golden age of Chinese arts and culture. In power from to A. Beginning of the The Qin Dynasty established the first empire in China, starting with efforts in B. The empire existed only briefly from to B. The Shang Dynasty is the earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded history, though other dynasties predated it.
The Shang ruled from to B. They were known for their advances in math, astronomy, artwork and In , peasants digging a well near the city of Xian, in Shaanxi province, China, stumbled upon a cache of life-size, terracotta figures of soldiers at what was later determined to be the burial complex of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang B. In , in what became known as the Boxer Rebellion or the Boxer Uprising , a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there.
The rebels, referred The Qing believed that the way to avoid the errors of the White Lotus rebellion was to clamp down on foreign influence. The British under Queen Victoria were a huge market for Chinese teas, but the Qing refused to engage in trade negotiations, rather demanding that Britain pay for the tea in gold and silver.
Instead, Britain began a lucrative, illicit trade in opium, traded from British imperial India into Canton, far from Beijing. The Chinese authorities burned 20, bales of opium, and the British retaliated with a devastating invasion of mainland China, in two wars known as the Opium Wars of —42 and — Completely unprepared for such an onslaught, the Qing dynasty lost, and Britain imposed unequal treaties and took control of the Hong Kong region, along with millions of pounds of silver to compensate the British for the lost opium.
This humiliation showed all of China's subjects, neighbors, and tributaries that the once-mighty China was now weak and vulnerable. With its weaknesses exposed, China began to lose power over its peripheral regions. France seized Southeast Asia, creating its colony of French Indochina.
Japan stripped away Taiwan, took effective control of Korea formerly a Chinese tributary following the First Sino-Japanese War of —96, and also imposed unequal trade demands in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. By , foreign powers including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan had established "spheres of influence" along China's coastal areas.
There the foreign powers essentially controlled trade and the military, although technically they remained part of Qing China. The balance of power had tipped decidedly away from the imperial court and toward the foreign powers.
Within China, dissent grew, and the empire began to crumble from within. Ordinary Han Chinese felt little loyalty to the Qing rulers, who still presented themselves as conquering Manchus from the north. The calamitous Opium Wars seemed to prove that the alien ruling dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven and needed to be overthrown.
In response, the Qing Empress Dowager Cixi clamped down hard on reformers. Rather than following the path of Japan's Meiji Restoration and modernizing the country, Cixi purged her court of modernizers. When Chinese peasants raised a huge anti-foreigner movement in , called the Boxer Rebellion , they initially opposed both the Qing ruling family and the European powers plus Japan.
Eventually, the Qing armies and the peasants united, but they were unable to defeat the foreign powers. This signaled the beginning of the end for the Qing dynasty. Strong rebel leaders began to have major impacts on the ability of the Qing to rule. Others began to openly call for the overthrow of the existing regime and replace it with a constitutional rule. Sun Yat-Sen emerged as China's first "professional" revolutionary, having gained an international reputation by being abducted by Qing agents in the Chinese Embassy in London in One Qing response was to suppress the word "revolution" by banning it from their world-history textbooks.
The French Revolution was now the French "rebellion" or "chaos," but in fact, the existence of leased territories and foreign concessions provided plenty of fuel and varying degrees of safety for radical opponents.
The crippled Qing dynasty clung to power for another decade, behind the walls of the Forbidden City, but the Wuchang Uprising of put the final nail in the coffin when 18 provinces voted to secede from the Qing dynasty. The Last Emperor, 6-year-old Puyi , formally abdicated the throne on Feb. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile.
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