AP World History Chapter 11 Guided Reading Questions

How did the responses to Western imperialism by China, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan differ? (Comparison)

Both China and the Ottoman Empire became more reliant on Western finance than Japan.

Both China and the Ottoman Empire experienced occupation of some of their territory by Western military forces; Japan did not.

China, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan were all forced by Western powers to sign unequal treaties or capitulations, but Japan eventually was able to renegotiate its treaties in its favor.

All three launched modernization programs, but Japan’s was more thorough and more successful than those of China and the Ottoman Empire, turning Japan into a modern, united, industrial nation.

A number of factors can explain the differences in how they experienced Western imperialism, including the amount of internal strife within each state, the strategic and economic importance to European powers of the Ottoman Empire and China as compared to Japan, and the relatively late and fortuitous timing of Japan’s interactions with Western powers.

What were the causes of the massive peasant rebellions in nineteenth-century China? (Causation)

China’s population grew rapidly between 1685 and 1853, but agricultural protection was unable to keep up; this led to growing pressure on the land, small farms for China’s huge peasant population, and, in all too many cases, unemployment, impoverishment, misery, and starvation.

China’s centralized bureaucratic state did not enlarge itself to keep pace with the growing population and lost influence at the local level to provincial officials and local gentry, who tended to be more corrupt and harsh.

Peasants frequently embraced rebellion, finding leadership in charismatic figures who proclaimed a millenarian religious message.

Peasants also increasingly articulated their opposition to the Qing dynasty on account of its foreign Manchurian origins.

The Taiping Uprising between 1850 and 1864 found its inspiration in a unique form of Christianity.

Analyze the internal and external factors that led to the Taiping Uprising. (Causation)

Internal problems to which the rebels reacted included the inability of the government to keep pace with the growing Chinese population, corruption among the provincial gentry, harsh treatment from tax collectors, prostitution, and opium smoking. Externally, Europeans exerted military pressure and penetrated China’s economy, which disrupted internal trade routes, created substantial unemployment, and raised peasant taxes. The rebels thought that foreigners, including the Manchu Quing dynasty, had “poisoned China'' and “defiled the emperor’s throne.” Answers should also note the opium came to China by way of the British from India, which made the problem of opium internal and external.

To what extent did actions by outsiders lead to significant changes in China during the nineteenth century? (Causation)

China was forced to continue to import opium.

China had to cede Hong Kong to Britain and open a number of other ports to European merchants.

It had to set import tariffs into China at the low rate of 5 percent.

Foreigners were given the right to live in China under their own laws.

Foreigners received the right to buy land in China.

China was open to Christian missionaries.

Western powers were permitted to patrol some of the interior waterways of China.

China lost control of Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Western nations plus Japan and Russia all had carved out spheres of influence within China, granting them special privileges to establish military bases, extract raw materials, and build railroads.

Ultimately, Western pressures enfeebled the Chinese state at precisely the time when China required a strong government to manage its entry into the modern world, and restrictions imposed by the unequal treaties also inhibited by China’s industrialization.

What factors led to the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century? (Causation)

The empire decreased in size both because of European aggression in places like Egypt and because of successful nationalist independence movements in the Balkans.

The Ottoman state has weakened, particularly in its ability to raise revenue, as provincial authorities and local warlords gained greater power. It had also weakened the military, as the Janissaries (the elite military corps of the Ottoman state) had become reactionary defenders of the status quo whose military ineffectiveness was increasingly obvious.

The technological gap with the west was clearly growing.

The earlier centrality of the Ottoman and Arab lands in Afro- Eurasian commerce diminished as Europeans achieved direct oceanic access to the treasures of Asia.

Competition from cheap European manufactured goods hit Ottoman artisans hard and led to urban riots protesting foreign imports.

A lengthening set of capitulations gave foreign merchant immunity from Ottoman laws and legal procedures, exempted them from internal taxes, and limited import and export duties on their products. Moreover, foreign consuls could grant these privileges to Ottoman citizens.

The Ottoman Empire grew increasingly indebted and became reliant on foreign loans. Its inability to pay the interest on those loans led to foreign control of much of its revenue- generating system and the outright occupation of Egypt by the British.

How did the Ottoman state respond to internal and external pressures? (Causation)

It launched a program of “defensive modernization” that included the establishment of new military and administrative structures alongside traditional institutions as a means of enhancing and centralizing state power.

Especially under Sultan Selim III (r. 1789-1807), these reforms were based on European ideas and techniques, and European advisors were imported.

The Tanzimat, or reorganization, emerged in several decades after 1839 and the Ottoman leadership sought to provide the economic, social, and legal underpinnings for a strong and newly recentralized state. Manifestations of this process included the establishment of factories producing cloth, paper, and armaments; modern mining operations; reclamation and resettlement of agricultural land, telegraphs, steamships, railroads, and a modern postal service; Western-style law codes and courts; and a new elementary and secondary schools.

The legal status of the empire’s diverse communities was changed in an effort to integrate non-Muslim subject more effectively into the state. As part of this progress, the principle of equality of all citizens before the law was accepted.

In what ways were the declines of the Chinese and the Ottoman empires similar? (Comparison)

Both had experienced the consequences of a rapidly shivering balance of global powers.

Both had become”semi-colonies” within the “informal empires” of Europe.

While both sought to modernize, neither was able to create the industrial economy or strong state required to fend off European intrusion.

Both gave rise to new nationalist conceptions of society, which were initially small and limited in appeal, but of significance for the future.

Both Empires collapsed in the early twentieth century.

To what extent did Japan’s nineteenth-century transformations result in revolutionary changes? (Causation)

Its cumulative effect was revolutionary because it included an attack on the power and privileges of both the daimyo and the samurai, and their replacement with governors responsible to the central government.

It dismantled the old Confucian-based social order, making all Japanese equal as commoners and subjects of the emperor, while limitations on travel and trade were similarly undone.

It was revolutionary in Japan’s study of science and technology of the West and of its various political and constitutional arrangements, its legal and educational systems, and its dances, clothing, hairstyles, and literature.

It was characterized by an eventual selective borrowing of Western Ideas, combining foreign and Japanese elements in distinctive ways.

It resulted in a stage-guided industrialization program. And, of course, industrialization was as revolutionary in Japan as it was in any other agricultural society of the world.

To what extent did Japan’s process of industrialization reflect the process of industrialization in other parts of the world? (Contextualization)

Much more so than other regions, Japanese Industrialization was state-led rather than melely state-encouraged, and it was carried out without massive forign debt that accompanied industrialization in other non-Western states. Nonetheless, there were similarities in the Japanese model. Like the British example, it began in the textile industry. It also led to stratified social classes and gender roles and ultimately catalyzed imperial expansion.