Reversal of Fortune: China’s Century of Crisis

• In 1793, less than a decade after losing his North American colonies, King George III of Britain got yet another rebuke, this time from China. The Chinese emperor Qianlong (chyan-loong) strongly rejected British aspirations for a less limited economic connection with his nation in a famous letter to the British monarch.

• It was a startling turn of events for a country that, in Chinese views, was the civilized heartland of the whole globe — the Celestial Empire or the Middle Kingdom, to use their words.

The Crisis Within

• China was, in many respects, a victim of its success. Its strong economy and access to American food crops allowed it to expand its population from over 100 million in 1685 to almost 430 million in 1853.

• Furthermore, China's renowned centralized and bureaucratic state did not expand to keep up with population growth. As a result, the state's numerous tasks, including tax collection, flood control, social welfare, and public security, were more ineffective.

• This confluence of conditions, which has historically been linked with a fading dynasty, increased the number of bandit groups wandering the countryside and, even more dangerously, outright peasant insurrection. Starting in the late eighteenth century, such uprisings relied on a wide range of peasant concerns and found leadership in charismatic people preaching a millenarian religious doctrine.

• During Taiping's brief rule, none of these reforms were regularly enforced, and the movement's leadership expressed great ambivalence concerning women's equality.

• The Qing dynasty was therefore preserved, but it was weakened as the provincial aristocracy strengthened their influence at the expense of the central government. The imperial rulers' and their aristocratic allies' extreme conservatism postponed any settlement of China's peasant dilemma, as well as any genuine change for China's women.

Western Pressures

• Nowhere in the nineteenth century was the shifting balance of global power more obvious than in China's evolving relationship with Europe, a transition that was most vividly reflected in the legendary Opium Wars. Opium, which was derived from Arab traders in the ninth century or earlier, had long been utilized as a drinkable medication on a limited scale; it was considered as a miraculous treatment for diarrhea and disease.

• Because it was unlawful to import opium, it had to be smuggled into China, breaking Chinese law. Many authorities were bribed to turn a blind eye to the illicit trade. Furthermore, a large outflow of silver to pay for opium reversed China's centuries-long capacity to draw a large portion of the world's silver supply, causing significant economic issues.

• Offended by the seizure of their opium assets and encouraged by their new military might, the British dispatched a massive naval expedition to China, aiming to remove the restricted circumstances under which they had long traded with China. They'd teach the Chinese a lesson about the benefits of free trade and the "correct" way to conduct international affairs in the process.

• Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan were all lost to China. By the turn of the century, the Western powers, together with Japan and Russia, had carved out zones of influence within China, allowing them to establish military bases, harvest raw resources, and construct railroads.

The Failure of Conservative Modernization

• The Chinese government did not remain oblivious to the country's increasing internal and external challenges. Their tactics throughout the 1860s and 1870s were known as "self-strengthening," and they attempted to revive a traditional China while drawing cautiously from the West.

• The concern of conservative authorities that urban, industrial, or commercial development would undermine the landlord class's authority and privileges stifled self-strengthening as an overarching program for China's modernization. Furthermore, for machinery, materials, and knowledge, the new sectors remained mainly reliant on foreigners.

• It's no surprise that an increasing number of educated Chinese, including many in government positions, had lost faith in the Qing monarchy, which was both foreign and inept in defending China. By the late 1890s, such people had formed a slew of clubs, study groups, and publications to investigate China's dire condition and consider other options.

• Until it clashed with a growing and hostile Europe in the nineteenth century, the Islamic world represented a highly successful civilization that saw no need to learn from the West's "infidels" or "barbarians." Unlike China, however, Islamic culture has lived near Europe for over a thousand years.

Reform and Its Opponents

• Many of the Ottoman Empire's issues were recognized by its leaders, who undertook more ambitious programs of "defensive modernization" during the nineteenth century that were sooner, more prolonged, and much more aggressive than China's timid and halfhearted efforts of self-strengthening.

• This proclamation signified a significant shift in the state's inherently Islamic nature. To handle matters involving non-Muslims, mixed courts with members from various religious groups were created. More Christians were promoted to positions of power.

• The Ottoman Empire was an inclusive state, according to those who supported the changes, with all of its citizens devoted to the ruling dynasty. Lower-level politicians, military officers, authors, poets, and journalists, many of whom had received a contemporary Western-style education, took on this appearance as a result of the reform process.