The Decline of Qing Dynasty

Causes of Decline

• In 1800, after a long period of peace and prosperity, the Qing dynasty of the Manchus was at the height of its power.

• One important reason for the abrupt decline and fall of the Qing dynasty was the intense external pressure applied to Chinese society by the modern West.

• After an extended period of growth, the Qing dynasty began to suffer from corruption, peasant unrest, and incompetence.

  • The ships, guns, and ideas of foreigners highlighted the growing weakness of the Qing dynasty and probably hastened its end.

The Opium War

• By 1800, Europeans had been in contact with China for more than two hundred years. European merchants, however, were restricted to a small trad- ing outlet at Guangzhou, or Canton.

  • The British also had an unfavorable trade balance in China

• At first, the British tried to negotiate with the Chinese to improve the trade imbalance.

• Opium was grown in northern India under the sponsorship of the British East India Company and then shipped directly to Chinese markets.

  • The Chinese reacted strongly.

  • The British were not the first to import opium into China.

  • The British refused to halt their activity, however.

  • The Chinese were no match for the British. British warships destroyed Chinese coastal and river forts.

• When a British fleet sailed almost unopposed up the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) to Nanjing, the Qing dynasty made peace.

• In the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, the Chinese agreed to open five coastal ports to British trade, limit taxes on imported British goods, and pay for the costs of the war

• Moreover, in the five ports, Europeans lived in their own sections and were subject not to Chinese laws but to their own laws—a practice known as extraterritoriality.

• The Opium War marked the beginning of the establishment of Western influence in China.

The Tai Ping Rebellion

• In the meantime, the failure of the Chinese government to deal with pressing internal economic problems led to a peasant revolt, known as the Tai Ping Rebellion (1850–1864).

  • It was led by Hong Xiuquan, a Christian convert who viewed himself as a younger brother of Jesus Christ.

  • Hong was convinced that God had given him the mission of destroying the Qing dynasty.

• The Tai Ping Rebellion appealed to many people because it called for social reforms.

  • Hong’s rebellion also called for people to give up private possessions.

• In March 1853, the rebels seized Nanjing, the second largest city of the empire, and massacred 25,000 men, women, and children.

• In 1864, Chinese forces, with European aid, recaptured Nanjing and destroyed the remaining rebel force.

• The Tai Ping Rebellion proved to be one of the most devastating civil wars in history.

• One reason for the Qing dynasty’s failure to deal effectively with the internal unrest was its ongoing struggle with the Western powers.

Efforts at Reform

• By the late 1870s, the Qing dynasty was in decline.

• In its weakened state, the Qing court finally began to listen to the appeals of reform-minded officials.

• The reformers called for a new policy they called “self- strengthening.”

• Some reformers wanted to change China’s tradi- tional political institutions by introducing democracy.

The Advance of Imperialism

• In the north and northeast, Russia took advantage of the Qing dynasty’s weakness to force China to give up territories north of the Amur River in Siberia.

  • Even more ominous changes were taking place in the Chinese heartland.

• European states began to create spheres of influence, areas where the imperial powers had exclusive trading rights.

• In 1894, another blow further disintegrated the Qing dynasty.

  • New pressures for Chinese territory soon arose.

• In 1897, two German missionaries were murdered by Chinese rioters.

  • This latest scramble for territory took place at a time of internal crisis in China.

• In June 1898, the young emperor Guang Xu launched a massive reform program based on changes in Japan

• Many conservatives at court, however, opposed these reforms.

• Most important, the new reform program was opposed by the emperor’s aunt, Empress Dowager Ci Xi

Opening the Door to China

• As foreign pressure on the Qing dynasty grew stronger, both Great Britain and the United States feared that other nations would overrun the country should the Chinese government collapse.

• In 1899, U.S. secretary of state John Hay presented a proposal that ensured equal access to the Chinese market for all nations and preserved the unity of the Chinese Empire.

• When none of the other imperialist govern- ments opposed the idea, Hay proclaimed that all major states with economic interests in China had agreed that the country should have an Open Door policy.

  • In part, the Open Door policy reflected American concern for the survival of China.

  • The Open Door policy did not end the system of spheres of influence.

  • The Open Door policy also helped to reduce impe- rialist hysteria over access to the China market

The Boxer Rebellion

• The Open Door policy came too late to stop the Boxer Rebellion.

  • Boxer was the popular name given to members of a secret organization called the Society of Harmonious Fists.

  • The Boxers were upset by the foreign takeover of Chinese lands.

• Response to the killings was immediate and overwhelming.

• The Chinese government was forced to pay a heavy indemnity— a payment for damages—to the powers that had crushed the uprising.

• The imperial government was now weaker than ever.

Revolution in China

The Fall of the Qing

• After the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing dynasty in China tried desperately to reform itself.

• The civil service examination system was replaced by a new educational system based on the Western model.

• In 1909, legislative assemblies were formed at the provincial, or local, level.

  • Elections for a national assembly were even held in 1910.

• The emerging new elite, composed of merchants, professionals, and reform-minded gentry, soon became impatient with the slow pace of political change.

  • Moreover, the recent reforms had done nothing for the peasants, artisans, and miners, whose living conditions were getting worse as taxes increased.

• The first signs of revolution appeared during the last decade of the nineteenth century, when the young radical Sun Yat-sen formed the Revive China Society.

  • Although Sun believed that China should follow the pattern of Western countries, he also knew that the Chinese people were hardly ready for democracy.

• The Qing dynasty was near its end.

• In 1908, Empress Dowager Ci Xi died.

• In October 1911, followers of Sun Yat-sen launched an uprising in central China.

• The party was forced to turn to a member of the old order, General Yuan Shigai (YOO•AHN SHUR•GIE), who controlled the army.

  • Yuan was a prominent figure in military circles, and he had been placed in charge of the imperial army sent to suppress the rebellion.

  • Instead, he abandoned the government and negotiated with members of Sun Yat-sen’s party.

• In the eyes of Sun Yat-sen’s party, the events of 1911 were a glorious revolution that ended two thousand years of imperial rule.

• The Revolutionary Alliance was supported mainly by an emerging urban middle class, and its program was based largely on Western liberal democratic principles.

An Era of Civil War

• After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the military took over.

• Yuan understood little of the new ideas sweeping into China from the West.

• Yuan’s dictatorial efforts rapidly led to clashes with Sun’s party, now renamed the Guomindang, or Nationalist Party.

• Yuan was strong enough to brush off the challenge from the revolutionary forces, but he could not turn back history.

Chinese Society in Transition

• When European traders began to move into China in greater numbers in the mid-1800s, Chinese society was already in a state of transition.

• The growth of industry and trade was especially noticeable in the cities, where a national market for such commodities—marketable products—as oil, copper, salt, tea, and porcelain had appeared.

• The coming of Westerners to China affected the Chinese economy in three ways.

  • Westerners: (1) introduced modern means of transportation and communications; (2) created an export market; and (3) integrated the Chinese market into the nineteenth-century world economy.

• To some, these changes were beneficial.

• At the same time, however, China paid a heavy price for the new ways

• During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the pace of change in China quickened even more.

China’s Changing Culture

• In 1800, daily life for most Chinese was the same as it had been for centuries.

• A visitor to China 125 years later would have seen a different society, although it would still have been recognizably Chinese.

• Nowhere in China was the struggle between old and new more visible than in the field of culture.

• The first changes in traditional culture came in the late nineteenth century.

  • Western literature and art became popular in China, especially among the urban middle class.

• Literature in particular was influenced by foreign ideas.

  • Western novels and short stories began to attract a larger audience.

• Ba Jin, the author of numerous novels and short stories, was one of China’s foremost writers at the turn of the century.

Rise of Modern Japan

An End to Isolation

• By 1800, the Tokugawa shogunate had ruled the Japanese islands for two hundred years.

• To the Western powers, the continued isolation of Japanese society was a challenge.

• The first foreign power to succeed with Japan was the United States.

  • In the summer of 1853, an American fleet of four warships under Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay).

  • Perry brought with him a letter from President Millard Fillmore.

  • About six months later, Perry, accompanied by an even larger fleet, returned to Japan for an answer.

• Others pointed to the military superiority of the United States and recommended concessions, or political compromises.

• The question was ultimately decided by the guns of Commodore Perry’s ships.

• Under military pressure, Japan agreed to the Treaty of Kanagawa.

• In 1858, U.S. consul Townsend Harris signed a more detailed treaty.

Resistance to the New Order

• The decision to open relations with the Western powers was highly unpopular in parts of Japan.

• The rebellious groups soon showed their own weakness, however.

• The incident convinced the rebellious forces of the need to strengthen their military.

• The Sat-Cho leaders demanded that the shogun resign and restore the power of the emperor.

• In January 1868, their armies attacked the shogun’s palace in Kyoto and proclaimed that the authority of the emperor had been restored.

The Meiji Restoration

• The Sat-Cho leaders had genuinely mistrusted the West, but they soon realized that Japan must change to survive.

• The symbol of the new era was the young emperor Mutsuhito.

• Of course, the Meiji ruler was controlled by the Sat-Cho leaders, just as earlier emperors had been controlled by the shogunate.

• Once in power, the new leaders moved first to abolish the old order and to strengthen power in their hands.

• The territories were now called prefectures.

• The Meiji reformers set out to create a modern political system based on the Western model

• During the next 20 years, the Meiji government undertook a careful study of Western political systems.

• A commission under Ito Hirobumi traveled to Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States to study their governments.

• As the process evolved, two main factions appeared, the Liberals and the Progressives.

  • During the 1870s and 1880s, these factions fought for control.

  • In theory, the emperor exercised all executive authority, but in practice he was a figurehead.

• The final result was a political system that was democratic in form but authoritarian in practice.

• The Meiji leaders also set up a new system of land ownership.

  • The Meiji leaders levied a new land tax, which was set at an annual rate of 3 percent of the estimated value of the land.

• Under the old system, farmers had paid a fixed percentage of their harvest to the landowners.

  • As a result, in bad years, many peasants were unable to pay their taxes.

• The Meiji government gave subsidies to needy industries, provided training and foreign advisers, improved transportation and communications, and started a new educational system that stressed applied science.

  • From the start, a unique feature of the Meiji model of industrial development was the close relationship between government and private business.

  • The Meiji reformers also transformed other institutions.

• A new imperial army based on compulsory military service was formed in 1871.

• Education also changed.

• The Meiji leaders realized the need for universal education, including instruction in modern technology.

  • After a few years of experimentation, the education ministry adopted the American model of elementary schools, secondary schools, and universities.

• Much of the content of the new educational system was Western in inspiration.

• Japanese society in the late Tokugawa Era, before the Meiji reforms, could be described by two words: community and hierarchy.

• The Meiji Restoration had a marked effect on the traditional social system in Japan.

• The social changes brought about by the Meiji Restoration also had a less attractive side.

• Resistance to such conditions was not unknown.

• The transformation of Japan into a “modern society” did not detach the country entirely from its old values, however.

Joining the Imperialist Nations

• We have seen that the Japanese modeled some of their domestic policies on Western practices.

• The Japanese began their program of territorial expansion close to home.

  • In 1874, Japan claimed control of the Ryukyu Islands, which had long been subject to the Chinese Empire.

• The Chinese had long controlled Korea and were concerned by Japan’s growing influence there.

• In 1894, the two nations went to war. Japanese ships destroyed the Chinese fleet and seized the Manchurian city of Port Arthur.

• In the treaty that ended the war, the Manchu rulers of China recognized the independence of Korea.

• Shortly thereafter, the Japanese gave the Liaodong Peninsula back to China.

• Rivalry with Russia over influence in Korea had led to increasingly strained relations between Japan and Russia.

  • In 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur, which Russia had taken from China in 1898.

  • In the meantime, Russia had sent its Baltic fleet halfway around the world to East Asia, only to be defeated by the new Japanese navy off the coast of Japan.

• During the next few years, Japan consolidated its position in northeastern Asia.

• Mutual suspicion between the two countries was growing, however.

Culture in an Era of Transition

• The wave of Western technology and ideas that entered Japan in the last half of the nineteenth century greatly altered the shape of traditional Japanese culture.

  • The novel showed the greatest degree of change. People began to write novels that were patterned after the French tradition of realism.

• Other aspects of Japanese culture were also changed.

• A national reaction had begun by the end of the nineteenth century, however.

• Cultural exchange also went the other way.

• Japanese arts and crafts, porcelains, textiles, fans, folding screens, and woodblock prints became fashionable in Europe and North America.