- By 1800s, Qing dynasty faces a lot of challenges
- Population increase
- New World Crops
- Maize
- Spuds
- Sweet potatoes
- Population goes up by roughly 200% in 100 years (1700-1800)
- Population goes up by roughly 300% in 150 years (1700-1853)
- By 1900
- Population outstrips food supply
- Extensive famines
- Unemployment and unrest
- A higher population makes it much harder to govern
- Corruption
- China is still run by exam-trained bureaucrats
- System for over 1800 years
- By 1850, Chinese Bureaucrats
- In theory
- Honest
- Skilled at real-world governing
- Concerned about commoner's needs
- In reality
- Challenges from the West
- Industrial Revolution (Begins ~1800)
- Stuff to know about the I.R.
- Fossil fuels replace human work (more energy)
- Machines and technology become more complex and sophisticated
- Commodities become mass produced
- Better weapons, naval technology, communication, and wealth
- No non-western empires can compete!
- Theoretical cycle
- Unrest in China
- Foreign influence
- Overpopulation
- Qing incompetence
- Rebellion
- Tai Ping
- Boxer
- 1911 Revolution
- Reaction
- Lame reform movements
- Westerners gain power
- The Opium War (1839-1842)
- China still produces more trade goods than all of Europe combined
- The Europeans wanted the usual stuff
- But China wanted silver (for the money supply) and Opium
- China was addicted to opium, so they ban it in 1837
- British invade China and win :D
- Treaty Ports
- Five cities
- China must trade
- China loses political control
- By 1900, Western powers control LARGE parts of China
- In a nutshell,
- 1839-1842
- 1850-1864
- Boxer Rebellion
- 1911 Revolution
- Tai Ping Revolution (1850-1864)
- Hong Xiuquan
- Failed the exam candidate
- Convert to Christianity
- What?
- Launched a huge revolt against the Qing dynasty
- Why?
- Wanted better conditions for peasants; abolish social classes
- Wanted to eliminate confucianism
- Resented Manchus (Qing)
- Wanted Westernization
- Factories, railroads, newspapers, etc.
- Ends up getting destroyed by Qing + Western Armies
- 20 million deaths!
- Self Strengthening Movement (1880-90s)
- Who?
- Chinese government officials
- Goals
- Methods
- Western-styled modernization
- But within the structure of a traditional Chinese dynasty
- Ideas they liked
- Modern weapons, confucianism, emperor, exam system, western-styled factories
- Ideas rejected
- Boxer Rebellion (1900)
- Destroy the foreigners
- Another massive civil war
- Results
- 20,000 Western troops defeat rebellion
- The price: China ends up losing and is effectively ruled by England, France, USA, Japan, Russia, and Germany
- Continuing cycle
- 1910
- Empress Cixi
- Attempts to reform dynasty from within
- Exam system ends
- "Representative assemblies" (extremely limited democracy) proposed
- Sun Yat-Sen
- Starts the "revive China" society
- Goals
- End of Confucianism
- End of imperial dynasties
- Democracy!
- Legal equality!
- Land for peasants!
- 1911 - The end
- Qing dynasty and all dynasties end
- Sun Yat-Sen's followers overpower the government
- Aftermath
- Decades of civil war
- Invasion by Japan (WWII)
- 1949 - Mao Zedong reunifies China as a Communist State
apr 11 2016 ∞
apr 13 2016 +