Qing China History: Challenges from the West Essay

The Chinese were able to learn from their mistakes from the past and turn them into positives in order to better improve their economy for the future. With the opened ports and foreigners free to visit China, the educated citizens class was increasing in numbers. Many of these people were not happy with the progress of the Qing Dynasty and started to form groups in order to help find alternatives to certain situations. By 1912 the last Chinese emperor stepped down and the order that had ruled over China for two thousand years had finally fallen. This was a new start for the China. The rebuilding of China was very difficult, but using what they had learned, China was able to modernize themselves in many aspects, including military, improve their economy, and overall developed themselves into a superior country.

It was a failure for the Qing in the long term for it aroused Western

When the Chinese and Europeans first came into contact with each other, there was a mutual fascination for the other's culture, or way of life. The Chinese began to look at the European culture. They became interested in Western thinking. They were also beginning to look at the religion that the European missionaries were preaching about, Christianity. On the other end, the Europeans who came in contact with the Chinese were fascinated by their culture and their philosophy, mainly the philosophy of Confucius. While the two cultures seemed to be a good match, each respecting and admiring the other, it came to an abrupt halt. The end result was China and Europe both rejecting the other culture.

During the late Zhou period, thinker came up with idea of how to restore order to China......Confucius said the Chinese needed to return to ethic, or moral value. (191)He [Qin shihuang] order of burning all writing that does not agree with legalism.(195)Since the Confucianism is the official government philosophy during Wudi’s reign. Confucian about the family was also honored.

China has changed in certain ways and remained the same in others from the early Golden Ages to the late 1900s. China has experienced a series of cultural and political transformations, shaping the lives of many Chinese citizens. Culturally, the country’s art and literature hardly changed for almost eight hundred years. Along with their culture, China remained politically the same from the beginning of the Golden Ages all the way until the 1800s. On the other hand, China’s government and society were restructured after new leaders took over. From a monarch to total communism, China’s society had a multitude of new ideas and policies they had to adapt to.

The Qing Dynasty’s collapse was due to three main influences, with underlying reasons involved in each. The first being foreign intervention related strongly to militarism, gunboat diplomacy, imperialism and the rise of unequal treaty systems. The second influence was China’s failure to reform and uprisings, such as the boxer rebellion and lastly economic decline. These three factors ultimately resulted in the downfall of the dynasty.

The Next piece is an image form Guo Xi who was a master from the Northern

Some internal struggles that led to the fall of the Ottoman and the Qing were similar. Both civilizations strode to implement reforms to help restructure society. These reforms were more concentrated and more far-reaching in the Ottoman Empire, but we're just as ineffective as the Qing reforms. One of the Ottomans last sultans, Selim III, attempted to westernize society and the military. He exchanged ambassadors with European powers and allowed them to supervise Ottoman training. Over time, the westerners saw the Ottomans as barriers to more radical reforms. Thus, they began to clash with many classes in society, causing more conflict to arise. In China, many reforms were proposed and backed by radicals. The most well known radicals were the Taipings. Led by Hong Xuiquan, they sponsored

1.) During the fifteenth century, China and Europe both began rebuilding their civilizations after the destruction that the plague brought. Both commenced to rebuild their population, economy, and to begin cultural growth. Although the two civilizations had their difference in the way that they began to rebuild, they also shared some similarities. As both showed signs of improvement, it is viewed that “Europe was […] more different from its own recent past than [the] Ming dynasty China was from its pre-Mongol glory” (428). Even though Europe went though the most change, China still showed a lot of improvement, especially considering that they were coming back from having a foreign ruler.

For the last several decades China and Japan have both risen as superpowers and dominated the Pacific. Japan during the 1980s had the “economic miracle”, however it had a recession in the 1990s that set Japan back. As China becomes a rising superpower due to growing populations and cheap labor and, while Japan remains a “fragile superpower” because of the lack of resources and ageing population both nations will continue to grow, or will China become another fallen communist nation and will the tiger of the Pacific come to a roaring halt? Ever since the Four Humiliations in 1839 China was in desperate need to modernize and change many aspects of its government if it wanted to keep up with the ever-changing world.

Confucianism is a traditional ideology that has already penetrated into every Chinese head. Its main principle is to follow the past, changes and new technologies or new objects are not necessary. Whatever happened in the past are the best standards to follow. The way that Qing government responded after being defeated in the Opium War was shocking from current perspective. China accepted all the unfair treaties to cover the

Furthermore, the Marxist revolutionary government of Communist China dealt with Confucianism negatively. “In the early 20th century, both before and after the fall of the Qing dynasty, Confucianism was harshly criticized by the New Culture Movement. (Adler 6)” The assumption of this movement was that “virtually everything about China’s traditional culture was holding it back from becoming a modern nation-state.” In fact, Confucianism was high on the list of culprits in this “blanket rejection” of traditional China. “The New Culture Movement criticized Confucianism for its age and gender-based hierarchies, which had become quite rigid during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Communist thinkers also joined this anti-Confucian trend, so by the time of the Communist victory in 1949 Confucianism in mainland China seemed virtually dead. (Adler 7)” “After the Communists took power their anti-Confucian rhetoric only increased. In addition to their professed opposition to social hierarchies, they viewed Confucianism as a feudal ideology. (Adler 8)”

The Chinese Empire was large and controlled most of Asia at one point in time. One of the dynasties that ruled the empire was the Ming Family. Ruling from 1368-1644, almost three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty impacted Chinese history very much.

1900s China saw a century of fluctuating development and progress, which is recognised through various political, economic and social changes. The early division of the period encountered some change for the country yet this was not as significant as the latter change in which China’s political landscape metamorphosed into one of total contrast to the former. Foreign intervention was of course a reason and usually the root cause for the changes that occurred, particularly in the first half of the century until 1962 whereby there were still some minor influences by the foreigners but other factors seemed to have caused these later changes. It could be deduced that yes, foreign powers did have a significant influence over the transformation

China made its modernisation through revolutions. There are two historical event scholars believes can be threat as milestone of the transformation: 1911 Xinhai revolution, which brings an end to the two thousand year of monarchy; May fourth movement which carried out by students in Beijing protesting against the unfair treatment China get on the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The word revolution means ‘the fundamental change of power’, where the word movement is ‘a group