preview

The Collapse of the Qing Dynasty Essay

Decent Essays

Explain the key reasons for the collapse of the Qing Dynasty.

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 Qing Dynasty relied heavily on the effectiveness of its fighting forces. However, due to corruption and loss of skills the military began to crumble. Militarism, the use of army for political advantage, became very influential for a large …show more content…

This was a major example of imperialism as these treaties favored foreign trade but China didn’t gain any concession from the foreigners. This in turn weakening the economic power of china and the governments control over the country weakened.

Failure to reform was mainly due to weak and ineffective leadership, the conservatives, and especially corruption of the dynasty and its officials.

Ineffective leadership and very luxurious living of the emperors and government officials also led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. Officials were left in charge of the administration of the dynasty because the two emperors of the time, Tongzhi and Guangxu were still children, and this lack of imperial control gave Cixi the ability to ‘rule from behind the curtain’.

Corruption was also throughout many aspects of the administration of the Qing Dynasty. Many officials increased their own personal fortunes by raising peasant’s taxes and by pocketing money, which was to be used for infrastructure, such as the river mitigation project.

Finally uprisings and economic decline plunged the Qing Dynasty into failure because of the rebellions, peasant discontentment, which both resulted in resentment of the dynasty. Another factor influencing the economic decline was natural disasters.

Irresponsible spending and the luxuries experienced by the emperor and

Get Access