China in the 19th Century
The second half of the 19th century in China was a period of rapid decline and unhappiness. There was much corruption and rebellion during this time. It was a period of economic decline and when foreign interests invaded China.
The political structure was a very uneven structure in the sense that it did not aspire to equality. The Imperial family – the Manchus – were at the top of the political structure. The Manchus were, and are, a minority who come from Manchuria. They governed from 1644 – 1911 and became nearly assimilated into China. Basically, the Manchus adopted the Chinese culture. When they first came into control, the court documentations were written in Manchu and in Chinese. Now, however, the Manchu language is hardly used.
There were groups of people who were called Mandarins, who were the officials. There was a system of exams where the Chinese classic were used. In order to become a Mandarin, one had to pass an exam based on the Chinese classics. Those related to the Manchu court had more of a chance of becoming powerful. However, there were other ways to get through, for example via bribery or corruption, during the latter period of the 19th century. This was one instance of how to problem of corruption became more serious during the 19th century. The area of China which was controlled by the Manchus at this time consisted of the whole of China as it is today, plus Mongolia, by the middle of the 19th century.
Internal trade was very important to China at this time. The silk industry was extremely significant then, and had been for many centuries. According to the population demography, the balance of the population and the ability to sustain it reached the maximum at about 1779. Afterward, it continued to rise but could not sustain itself at the same time. Consequently, the standard of living and food available for each person declined. It is estimated that about 9 – 13 million people died in one of the biggest famines in history. About 5 million people starved to death in the province of Shaanxi, about one third of the population, in a single winter.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the political administration experienced a sharp decline. These problems were not widely known, even to the Emperor, at this time. Nonetheless, as a result of a combination of political and economic problems, the Emperor gave up the throne. Chinese society was based on a hierarchy, the top consisting of all male officials, and the older men had more power. One of the most stark signs of the exploitation of women was foot binding, and this became worse over time.
In 1853, the soldiers of the Taiping revels took hold of Nanjing, and held it for eleven years. They had a lot of support from those other than the Mandarins. The Taiping espoused a certain brand of Christianity. They were relatively egalitarian, in spite of the Confucian order, and believed in equality of the sexes – the allowed women to be officials, own land, and were opposed to the practice of foot binding. The Taiping also believed in separation of the sexes. In 1856, the Taiping wrangled amongst themselves for control of the group, and as a consequence, many people were killed. In 1859, Hong Rengan visited Nanjing with ideas about modernisation. The Taiping army was defeated by Hong’s army in the early 1860’s.
The Tongzu Emperor came to the throne in 1861 and attempted to implement a restoration. He was very in favour of modernisation. In August 1870, a big dispute occurred outside of an orphanage in the city of Tianjin, which resulted in a massacre, involving a French consul. The French consul was killed and many other people died as a result.
During the 1860’s – 1870’s, there was a rebellion in the west of China. The rebellion was based on setting up an independent kingdom. The Chinese felt that they had to strengthen themselves to protect against western Imperialists. In 1862, the Chinese set up a college of foreign languages.
In 1856 there was a new round of wars that resulted in new treaties – where China was further encroached upon. The British and the French invaded China up to a climax in 1898. These treaties became known as “the unequal treaties”. The Chinese were, because of this, caught in a very difficult situation. Under the treaty of Nanjing, several ports were opened up for trade, the main port being Shanghai. Shanghai became a port for the western powers. To this day, buildings survive in Shanghai from this period.
As the 19th century wore on, the foreigners assumed that extra-territoriality – similar to diplomatic immunity – was their right. There became more places where foreigners established their own law and courts in China. In 1856, despite the notion of extraterritoriality, a French missionary was decapitated for a crime by a Chinese court. This ignited a war between the French and the British, and the French destroyed the old Summer Palace. One of the things that the Chinese were forced to do in their defeat to the French was to let missionaries to be set up in China. This meant for a divisive kind of society, and led to further Western encroachment. China’s sovereignty was waning and the Chinese bitterly resented it.
The last few years of the 19th century were the worst of all for China. Korea was isolated and Japan had began modernisation. In the 1860’s, a rebellion began in Korea that flared up in the 1890’s. The Chinese and the Japanese sent in troops to Korea at this time. As a result, a war broke up between China and Japan. This period saw several large scale naval battles and the total defeat of the Chinese navy by the Japanese. This became known as the first Sino-Japanese war. The treaty of Shimonoseki was signed in 1895. From that point on, Japanese influence in Korea expanded rapidly and the Chinese influence practically disappeared.
The 100 days reform in 1898 was implemented to reduce reforms to modernise China in the fashion of how the West and Japan had done so. Empress Cixi carried out a coup d’etat and had the Emperor placed under house arrest. Cixi seized power and had the reformists executed. At the same time, the foreign powers stepped up their encroachment in China in what is now known as the “scramble for concessions”. The most important of these is the 99-year lease taken out on Hong Kong in 1898.
China had disintegrated so much in the second half of the 19th century. It had become little more than a colony. Basically, China had slipped into a complete state of chaos by the turn of the 20th century.
Luthor Erik Laine is a scholar at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. He maintains a personal blog at http://www.mesetaxchange.com/blog.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Luthor_Laine
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