The Disintegration of Qing Dynasty:  Article Body

The Qing dynasty was China’s last imperial dynasty that ruled from 1644 to 1911. The Manchu dynasty, as the Qing dynasty is called in the western world, came to an end in 1911 as a result of a combination of factors. There are many different theories about how the Qing dynasty fell apart, with two major theories as the most commonly believed theories in the world. First theory is concerned with China’s internal problems, including corruption, poverty and abuse of powers of the ruling class. This theory is prominent among the Chinese historians, believing that the fall of the Qing dynasty resemble how the other dynasties had fallen in the past. All Chinese dynasties undergo more or less the same process: prosperity, peak of development, and finally the fall. The Qing dynasty, which reached its peak during the reign of Qianlong from 1735 to 1795, quickly deteriorated with incompetent emperors who succeeded the throne. Peasant rebellions hastened the process of the breakdown of the dynasty; One rebellion followed another in rapid succession, signifying that Qing’s inept ruling was arousing popular grievances. The Qing dynasty naturally disintegrated under the bombardment of incessant rebellions and invasions. The second theory focuses mainly on the effects of western influences on China. Most western historians conclude that the fall of China is an inevitable consequence of the entrance of liberal ideas, which toppled the conservative regime of the Qing dynasty. Both theories attempt to explain the breakdown of Qing, but the latter theory is not as plausible since it emphasizes the importance of a mere couple of decades of colonialism and imperialism to the degree that it caused the annihilation of a dynasty. The first theory is readily acceptable because past dynasties show the same pattern of rise and fall as exhibited in Qing; therefore, it is quite fair to say that Qing began its disintegration long before the west had a foothold in China, and its fall is catalyzed by the introduction of ideas from the west.

The theory that most Chinese historians support is the first theory, which is that causes of the fall of Qing were corruption and internal conflicts. This theory is built upon the repetitive pattern of rise and fall of other dynasties. For example, the Rebellion of An and Shi, which lasted seven years and two months, seriously weakened the Tang dynasty, which was the most powerful dynasty in China’s history.[1] Each dynasty in China’s history could be summarized into rise, prosperity and fall due to rebellions and corruption. It would form a logical corollary that the cause of breakdown of the Qing dynasty is the same as other dynasties in China’s history. Chinese historian Feng Yanming in his book Illustrated book of China states that a series of wrong decisions and extravagance of Emperor Qianlong initiated the breakdown of the Qing dynasty; When Emperor Daoguang ascended the throne in 1820, internal problems that were caused by the political ineffectiveness of Emperors Qianlong and Jiaqing started becoming more and more obvious.[2] Western historians support the other theory that Qing’s breakdown was mainly caused by the corruption of the ruling elites, but ultimately caused by introduction of western philosophies and western imperialism. Resembling to how the American and French revolutions took place, the Chinese wanted a republican system; Sun Yat-sen, who was educated in the west, was responsible for establishing the Republic of China in 1912. The acceptance of western liberal ideologies of Rousseau, Montesquieu and Locke was ultimately responsible for people’s fervent revolutions to end autocratic regimes, as Western historians believe. However, in the book Revolution: 500 Years of Struggle for Change by Mark Almond, he states that social, political and economical conditions of a state have a greater impact on revolutions than the introduction of new ideologies.[3] Even though western imperialism and philosophies did play a major role in the breakdown of the Qing dynasty, dire poverty, oppression and social instability was the ultimate cause thereof.

The theory supported by most Chinese historians begins with the reign of Qianlong, which was the peak of Qing dynasty. The Chinese historians dubbed Qianlong the emperor who made the most contributions to the development of the Chinese Empire; during his reign of sixty years, the Qing dynasty was one of the wealthiest and most powerful empires in the world. However, the reign of Qianlong was the turning point of the Qing dynasty due to Qianlong’s ignorance, or rather connivance of corruption in the Qing court and policies made by him in the later years of his reign that had an irreversible damage on its government. Qing’s treasury was in a state of penury as a result of the emperor’s lavish spending, and worsened by He Shen who was notoriously known for “bringing the national treasury home.[4] Qianlong was quite unaware of the substantial changes that were taking place in the Qing court: corruption scandals were universal in the court, the ruling class was preoccupied with indulging themselves with women and excessive luxury. The situation aroused popular discontent among the Qing subjects, especially the peasants in outlying provinces. In 1786, the first significant rebellion took place in Qing’s most distant province, Taiwan. The entire Fujian military was sent but only to be defeated by a small Taiwanese insurgent force that consisted less than 10,000 men; only until the best generals of Qing were sent were the rebellions arduously quashed.[5] This proved that Qing was quickly losing control over the remote provinces, due to lack of communication and less attention paid to those places. One rebellion was followed by another; over the next few decades, White Lotus Rebellion and the Heavenly Cult rebellion, even though suppressed eventually, posed a serious problem to the Qing court. These rebellions were often started in one province and quickly gained the support of at least two other provinces; this leads to the conclusion that peasants were not content with their current material conditions any more. This showed that Qing was not only losing control over its remote provinces, like Taiwan and Guizhou, but also civil instability caused by people losing faith in Qing court signified the rapid disintegration of the Qing dynasty. In addition, Qing could no long deal with primitively armed peasant rebels with its elite imperial army; it would take a few more rebellions to destroy the Qing’s imperial army and that would be the end of the Qing dynasty. Therefore, the Qing dynasty was falling apart rapidly long before the Westerners came to China. The rebellion that totally toppled the foundation of Qing was the Taiping Rebellion, which started on Jan 1^st 1851. The leader of the rebellion, Hong Xiuquan, had previously been exposed to Christianity and he learned of the story of how a certain group of people rebelled with god’s help.[6] He believed that he was the son of God and the brother of Jesus and his mission in China was to rid it of all “evil” forces, including Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. He combined his old traditional Chinese culture with Christianity, which shows to a certain extent his revolutionary ideas were derived from the Bible. Even though his knowledge of western ideologies were mostly false and inaccurate, his idea of a rebellion justified by the bible could be interpreted that the introduction of Christianity did influence Hong’s thinking. Moreover, Christianity was widely accepted by famine-stricken farmers, workers and miners who formed a significant portion of Hong’s Taiping army; believing that destroying the Manchu dynasty was their god-given destiny, one million zealous soldiers joined Hong’s army. [7] However, new ideologies like Christianity would not have a definite impact on people’s mind, if the rich soil for the growth of these new ideas, such as natural disasters and low standards of living, had not been present. Prior to 1851, China had been defeated by the British in the first Opium War, and China had been forced to sign many unfair treaties which helped to foster civil unrest. All these conditions are the distinctive characteristics of revolutions and rebellions[8]; the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Rebellion was very much going to succeed under these favorable circumstances. The rebellion army defeated the Qing army in every battle and quickly formed a nation that consisted of half Qing’s territory. The rebels captured Nanjing, the most prosperous and developed city in Southern China two years later. Zuo Zongtang, who was in charge of the campaigns against the Taiping rebels, could not win any battles that would decisively pulverize the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Qing, however, would not be able to quench the rebellion until 1864, until internal conflicts within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom polarized its leaders.

Rebellions usually are results of economic depression and material shortage, causing people to rise against the current government in order to seek a better government. Thus, it would be true to say that the Manchu ruling class was failing to provide its people with living necessities. Aside from internal turmoil, corruption inside the government could be attributed to many factors. These factors include the continuous succession of boy emperors, and governor mandarins’ overt contempt towards the incompetent ruling class that resulted in defalcation. The last adult emperor who had real power was Emperor Xianfeng whose reign was from 1851-1861. After that, the emperors who succeeded the thrones were all boy emperors. Unable to make decisions by himself, boy emperors often do not have real power; political power would often be held in the hands of an influential regent or in this case, an emperor dowager. Tongzhi, Guangxu, Xuantong, were boy emperors who were under total control of the Emperor Dowager Cixi; she held tenaciously to her power while she did not make any wise decisions to strength the Qing army or to replenish the nearly depleted national treasury. Corruption of the officials became worse and more intentionally conspicuous because of Cixi’s political impotence. The Qing dynasty was about to collapse under the constant bombardment of internal rebellions, the Qing court had to spend huge amount of money to finance the campaigns against the rebels, with the depletion of the national treasury hastened by ruling elites’ wastrel behavior towards money. One hundred million taels was spent on squelching Taiping Rebellion alone. The Northwest Campaign waged by Zuo Zongtang towards the Taiping rebels alone cost the Qing treasure forty million teals. [9] The treasury was already in heavy debt; when it came to the decision between whether to modernize the Qing navy or building a recreation garden, Cixi chose to further expend the money on building the Yihe garden. The ruler’s disinterest in defending the nation and failure to modernize China in time resulted in China’s bitter defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Both internal unrest and corruption played a role in depleting Qing’s national treasury, thus Qing was unable to expend money on modernization of its army.

           In addition, failure to reform was also one of the causes that the Qing further deteriorated. Emperor Guangxu realized the urgency of reforms and carried out the One Hundred days reform in 1898.[10] The introduction of western ideology is the impetus of this rebellion; but if China had not been defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War, and if China had not been partitioned by the western powers, these new ideologies would not have a significant impact on the thinking of the rulers. The corruption of the government was ultimately responsible for the sudden change of living conditions of people and thus triggering rebellions. However, the western powers’ entry into China helped foster emergence of nationalism and hastened the fall of the Qing dynasty.

      The theory supported by the Western World is that imperialism and introduction of western ideas in China ultimately caused the disintegration of Qing. This theory starts with the reign of Qianlong, precisely the Close Door Policy of 1793. [11]Qianlong thought China was the wealthiest and most powerful nations of the world, this was partly true because the Qianlong’s reign represented the peak of feudal society of China. He tenaciously believed the Westerners were inferior people who were not worthy to trade with China. However, his ignorance would not go unpunished. His successors will experience the impact of his Close Door Policy in the later years of Qing. The British ambassador Macartney proposed to China a list of peaceful terms of trading between China and Britain but only to be rejected bitterly by the self-conceited Qing dynasty. The British were exasperated at China’s ignorance, but it could leave the trading opportunities with China to other European powers; thus the British decided to force the opening of China and make China demand British goods. The formerly conquered colonies of Britain, such as Bangladesh, produced opium, which would be the product used by Britain to penetrate the Chinese market. Even though the Qing court prohibited the smoking of opium in 1729 and reaffirmed its ban on opium imports in 1799, the addiction of a massive Chinese population and Britain’s need for silver only increased the opium import into China.[12] In 1839, the emperor appointed Lin Zexu the Governor or Canton, and he confiscated and burned all the opium that amounted a year’s supply of the drug in China. This would trigger the start of the first major military defeat by a western power, and China will step into its darkest era in its history, the half feud half colonial society.

In retaliation of Lin’s audacity, Britain immediately took military actions and declared war on China, historically known as the First Opium War. The poorly equipped Qing armies were effortlessly defeated by a modern British battle-hardened army; and the Chinese, which was desperately trying to prevent the escalation of the war, signed the first unequal treaty with the West: the Treaty of Nanjing of 1842. The treaty outlined that five Chinese sea port, including Canton, Ningpo, Shanghai, Foochow and Amoy opened for trade with the foreigners. [13]Also, the treaty ensured the legalization of opium trade in China. The results of the treaty were devastating to the Chinese, and even worse, other imperialist countries will follow Britain’s example and force Qing to sign unequal treaties. By 1900, the Qing Empire has signed a numerous unfair treaties with the western powers, including Treaty of Tientsin, Convention of Beijing, and Treaty of Shimonoseky. [14]Western powers have partitioned China, diving it up into “spheres of influences”. China paid astronomical amounts of war reparation after military defeat and also she had to open up ports, cede land and seriously damage Qing’s administrative integrity. In 1898, United Stated had become an eastern Asian power through acquiring the Philippine Islands, and it wanted to participate in the partition of China. In order to have equal commercial and industrial privileges as the other empires, the US secretary of State John Hay drafted the Open Door policy of 1899. The policy, which addressed that Qing’s territorial and administrative integrity could not be desecrated by western powers, was hesitantly accepted by the westerners including France, UK, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan. Wherever there is suppression, there is resistance; the Chinese were developing a strong feeling of nationalism along with extreme hatred towards the western imperialists, who were often described as avaricious and egoistical.[15] The presence of the foreigners in Chinese cities were more than repulsive for the Chinese who thought the Westerners were barbarians, and the Chinese were forced to engage in unfair trading with them. This aroused the nationalistic feelings of many Chinese and they reacted by forming leagues and armies to actively resist foreigners’ influence in China; at the end of the 19^th century, a group of zealous nationalists, called the boxers, emerged in China with their sole purpose of purging China with Westerners.

         The boxers literally meant the Society of Righteous Fists, whose members practiced a form of unarmed combat.[16] The Boxers were nationalists whose goals were overthrow the Qing dynasty and rid China of all “foreign devils”.[17] The rebels quickly attracted thousands of new recruits, especially in the province of Shantung, which was then under German occupation. Fierce resentment towards the westerners resulted in massacres of foreigners and Chinese religious converts and destroyed all churches. Besieging the legations for 55, the Boxers ferociously assaulted the foreign consulates in 1900, until “Internal relief force” marched into Beijing. Plundering and pillaging their way to peace, the relief army finally put an end to the Boxer rebellion and forced China to sign the Boxer Protocol. Once again, the Boxer Rebellion was unable to achieve any substantial goals but seriously weakened the Qing empire. It would take one last uprising to completely overthrow the Qing, and Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s emergence in China would destroy the remnant powers of Qing.

          Dr. Sun Yat-sen was educated in an American school in Honolulu, Hawaii. Being exposed to western ideologies at a young age, he was determined to overthrow the last imperialist dynasty of China and establish a republic. He returned to China at the age of 18 and formed the revolutionary organizations called “TongMengHui”, whose members were patriotic Chinese countrymen and were widely supported by the overseas Chinese. He would fail ten times at his revolutionary attempt and exiled in Canada, Japan and Europe, before he could have a successful revolution in 1911.[18] On October 10, 1911, Wuchang uprising ignited the Xinhai Revolution that would finally put an end to 5000 years of imperial ruling in China. Sun yat-sen established the Republic of China, which was the first democracy in Asia.

            In general, the theory believed in the west emphasizes on the influence of west but overlooks the repetitive cycle followed by most dynasties. When western powers started influencing China after the First Opium War, the ineptness of the rulers after Qianlong had already resulted in massive famines that drive majority of the population into starvation and dire poverty. People had no choice but to rebel in order to seek for a better government that will provide them with living necessities. In contrast to most of the revolutions in the western world where a reason other than threat of life is justifying the revolution; the American revolution and the Latin American Revolutions were caused by a nativism and more importantly, the leaders of the revolutions wanted a better economic system than mercantilism. Whereas in China, people’s lives were directly threatened by famines and flood, which left people no choice but to uprise. Towards the breakdown of any Chinese dynasty, common signs display themselves really clearly; these signs include low standards of living, incessant wars, and many other factors. In fact, if the westerners never came to China, Qing would just become any other dynasties and finally be defeated by peasant rebellions. Western influence in China helped provide the soil for the growth of strong nationalism, and western ideologies are only possible to be accepted when people desperately need new ideologies to replace the obsolete ones. Moreover, Manchu rulers’ reluctance to reform was also a cause that further made the dynasty deteriorate. Japan accepted western industrialization and soon became world power in two decades; Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the era of Tagakawa Shogunate which lasted 265 years.[19] It was opened forcibly by Matthew Perry in the same way that China was pried open by the British. The difference is that Japan quickly adapted to a more advanced system of society and quickly kept pace with the rest of the world, whereas China’s refusal to reform was the root cause of corruption and finally dissolution of government. In addition, Qing’s lack of money to support its military and government structures could also be a contributing factor to the incapability to reform. Towards the end of Qianlong’s reign, especially with He Shen’s purposely falsifying Qing’s status quo, Qianlong was intoxicated with power and glory. “It is widely said that He Shen laid the foundation for further collapse and corruption of the Qing government and eventually came to a point where it was impossible to reverse the negative impact already done to all levels of Qing Government at the time.[20]” The above statement is from a western encyclopedia, which is consistent with the statements by Feng Yanming in Illustrated History of China. Thus the conclusion could be drawn that the corruption of Qing had already started with Qianlong’s reign. Before any foreign countries were having any significant influence in China, the Qing court had slowly drifted towards disintegration itself.