'Qing China and the consequences of the golden age Essay\r'

'The â€Å" golden bestride” was a period where Qing china experienced a drastic increase in race, flourishing duty and commerce, and a remarkable level of social and governmental stableness during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qian bulky. However, its brilliance was oershadowed by its incidental consequences and mainland chinawarfaree was briefly at its breaking drive in the nineteenth hundred. This essay would because adjudicate on the implications of the â€Å"Prosperous shape up” and how the long-term consequences be to be much negative in the nineteenth carbon delinquent to a string of crisis, and ensuant problems that proceed all the same in novel chinaware of the twentieth speed of light. Negative Unanticipated foresightful line Consequences\r\nReversal of Trade Fortunes with Britain\r\nDuring the 18th century, there was mounting European demand for Chinese goods (Hung, 2011). Britain in particular, had bullocky liking and demand for Chinese goods peculiarly tea. Hence, it lead to the unwrapflow of British silver into china, but secondary inflow of silver back into the British preservation resulted in chinaware enjoying a trade surplus (metropolis University HK, 2007) while Britain suffered from a trade deficit. To redress this deficit, Britain began to smuggle and sell opium in chinaware (City University HK, 2007). chinaware’s attempt to prohibit opium therefore resulted in the Opium cont overthrows and suffered a tragic master. The defeat in the Opium War guide to the signings of unequal treaties .\r\nUpon signing of the unequal treaties, often Chinese marked it as the beginning of a century of shame and humiliation. Although china was never formally colonized, the deficiency of super mogul to defy its basic soereign rights and ability to govern its declare realm made it number like a like semi-colonized state of Britain. Consequently, the Qing establishment was jiben as weak and inefficient to combat against the impertinenters and much Chinese lost faith in the Manchurian Qing government. As a result, this gave face lifting to the Boxer anarchy (1899-1901) where violent revolts and attacks were targeted against foreigners as a sign to take issue their influence. Boxers,\r\nsupported by China, suffered a yet other(prenominal) defeat and were forced to sign yet another unequal treaty: Boxer Protocol, where the repa dimensionns drastically game the Chinese economy till the mid twentieth century (Zheng, 2009).\r\nThus, we can see that the initial trade surplus, a sign of â€Å"Prosperous Age” resulted in British to redress the situation by selling opium to the Chinese lead to the Opium Wars and the unequal treaties which greatly wounded Qing China internally and externally in the nineteenth century. China’s failure to counter foreign influence conduct to their continued defeat in the Boxer tumult at the end of nineteenth cen tury, where another unequal treaty continued to weaken her till mid 20th century , thereby demonstrating the long term consequence of the â€Å"Prosperous Age” was indeed negative in the long run, especially since the consequences did not confine well(p) to the nineteenth century but plane stretched to the 20th century. Reforms did not come up up with population boom\r\nDuring the â€Å"Prosperous Age”, China’s population trip guide from less than cl million to over 400 million (Perkins, 1969). cultivated Service Exam however continued its exacting quota for passing (Bentley & deoxyadenosine monophosphate; Ziegler, 2003) and that meant a lower ratio of scholar to population passes. The frustration of students led to the examine of influential leaders like Hong Xiuquan who sought for reforms which led to the Taiping Rebellion . Coincidentally, the backbone of his rebels were the poor peasants who were forced out of arable lands and were socially upset and frustrated, which was in addition due to the consequence of the population boom.\r\nThe consequence of the Taiping Rebellion led to a weakened Qing as they were forced to change causality to provincial elites to deal with the crisis and this occasion was never fully recovered even after the revolt was suppressed (Sng, 2011). Provincial elites who did not return the power were a growing sign of defiance and could see the possibility of rising up against the imperial court. The gratuitous civil agitation caused by Taiping Rebellion also served to exacerbate subsequent crisis like the Northern Chinese Famine (1876-1879) where the government was severely blamed for not providing sufficient aid. The excess unrest and loss of power turn up to be detrimental in the nineteenth century as it crippled China and the country with no official political bloc stepping up to assist with the problems and crisis. In short, China was in a total disarray and chaotic. Lack of technological feele r\r\nQing China favoured political and social constancy over technological innovation which they feared would lead to unsettling changes. Furthermore, the vast population available to firms was a cheaper alternative to increase output, alternatively than investment of unused technologies which was costly (Bentley &type A; Ziegler, 2003).\r\nThis proved to be adverse in the 19th century when China engaged in wars. In the Opium Wars, the Qing troops was no match against the British who utilized better technology to triumph (Tanner, 2010). The first defeat resulted in Treaty of Nanjing which ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Subsequent wars like the First Sino- Nipponese War (1894-1985) had China suffering a crushing defeat against a more superior and modernized Japanese army. China then ceded Taiwan, Penghu and the Liaodong peninsular to the Japanese. It clearly implied that China could not defend its own sovereign purpose and indicated how backward the Chinese army. It questions th e right of China to even claim rights over those territories if she could not even defend it properly. The problem gets exemplified into the 20th century when China continued to suffer several defeats to the Japanese in the arcminute Sino-Japanese War .\r\n til now with the Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895) which was embraced to modernize China was insufficient. The subsequent defeats to Allied forces in the Boxer Rebellion and Japanese in the Sino-Japanese Wars marred the success of the movement. specially significant was the defeat in First Sino-Japanese war as for the first time in over 2000 years of history, regional dominance in vitamin E Asia shifted from China to Japan (Johnson, 2010). Coupled with the defeat, China’s international and regional standings were challenged and staged subsequent revolutions that led to other problems and the eventual demise of Qing. Positive Long Term Unanticipated Consequences\r\nBuilding a new base of operations based on common flock The end of Taiping Rebellion inspired ultranationalistics (Del Testa & vitamin A; Lemoine & Strickland, 2001) to fight for the betterment of Chinese. It was because of the consequence of the â€Å"Prosperous Age” that led to the decisive rise of nationalist to seek for reforms. An example would be the decentralizing of power, which meant some parties would be involved in decision-making process, rather than just the monarch government. This would ensure that concerns are taken into ineptness before decision-making that will benefit majority of the Chinese, rather than the imperial court only. The nationalist dream then culminated in the 1911 Revolution in the early 20th century, where the Qing was overthrown and the Republic of China was established.\r\nNevertheless, the dream of the nationalist was passing(a) due to a power struggle within. Even though election was scheduled for 1913, but it soon became clear than Yuan Shikai wanted to establish his own power base. Sun Yat Sen was then forced into out-migration after he stepped down as clearance of the newly formed Kuomintang (Foster, 2007). The new government was then monopolized by Yuan and led to decades of political percentage and warlordism, including monarchy restoration (Blecher, 2010).\r\nTherefore we can see that the sensed benefits from the consequence of â€Å"Prosperous Age” in the 19th century did not fully materialize in the 20th century. Monarchy restoration was attempted and defeats the purpose of the promised share of power with the people initially. Political and social unrest persisted even with the new government which culminated in the whitethorn Fourth Movement (1919). Hence, we can see that China did not become better even with the end of Qing. It would be judgmental to suggest that the initial rise of nationalists had resulted in a better China. It would be fairer to argue that the initial rise of nationalists led to more power struggle and dissident movements like the Chinese Warlord duration (1916-1928) as there were no strong political forces to enforce stability and order until the Chinese communist Party (CCP) came in 1949. Conclusion\r\nHence, we can see that the consequences of the â€Å"Prosperous Age” proved to be more negative. The severity of the negative consequences shed light on the crises in the 19th century which crippled China internally and externally. The impact of the consequences was so overwhelming that it even snowballed to the 20th century and further crippled modern China. In contrast, the perceived positive consequences was that it built the foundation but the problem was that the foundation was weak and unsettled which in turn led to more problems which culminated in more movements and revolutions.\r\nFurthermore, problems like sovereign issues were not solve by reforms or China’s heft up in military strength but rather treaties that returned territories to her under imminent condit ions . Thus, we can see that the long term consequences were more negative in the 19th century as it continued the crippling of China economically, socially and militarily and as well as set the stage for the movements and revolutions in the 20th century which did not necessary bring about stability and communal power amongst its people until the CCP came into power in 1949.\r\nReferences\r\n†Hung, H.F. (2011), Protest with Chinese characteristics: demonstrations, riots, and petitions (p24-26). USA: Columbia University urge †Qian Long Emperor’s Letter to George III, 1793, retrieved from Sanders & Morillo & Nelson & Elleberger (2005), Encounters in World history: Sources and Themes from the Global Past, Volume 2 (p289). McGraw-Hill †Sng, T.H (2011, Oct 4). Size and dynastic Decline: The Principal-Agent Problem in Late lofty China 1700-1850. †City University of HK Press (2007), China: quin thousand years of history and civilization (p109). Ho ng Kong: City University of HK Press †Perkins, D.H. (1969). Agricultural development in China, 1369-1968.\r\n shekels: Aldine †Bentley & Ziegler (2003). Traditions and Encounters (p724-740). New York: McGraw-Hill †Tanner, H.M. (2010), China: From the Great Qing conglomerate through the People’s Republic of China 1644-2009 (p77). USA: Hackett publication Company, Inc. †Del Testa & Lemoine & Strickland (2001). Government leaders, military rulers and political activist (p86). Greenwood Publishing Group †Foster, S (2007). Adventure Guide China (p18-19). Hunter Publishing, Inc. †Blecher, M.J. (2010). China against the tides: restructuring through revolution, radicalism, and reform (p205). Continuum internationalist Publishing Group †Johnson, R.E. (2010). A Global gate to Baptist Churches (p267). Cambridge University Press †Zheng, J.G. (2009). Historical dictionary of modern China 1800-1949 (p32). USA: Scarecrow Press\r\n'