In 1860, the Qing dynasty is about ready to collapse. They suffer several small rebellions (Taiping and the like) and they have a second Opium war, but there is hope for a rebound.
1861. The Tongzhi Emperor comes to power, but the problem is that he is 5 years old. There is a big dramatic power struggle regarding who would take over for him and become regent. The regents end up being his uncle, Prince Gong, and his mother, Empress Dowager Cixi. They controlled things for about 12 years. He regained control in 1873 and died two years later.
Under the regents, there was a Qing revival. They were able to suppress rebellions because of these private militias which the government essentially rented from the nobility. The nobility didn’t support the rebels because the Qing were more stable and easier to control, and because the rebels were religious (anti-Confucian) and they stood for egalitarian redistribution of wealth and property. Nobles hate that sort of liberal shit.
Before 1860, the Qing had remained suspicious of the aristocracy’s private militias, but they grew to rely on them more and more as the central government grew weaker. Under the regency, there was more unconditional acceptance of the newly imposed treaties that came out of the Opium wars. An office was created called the Zongli Yamen. They help deal with the term of the treaty that allowed foreigners to have a presence in the capital. They served as essentially an interface between foreign diplomats and the Qing court. The interactions had to be equal and direct, so the foreigners had to meet with people of an equal rank. The other important thing that the Zongli Yamen did was that they engaged in translating western texts on things like diplomacy and economics into Chinese in order to figure out how to deal with westerners. The Chinese sent diplomats abroad and let in missionaries to open churches and schools.
The regency also established the Maritimes Customs Office to oversee customs and tariffs. It was headed by an Irishman named Robert Hart, who answered to the Qing. This became important because Hart was trusted by the westerners and it led to an atmosphere of cooperation.
China was realizing that they were inferior in terms of technology, which led to the Self Strengthening Movement. They began to modernize their military, spearheaded by General Zeng Guofan. However, they still regarded other aspects of Chinese culture as superior to the west. The Zongli Yamen dealt with the manufacturing of machines and opened schools that taught western languages, engineering etc… At this point, the Self Strengthening Movement was led by two people: Empress Dowager Cixi and Robert Hart. Also at this time, the Tongzhi Emperor had died and Cixi placed into power the new Guangxu Emperor (also a child) and she was again named regent.
One important figure in the reform was Li Hongzhang. He commanded some of the army and was one of the leading government officials. A lot of the Self Strengthening Movement’s projects came from him. From the 1870s-1880s, he sent students to the US to study (later recalled), he founded a steamship company, he opened China’s first modern coal mine, opened a cotton mill, raised the first telegraph line in China, as well as the first railroad, and founded a naval academy which later grew to a general military academy.
Meanwhile, France had been subtly invading Vietnam, which China viewed as a tribute state, and tried to get them to declare their independence. China has a big beef with this. The Qing want France out and are ready to test the strength of their new military. Li Hongzhang was in favor of holding off and appeasing the French because he felt that they were not ready. Cixi, on the other hand, was raring to go. In short, the Qing got their butts kicked and Vietnam became a French colony.
History repeated itself in Korea. Japan tried to get them to declare their independence, because they desired Korea’s resources, and, once again, the Qing got their butts kicked. This led to 2 significant treaties. The first treaty in 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki, simply ended the war. The second treaty, in 1896, the Commercial Treaty, said that Japan got the same treaty rights as the western countries did after the Opium wars. It also said that they got 7 additional treaty ports that they could build manufacturing plants in, that Japan got Taiwan, and worst of all, that the Qing had to pay the Japanese a war debt.
The Self Strengthening Movement ultimately failed for several reasons: Cixi disagreed with it and was generally difficult, it got weak backing from a weak government without any strong figurehead (baby kings), there was no strong sense of urgency to catch up with the west so they only updated their military but not their government or economics, and there was strong conservative opposition who thought that they were giving up their essential Chinese-ness.
In the 1890s, the west scrambled for territories. That damn war debt was unpayable so the west offered (forced) to loan China the money at extremely high interest, which led to another unpayable debt which the western counties collected on by slicing China up like a watermelon. Some countries got leased territories and some got spheres of influences.
(here he went on a tangent about German beer)
In 1897, Kang Youwei came to prominence. His whole idea was that Confucius was, at heart a reformer (umm...no.) He started the 100 days reform which went pretty much nowhere and he fought heavily with the Han Learning Scholars who clung to the traditional way of doing things. The Guangxu Emperor liked Youwei a lot, but Cixi did not so she staged a coup and had him put under house arrest, took power, ended the reform movement, and left the government under non reformists.
In 1899, the Boxers rebelled. They were anti-western, anti-Christian Qing supporters. They killed some Germans and missionaries, before marching on Beijing. The Qing quietly supported them. Cixi then declared war on the western powers (oops-a-daisy!) The Boxers were suppressed, the Qing were removed and Cixi finally agreed to reform.
Military reform- The New Army was created, headed by Yuan Shikai. They were western armed and trained.
Education reform- The Confucian civil service exam was suspended in 1905. New schools were built that were modelled on Japanese schools. They taught western math, sciences, and languages.
Political reform- They instituted a 9 year transitional period to change to a constitutional based political system. The first elections for provisional/national assemblies took place in 1909 and 1910.
As a result, China got their mines and railroads back, and the urban population got a renewed interest in the workings of their government leading to a new sense of Chinese nationalism.
SPOILERS! The reforms meant to save China and the Qing dynasty from the western powers eventually led to them being overthrown in 1911, because people felt that they had not fulfilled all of their reform promises.
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