Priyank Kumar Chauhan

PISM Enrolment No. - 19034752

Registration No. - 1201013534

Essay

3. Describe the decline of the Qing dynasty in your own words.

When the Qing dynasty finally collapsed in 1911, it was more than the collapse of a single
dynasty, since this collapse brought about the end of not only a genetic lineage but of the whole
imperial period of Chinese history. This tells us about the profound nature of change that
accompanied the final dissolution of the Qing rule, a change not of mere personalities, as China
would have witnessed multiple times in its multi-dynasty history, but a change of the very
system of governance. The history of things falling apart leading up to this moment was a long
and complex process which ought to be figured out from the pattern of dynastic decline in China
in the 19th century. Several personal and material factors contributed to the decline of the Qing
dynasty, which had been ruling China from 1636 AD and came to an abrupt end in 1911. Some
of these main reasons, both internal and external to the dynasty, are elaborated here.

Clash with the West

Before its violent clash with the West, China had been operating on a cultural logic that put it at
the cultural center of the world, with all other countries existing on the cultural periphery and
hence termed “barbarians”. As a consequence, there was little interest in foreign countries and
the foreign trade was underdeveloped. These diplomatic policies pitted Chinese attitudes
against the interests of dominant Western powers. The trading practices allowed at Canton, the
only port open to foreign trade were woefully inefficient. The uneven trade in this place, with
great demand for Chinese export abroad but little demand for European products in China led to
a huge flow of silver into the country, resulting in a balance-of-payments crisis. To solve this
problem, the foreign traders started selling opium to the Chinese in huge quantities as a product
of exchange, leading to large-scale opium addiction in the population. This addiction posed a
severe social problem and the drug was banned in the country, to enforce which the foreign
opium was confiscated and dumped into the sea. These confrontations set the stage for Opium
Wars, in which China was pitted against European powers whose modern military technology
led to an easy victory over the Qing forces in the battle. As a consequence of war, the Chinese
government was forced to sign unequal treaties that granted favorable tariffs, trade
concessions, and territory to the Europeans. These defeats at the hand of the Western power
were seen as national humiliation and led to a loss of confidence in the Qin dynasty among the
Chinese people. They damaged Chinese economy, led to a weakening of the Qing dynasty, and
signalled to the world that Chinese power had rapidly diminished.

Distress and Unrest

Several factors contributed to the feeling of social distress in China during the early to mid-19th
century. The humiliating defeat suffered at the hands of European powers in the Opium Wars
caused great damage to the national psyche and economy. The country was also ravaged by a
series of natural disasters,farmers were heavily burdened by tax due to currency devaluation
caused by silver outflux in opium trade. Meanwhile the government system had become corrupt
and the land under cultivation could no longer provide for a rapidly rising population. All of
these factors taken together created a pattern of social unrest, generating internal rebellions
that plagued the Qing dynasty. The biggest of these rebellions, the Taiping Rebellion posed the
most serious threat to the Chinese rulers. Led by Hong Xiuquan, who proclaimed himself to be
the younger brother of Jesus Christ, this rebellion lasted from 1850 to 1864 and claimed more
than 20 Million lives before finally being put down. Mohammedan Risings - five different
rebellion movements including the Mohammedan rising in Kansu, the Salar movement in
Shensi, the Mohammedan Revolt in Yunnan, the Rising in Kansu, and Yakub Beg’s Revolt in
Turkestan, also caused a great number of deaths and a huge depletion of resources. All of
these rebellions were symptomatic manifestations of a gradually weakening political order, and
further added to the decline of the Qing dynasty.

Humiliating Defeat from the Japanese

Contrasting historical processes operating in China and Japan over a long period of time led to
the First Sino-Japanese War. Japan had undergone Meiji restoration two decades before the
war, a process that ended feudalism and led to rapid modernization. As a part of this process,
Japanese military also became more professional, adopting an imperialist stance under the
modernization doctrine. From an isolationist foreign policy, its imperial aims now moved towards
creation of a wide girdle of territories around the core homeland territory. The several zones of
this girdle included the territories of islands off its coast, the regions of Sakhalin, Taiwan, Korea,
Manchuria etc. It is this ambition on Japan’s part that made its clash with Qing China inevitable.
The immediate reason for the First Sino-Japanese war was the disputed diplomatic status of
Korea, which was supposed to be a Chinese protectorate but had gradually been included in its
sphere of influence by Japan. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was the treaty signed between the
Empire of Japan and Qing China at Shimonoseki in 1895 to end the First Sino-Japanese war.
As a part of the treaty, China recognised Korean independence, ceded control of significant
territory including Taiwan, opened four of its ports to Japan, and additionally had to pay Japan a
huge war indemnity.

In China, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was considered to be very humiliating. Although China had
earlier been defeated by the European powers, the defeat at the hands of Japan, a nation
considered to be a barbarian state, was a serious cultural and political shock. The failure in war
and the cost of peace made the cause of national reform fervent and the support for radical
political-social changes grew. The issue became another significant episode in the decline of
the Qing dynasty and resistance to reform by the Manchu nobility eventually led to the fall of the
Qing dynasty in 1911.

Ambivalence to Reforms
Even if initially unwilling, China’s opening itself up to trade with the West made it a subject of the
modernisation process that integrated it into the world economy. The process of modernisation
unleashed political and cultural pressures which made the reform of its obsolete systems an
essential exercise. Successful overhaul under similar cultural pressures was carried out in
Japan as a part of the Meiji reforms. In China however, the approach to reforms was much more
ambivalent. While the severity of many new domestic and foreign problems was recognised, no
fundamental reforms could be carried out for fear of upsetting the balance of Empire’s
Confucian political and moral order. The approach to the reforms was driven by motivations
mainly to preserve power and lifestyle, and the continued rule of the dynasty. Dowager Empress
Tzu Hsi ruled as the de facto supreme ruler in China from 1861 to 1908 and her great influence
on the royal court defined China’s negotiation with modernity. Although she allowed limited
reforms in military and technology, she obstinately refused to review methods of government
and administration, fearing that Westernization in that sphere will wreck the political power of
her class. Being at the center of the court’s conservatism, she used her own clout and power to
oppose any fundamental reforms, not realising the realities of the new world order that was
unfolding before her. Her most vocal opposition to the reform program came through her
severe reaction to Kang Yowei's reforms. Not only did she push back against that set of
fundamentally liberal reforms, she also imprisoned the Emperor and had the caught reformers
executed. Her use of the anti-foreigner Boxer revolution towards her own ends also shows her
to be a very shrewd political player but her eventual humiliating defeat led to her deserting the
capital city. The lack of enthusiasm for reforms contributed to China’s persisting weakness in
face of its domestic and foreign challenges. It is for this reason that domestic unrest could not
be arrested and a series of wars were lost to both European powers and Japan, leading to
national humiliation and loss of credibility for the Qing dynasty.

Conclusion
We can say, in light of the factors discussed above, that the decline of the Qing dynasty in
China was a long historical process involving several issues both internal and external to the
empire, occurring at the level of both material and conceptual causes. All of these factors which
affected the moral, political, cultural, and economic stability of the empire were interrelated to a
high degree and taken together caused a mutually reinforcing spiral of downward decline
leading to a dramatic end for the centuries old Qing dynasty and millenia old Chinese imperial
system. Although these causes of decline appear fairly straightforward, they can also be seen
from the perspective of an institutional decline in China’s ability to cope up with the rapid pace of
modernity. As such, our perspective moves from a dynasty to the longer historical arc and we
can see in the decline of the Qing dynasty, the decline of Chinese civilization itself as it battled
strange and unfamiliar forces of modernisation. In the same vein, we can say that this decline
laid the foundation for future Chinese strength which would ultimately come to be realised in
modern China.

Short Answers

1. What was the Cold War?

The Cold War was an ideological and geopolitical conflict between the USA and the erstwhile
state of Soviet Russia after the Second World War, involving an ideological competition
between capitalism and communism. The term ‘Cold’ implies that there was no direct fighting
between the two superpowers on both sides but war was waged by other means. This included
proxy wars, in which wars were waged between secondary powers belonging to both camps,
and battles for influence abroad, as a part of which the Americans and Soviets supported anti-
communists and communist governments around the world. Other ways through which struggle
for universal dominance came out was through competition in science, technology, sports,
waging of propaganda and psychological warfare etc. The Cold War divided the world into three
- the First world, the group of countries led by the USA, the Second world, the group of
countries led by USSR, and the Third world, consisting of non-aligned countries. The
competition for influence around the world led to many crisis moments during the Cold War,
including the Berlin blockade, the Suez crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, Korean war etc. The
Cold war finally ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, leaving the USA as the sole
superpower in the world, the solitary pole at the center of the new liberal world order.

The Cold War being ultimately an ideological war had an immensely significant academic
component. An important academic innovation during the Cold War was the foundation of Area
Studies, a discipline to gather detailed information about specific areas for the purpose of
national interest. As a part of this discipline, deep investigations of a region's particular histories,
cultures, and languages was carried out to serve the wartime intelligence operations. Therefore
Area Studies as an epistemic effort on part of the USA to gather research on regions and
cultures around the world for strategic purposes owes its origins to the Cold War.

2. What was the Congress of Vienna (1815)?

The Congress of Vienna was an important diplomatic conference organised in Vienna to

reconstitute the post-Napoleon European political order. Ambassadors from many European
states including France and the four Great powers - Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia,
attended the many meetings of this Congress from November 1814 to June 1815 to negotiate a
mutually agreed upon peace plan for Europe's future. The immediate historical context for this
series of meetings was the need felt by the major European powers to avoid future conflict after
almost continuous wars for 25 years. The forum was used to create a balance of power by
resizing important states so that they could control each other and no single state would achieve
hegemony as France had done under Napoleon. It was also used to de-emphasise the values
of French revolution and to restore the old conservative order on the continent. Therefore the
Congress left major influence on not only the international political architecture of Europe but it
also affected the domestic politics of European states in significant ways.

The Congress of Vienna is heralded as a major breakthrough in diplomatic history as the major
European powers had for the first time in history, resolved to solve their issues through
multilateral diplomacy. Congress of Vienna eventually evolved into the political framework of
‘Concert of Europe’ which was an institutional precursor to the multilateral arrangements such
as League of Nations and United Nations which were to emerge later. The Congress can also
be said to be the progenitor of the idea of ‘Area Studies’ since the states that were the victors of
Napoleonic wars were interested in maintaining a peaceful balance of power through a careful
resizing of territories, an activity that required geographical domain expertise. Although it can be
criticised for trying to keep both nationalist and liberal impulses at bay, from an IR perspective,
the Vienna Congress contributed to the evolution of the concept of ‘balance of power’
framework which would successfully keep Europe from degenerating into conditions of war for
another century.

6. Who was Dowager Empress Tzu His?

Tzu His was a regent who later became the Dowager Empress and the effective ruler during the
late Qing dynasty rule in the period of its decline. She oversaw the administration of Qing rule
over China during perhaps the most challenging part of its history, as China grappled with a
series of internal and external challenges in its negotiation with modernity. Dowager Empress
Tzu His acted as a supreme ruler and with her being quite active in political life, she is often
blamed for all the political failures of the Chinese government during her rule.

Dowager Empress Tzu His’s approach to the reforms was driven by motivations mainly to
preserve her own power and lifestyle, and the rule of her dynasty. Although she allowed limited
reforms in military and technology, she obstinately refused to review methods of government
and administration, fearing that Westernization in that sphere will wreck the political power of
her class. Being at the center of the court’s conservatism, she used her own clout and power to
oppose any fundamental reforms, not realising the realities of the new world order that was
unfolding before her.

Her most vocal opposition to the reform program came through her severe reaction to Kang
Yowei's reforms. Not only did she push back against that set of fundamentally liberal reforms,
she also imprisoned the Emperor and had the caught reformers executed. Her use of the anti-
foreigner Boxer revolution towards her own ends also shows her to be a very shrewd political
player but her eventual humiliating defeat led to her deserting the capital city. A thoroughly
complex personality, Dowager Empress Tzu His’s great influence on the royal court defined
China’s negotiation with modernity and the demise of the imperial rule in China soon after her
death is owed to her own management of this negotiation.

7. What was the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895)?

The Treaty of Shimonoseki was the treaty signed between the Empire of Japan and Qing China
at Shimonoseki in 1895 to end the First Sino-Japanese war. As a part of the treaty, China
recognised Korean independence, ceded control of significant territory including Taiwan,
opened four of its ports to Japan, and additionally had to pay Japan a huge war indemnity.

Both the Treaty and the war that it brought to an end can be seen as a part of contrasting
historical processes operating in China and Japan over a long period of time. Japan had
undergone Meiji restoration two decades before the war, a process that ended feudalism and
led to rapid modernization. As a part of this process, Japanese military also became more
professional, adopting an imperialist stance under the modernization doctrine. From an
isolationist foreign policy, its imperial aims now moved towards creation of a wide girdle of
territories around the core homeland territory. The several zones of this girdle included the
territories of islands off its coast, the regions of Sakhalin, Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria etc. It is this
ambition on Japan’s part that made its clash with Qing China inevitable. The immediate reason
for the First Sino-Japanese war was the disputed diplomatic status of Korea, which was
supposed to be a Chinese protectorate but had gradually been included in its sphere of
influence by Japan.

In China, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was considered to be very humiliating. Although China had
earlier been defeated by the European powers, the defeat at the hands of Japan, a nation
considered to be a barbarian state, was a serious cultural and political shock. The failure in war
and the cost of peace made the cause of national reform fervent and the support for radical
political-social changes grew. The issue became another significant episode in the decline of
the Qing dynasty and resistance to reform by the Manchu nobility eventually led to the fall of the
Qing dynasty in 1911. Thus the relative success and failure of Japan and China in the First
Sino-Japanese war which ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki can be seen as a contrast in
the different historical processes that they had undergone in the decades leading to the war.
The Treaty should also be understood in terms of its legacy in both countries, eventually leading
to the downfall of the Qing dynasty in China and catalysing Japan's imperial ambition leading all
the way to the World Wars.

8. The importance of Manchuria to Russia and Japan during the decline of Qing in your
own words.

The Japan-Russia conflict over Manchuria was a result of contesting imperial ambitions on both
sides. The historical background of this contest lies in competing visions of expansionist foreign
policies for this region in both of these countries. After having undergone the Meiji restoration, a
process that ended feudalism and led to rapid modernization, Japan had succeeded in
becoming a modern industrial state. This process transformed Japan’s foreign policy too,
Japanese military became more professional, and now wanting to be recognised as an equal to
the Western powers, Japan adopted an imperialist doctrine focused on overseas expansion.
From an isolationist foreign policy, its imperial aims now moved towards creation of a wide
girdle of territories around the core homeland territory. The several zones of this girdle included
the territories of islands off its coast, the regions of Sakhalin, Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria etc. as
a part of the Greater Japanese Empire, described as the imperium of the Yellow race. The
conquest and control of Korea and Manchuria became an important milestone in Japanese
vision of advancing into Asia. This girdle was supposed to serve both strategic and economic
purposes. It was meant to prevent enemy advance to the homeland and to serve as a producer
of raw materials and a market for the Japanese industry.
Manchuria was also an important part of Russian military ambitions. Tsarist Russia was a major
imperial power and after the Crimean expansion, had turned its attention once more to the east.
Russia needed a warm water port to the Pacific ocean for both naval and maritime trade
purposes. The port of Vladivostok remained operational only during the summer while Port
Arthur in Manchuria was operational all year round. With its plans for Trans-Siberian Railway
lines connecting the Russian mainland to the far east, the strategic location of Manchuria
became even more significant. Thus the clash of imperial policies, with Japan’s aim in greater
Asia and Russia's aims in the Pacific, resulted in a competition for cultivating a sphere of
influence in Manchuria and made conflict between the Japanese Empire and Tsarist Russia
inevitable.