An outline, era by era

China

Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Qing decline

Late Modern Era / 19th Century · ~1800 – 1914

In the nineteenth century the Qing dynasty, which had ruled China since 1644, faced a series of crises from within and from abroad. Two wars with Britain, the First Opium War (1839 to 1842) and the Second Opium War (1856 to 1860), forced the empire to open ports, accept foreign residents and pay indemnities under what China later called the unequal treaties. At the same time the Taiping Rebellion (1850 to 1864), a vast civil war, devastated the richest provinces of the south and centre.

These shocks exposed the weakness of the Qing state. Officials tried limited reform, including the Self-Strengthening Movement, but defeat by Japan in 1894 to 1895 and the Boxer War of 1899 to 1901 showed how far the empire had slipped. The dynasty hung on until the revolution of 1911 and the abdication of the child emperor Puyi in February 1912. The period matters because it set the terms of China's relations with the world and with itself for the following century.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Canton system and the opium trade

    Event

    What happened

    From 1757 the Qing court limits European trade to Canton, where licensed Chinese merchants, the Cohong, deal with foreign traders. British demand for tea creates a large trade deficit in silver. From the late 1700s the British East India Company grows opium in India and sells it through private traders to Chinese buyers, and by the 1830s imports are large and silver flows out of China.

    The rest is history

    The Daoguang Emperor's court debated legalization and prohibition, then chose prohibition. In 1839 he sent the official Lin Zexu to Canton, where Lin seized and destroyed a very large quantity of foreign opium. Britain answered with force, which began the First Opium War. Historians still discuss how much the war was about opium and how much about trade rules and diplomatic status.

    Sources

    1. BookHanes, W. Travis, and Frank Sanello. The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2002.
    2. BookPolachek, James M. The Inner Opium War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1992.

  2. The First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanjing

    Event

    What happened

    British forces begin operations in 1840 and take Chusan, Canton, Amoy, Shanghai and other points, using steam warships and better artillery. In August 1842 Britain and China sign the Treaty of Nanjing. China cedes Hong Kong Island, opens five ports, abolishes the Cohong monopoly and pays an indemnity.

    The rest is history

    A supplementary treaty in 1843 and an American treaty in 1844 added extraterritoriality and most-favoured-nation terms. These became the model for later agreements and the foundation of the treaty port system. Later Chinese nationalism came to call the settlement the start of the 'century of humiliation'. Opium itself was not mentioned in the Treaty of Nanjing.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTreaty of Nanking. Treaty between Great Britain and China, signed 29 August 1842.
    2. BookFay, Peter Ward. The Opium War, 1840-1842. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
    3. BookPlatt, Stephen R. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age. New York: Knopf, 2018.

  3. The Taiping Rebellion begins

    Event

    What happened

    Hong Xiuquan, a failed examination candidate from Guangdong, forms a religious movement after visions that lead him to see himself as the younger brother of Jesus. In January 1851 his followers, the Taiping, proclaim the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in Guangxi. In March 1853 they capture Nanjing and make it their capital, Tianjing.

    The rest is history

    The Taiping held much of the Yangzi valley for over a decade. The Qing army, the Banners and Green Standard troops, proved unable to defeat them, so the court relied on regional armies raised by scholar-officials such as Zeng Guofan. Nanjing fell in July 1864 after Hong's death. The war is estimated to have cost many millions of lives, though figures are uncertain, and it is often counted among the deadliest conflicts in history.

    Sources

    1. BookSpence, Jonathan D. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
    2. BookPlatt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom. New York: Knopf, 2012.

  4. The Second Opium War and the burning of the Summer Palace

    Event

    What happened

    In October 1856 Chinese officials board the ship Arrow at Canton, and Britain, soon joined by France, uses the incident to press for wider treaty rights. The Treaties of Tianjin in 1858 open more ports and allow foreign legations at Beijing. When China resists their implementation, Anglo-French troops take Beijing in October 1860 and burn the Summer Palace.

    The rest is history

    The Convention of Peking in 1860 confirmed the Tianjin terms, ceded the Kowloon peninsula to Britain, and opened Tianjin as a port. Russia gained the territory north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri by the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). The defeat also persuaded some officials that China needed Western weapons and techniques, leading to the Self-Strengthening Movement.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryConvention of Peking. Agreement between Great Britain and China, 24 October 1860.
    2. BookHevia, James L. English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
    3. BookWong, J. Y. Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  5. The Self-Strengthening Movement and the Tongzhi Restoration

    Event

    What happened

    After 1860 officials such as Prince Gong, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang set up arsenals and shipyards, including the Jiangnan Arsenal (1865) and the Fuzhou Navy Yard (1866). The Zongli Yamen, a new office for foreign affairs, is created in 1861. Translation schools and a modern fleet follow in the next decades.

    The rest is history

    These efforts built real industrial and military capacity but were uneven, as provincial leaders ran them with limited central funding. Their limits were exposed in 1894 to 1895, when Japan destroyed much of the Beiyang Fleet. The defeat is often taken to show the limits of reform that left political institutions unchanged.

    Sources

    1. BookWright, Mary Clabaugh. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957.
    2. BookElman, Benjamin A. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

  6. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to 1895

    Event

    What happened

    War breaks out in 1894 over influence in Korea. Japanese forces defeat Qing armies in Korea and Manchuria and destroy much of the Beiyang Fleet at the Yalu River in September 1894 and at Weihaiwei in early 1895. In April 1895 the Treaty of Shimonoseki ends the war.

    The rest is history

    China recognized Korean independence, ceded Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula, and paid a large indemnity. Russia, France and Germany pressed Japan to return Liaodong. The European powers then rushed to lease ports and claim spheres of influence in China, which fed the reform and reaction that followed.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTreaty of Shimonoseki. Treaty between Japan and China, signed 17 April 1895.
    2. BookPaine, S. C. M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

  7. The Hundred Days' Reform and Empress Dowager Cixi

    Event

    What happened

    In June 1898 the Guangxu Emperor, advised by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, issues a flood of decrees on education, administration and the economy. In September 1898 the Empress Dowager Cixi, backed by conservative officials and military leaders, takes control of the court. The emperor is confined and several reformers are executed, while Kang and Liang flee abroad.

    The rest is history

    Cixi remained the dominant figure at court until her death in November 1908, one day after that of the Guangxu Emperor. After the Boxer War she herself sponsored reforms, including abolition of the traditional civil service examinations in 1905 and plans for a constitution. These measures came late and did not save the dynasty.

    Sources

    1. BookChang, Hao. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
    2. BookKwong, Luke S. K. A Mosaic of the Hundred Days. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1984.

  8. The Boxer Uprising and the Eight-Nation intervention

    Event

    What happened

    From 1898 the Yihetuan, called Boxers in English, spreads through northern China, attacking Christian missions and Chinese converts. In June 1900 they and Qing troops besiege the foreign legations in Beijing. In August an allied force from eight powers relieves the legations. In September 1901 the Boxer Protocol is signed.

    The rest is history

    The Protocol required a large indemnity of 450 million taels, payable over decades, and allowed foreign troops to be stationed between Beijing and the sea. It also punished officials held responsible. The court that returned to Beijing in 1902 launched the New Policies, but Qing authority was much weaker, and loyalty to the dynasty continued to fall. On 10 October 1911 soldiers rose at Wuchang, and on 12 February 1912 the child emperor Puyi abdicated, ending more than two thousand years of imperial rule.

    Sources

    1. BookEsherick, Joseph W. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
    2. BookCohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
    3. BookRowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

  9. Lin Zexu and the burning of the opium

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Lin Zexu is often said to have been a lone honest official who destroyed the opium and was then punished by a corrupt court. In this telling the Opium War is simply Britain's revenge for his act, fought for the right to sell drugs.

    The rest is history

    Lin was a real and respected official, and in 1839 he did have a huge quantity of opium destroyed at Humen. The court did dismiss him in 1840 and sent him to Xinjiang. But his dismissal came as the war went badly, not because the court favoured opium. British leaders also gave other grievances, such as trade conditions, legal jurisdiction and diplomatic equality, as reasons for war. Historians generally see opium as the trigger rather than the only cause.

    Sources

    1. BookPlatt, Stephen R. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age. New York: Knopf, 2018.
    2. BookWaley, Arthur. The Opium War through Chinese Eyes. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958.

  10. The sign 'No dogs or Chinese' in Shanghai

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A widely repeated story says that a park in the Shanghai foreign concession had a sign reading 'No dogs and Chinese allowed', as a symbol of foreign contempt.

    The rest is history

    Chinese were indeed barred from the Public Garden on the Bund, which opened in 1868, apart from servants of foreign families, and the rule was widely resented. The regulations posted at the gate listed separate prohibitions, including one on dogs and bicycles and another on Chinese other than servants. The famous single sign with both words is not documented, and scholars regard it as a later composite. The exclusion itself, however, was real and was ended in 1928.

    Sources

    1. ArticleBickers, Robert A., and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. "Shanghai's 'Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted' Sign: Legend, History and Contemporary Symbol." The China Quarterly 142 (1995): 444-466.

  11. Hong Xiuquan's dream and the Taiping vision

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that Hong Xiuquan's visions were a plain invention to win followers, or alternatively that the Taiping were simply Chinese Christians led by a true convert.

    The rest is history

    Hong did read a set of Christian tracts by the missionary-trained Chinese preacher Liang Fa, and after an illness in 1837 he came to interpret his visions through them. His theology was his own and differed sharply from missionary teaching. He claimed to be Jesus's younger brother, and missionaries who visited Nanjing found this blasphemous. Most historians treat his belief as sincere, and see the movement as a fusion of Christian ideas with Chinese social and political grievances.

    Sources

    1. BookSpence, Jonathan D. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
    2. BookReilly, Thomas H. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004.

  12. Cixi and the navy's marble boat

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common claim is that Empress Dowager Cixi spent the money meant for the navy on rebuilding the Summer Palace, and that this alone caused China's defeat in 1894.

    The rest is history

    Cixi did oversee the restoration of the Summer Palace, and the Marble Boat there still stands. Naval funds were indeed diverted to related building works in the 1880s and 1890s, and historians have long discussed how much. But the Beiyang Fleet's weaknesses also included divided command, shortages of modern ammunition and fragmented provincial finances. Most scholars therefore see the diversion as one factor, not the only cause, of the defeat.

    Sources

    1. BookPaine, S. C. M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
    2. BookRowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

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