The Qing dynasty was the last of the long line of imperial dynasties that ruled over China and was the second dynasty outside the Han people that ruled China1. The dynasty fell in 1911 after a revolution that started way back in 1894. Scholars have often reported that the fall of the Qing was due to the Western powers’ several domestic rebellions and foreign pressures. This paper will analyze the importance of the pressure of the Western powers in the fall of the Qing. Did the Qing fall because the West pushed at its doors, or had it become weak domestically?
The Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty was the dynasty that was in control of China from 1644 to 1912. The dynasty was the last imperial dynasty to rule the country[1]. The years of the imperial dynasty were prosperous, and the country grew economically, opened up its borders, and grew business deals with the West. The last years of the dynasty were tumultuous and marred by internal conflicts and disagreements with Britain and France. Under the Qing dynasty, the empire’s size tripled more than it did under the Ming dynasty, and its population tripled from 150 million to 450 million. The dynasty was run by the Manchus, who were originally from Manchuria, and they were only the second family of emperors to be from traditional outside China and outside the Han community.
Reasons for the Fall of the Qing Dynasty
The fall of the Qing dynasty started way before the actual fall in 1911 and was caused by several factors. The Qing dynasty began after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1616 when the Manchurian forces took over China after defeating the Ming army. The Qing dynasty was established in 1644 after the Ming dynasty was completely subdued, with Emperor Shunzhi becoming the first emperor of the Qing dynasty. Emperor Shunzhi consolidated his rule and quashed the distrust that the new Manchus leaders were treated with by the local Han people by making the subjects shave their hair in Mongolian fashion and beheading the Han intellectuals who were opposed to the new administration[2].
The fall of the dynasty was precipitated by internal and external issues, combined with the weakening of the dynasty day by day until the revolution became the straw that broke the camel’s back. The weakening of the dynasty began with the opium wars between China and Great Britain and the second round of the opium war against the British and French. The opium wars began in the 19th century when Great Britain entered into confrontations with China on producing and exporting the product to China. Opium was the medicine that was originally used in China for medicinal purposes before it evolved into a recreational drug in the 18th century.
After opium began being used recreationally, there was a crisis of addiction to the drug throughout the country, which led to the attempt to ban the empire’s drug. Great Britain began exporting the drug to the country to make sure that the circulation of the drug in the country was still in circulation, leading to a spike in addictions and a rise in tensions between China and Britain. The confrontations got so intense that military confrontation was almost certain, even with Britain shutting down Chinese ports, and eventually, China had to secede from Hong Kong from the British. The tensions between the two countries reduced until the 19th century, starting from 1856 to 1860 when both the British and the French began circulating opium again. The new opium war badly affected the Qing dynasty and led to more agreements to quash the opium distribution. The agreements were all against the Qing dynasty and China and negatively affected the country’s control.
The second opium war led to some concessions for China, affecting its standing and confusing the country. Some of the country’s concessions included allowing Christian missionaries into the empire, which threw the religious and philosophical life in the country into disarray. The country, widely known for its beliefs and staunch practices of Confucianism, started to be divided based on religion. The country now began to break down on several fronts. The empire leased their ports to Britain, France, and other foreign powers, and this led to other foreign powers creating their jurisdictions in China and the dynasty could not control the opium crisis again because it started to be produced in large quantities right in their ports.
The second opium war was one of the most important events in the Qing dynasty and was the major reason the dynasty was weakened and eventually fell. After the opium war, the government granted major concessions to the British government and, ultimately, to other Western nations. The spheres of influence on which exclusive rights belonged to the Qing dynasty, like the mining sector and railroad building, gave the Qing dynasty immense power and privileges. The transfer of these rights to the Europeans as part of the concessions reduced the influence of the Qing and, as a result, weakened them. Also, after the opium war, Europeans and Russians acquired more land in the country, which allowed revolutionaries and warlords to negotiate directly with the Europeans for arms and weapons, strengthening resistance to the Qing[3].
The Sino-Japanese War also dented the Qing dynasty’s influence and led to the loss of control of Korea and Japan. The war began in July 1894, and a series of wins for Japan made the Qing dynasty sue for peace in April 1985. The loss of Korea and the loss to the Japanese in the war dented the Qing dynasty’s influence and shifted the East Asian dominance from China to Japan in what was seen as an attack on Chinese sovereignty. The loss made the Qing dynasty unpopular and led to unrest and revolutions, eventually leading to its fall.
Some other factors that led to the fall of the Qing dynasty, despite the intervention of Western powers, included internal struggles like corruption and military and political threats that were taking a toll on the empire, making it unstable in its last years, a trait the Qing dynasty had not been associated with. The first of the rebellions in the 19th century was the rebellion led by the White Lotus sect. The sect rebelled for eight years, from 1796 to 1804, before being suppressed[4]. In 1813, another faction, the Eight Trigrams sect, started rebelling in 1813 and initially took several cities, but it was also defeated. The Taiping rebellion was the one that took a toll on the empire and, by far, the most dangerous one. The Taiping rebellion started in 1850 and lasted fourteen years before being suppressed in 1864. Hong Xiuquan, a Chinese outfit of the Christian fanatic group, led the rebellion. The rebellion led to 20 million Chinese deaths, and the rebels occupied the city of Nanjing for a whole decade.
Later, the Boxer rebellion, led by another sect, the Harmonious Fist secret society, began in 1899. The group was against the influx of foreigners in the empire and not necessarily against the Qing dynasty. The group was responsible for the deaths of several Christian missionaries while seizing their properties. The Boxer rebels attracted many followers as they moved around from town to town, killing foreigners, until the acts attracted Western powers’ wrath, and many citizens were getting killed by the militant rebels[5]. Western powers like Britain sent their troops to deal with the situation, and the current emperor, Empress Dowager Cixi, decided to fight on the side of the Boxers and declared war on the West. The Boxers were defeated along with the imperial army in 1901, and the Western forces executed high-ranking government officials who had supported the Boxers while at the same time imposing strict sanctions on the Qing government.
The aftermath of the rebellion weakened the Qing rule, and after the death of Empress Dowager in 1908, Xuantong, the “boy” emperor, known by that name because he was just a boy when being crowned, took over, but the reign did not last, and he was the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. The Empress Dowager, who had ruled before, had precipitated the empire’s fall through increased unrest after she held her nephew, Emperor Guangxu, in house arrest. Emperor Gunangxu had ruled for 46 years, but her aunt, Empress Dowager, was considered the real power. When he disagreed with Dowager on policy and tried to reform China, the Empress executed his fellow reformers and placed him under house arrest.
The Qing dynasty fell through a revolution started by Sun Zhongshan, a revolutionary educated in the West. The revolution started when he created the Revive China Sect in Hawaii and Hong Kong. Sun was responsible for uniting all the factions that wanted change and joined hands with the Japanese. The revolution morphed into the nationalist party with three principles of the people as the manifesto, and in 1911, it held a revolt in Wuchang with the help of Qing soldiers, and a republic was created with General Yuan Shikai as the president. Sun was responsible for creating a new constitution for the new republic, which signaled the end of the Qing dynasty.
To sum up, the Qing dynasty fell for several reasons. The internal problems included corruption, leadership struggles, incompetence, extreme conservatism, and several rebellions that rocked the Qing rule. The external factors include interferences and frequent attacks by the European powers, specifically Britain. The opium wars also led to a public addiction crisis, and Britain’s entrance made matters worse, causing the whole country to be addicted to the drug. The refusal by the Empress Dowager to accept reforms and change the country for the better had deep ramifications. It made the country vulnerable, and the Europeans took advantage of that by arming warlords, along with the Sino-Japanese War, where China was defeated. Their control of Korea was taken, and the Qing rule was effectively weakened[6]. These issues that happened in the 19th century effectively weakened the Qing rule, and one revolution was enough to overthrow the rulers.
Bibliography
Dealing, Zheng. “On the Spread of Wushu from the Rise and Fall of the Qing Dynasty Escort Agency.” Wushu Science 4 (2012): 7.
Hung, Ho-Fung. Protest with Chinese characteristics: Demonstrations, riots, and petitions in the Mid-Qing dynasty. Columbia University Press, 2013.
McMahon, Daniel. Rethinking the Decline of China’s Qing Dynasty: Imperial Activism and Borderland Management at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Routledge, 2014.
Park, Seo-Hyun. “13 The Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895.” East Asia in the World: Twelve Events That Shaped the Modern International Order (2020): 224.
Smith, Richard J. The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Wang, Meng. “The Reasons for the Wide-Spread of White Lotus in Dong Xiang County in the Mid-Qing Dynasty.” Advances in Historical Studies 9, no. 02, (2020): 13.
[1] Dealing, Zheng. “On the Spread of Wushu from the Rise and Fall of the Qing Dynasty Escort Agency.” Wushu Science 4 (2012): 7.
[2] Smith, Richard J. The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
[3] McMahon, Daniel. Rethinking the Decline of China’s Qing Dynasty: Imperial Activism and Borderland Management at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Routledge, 2014.
[4] Wang, Meng. “The Reasons for the Wide-Spread of White Lotus in Dong Xiang County in the Mid-Qing Dynasty.” Advances in Historical Studies 9, no. 02, (2020): 13.
[5] Hung, Ho-Fung. Protest with Chinese characteristics: Demonstrations, riots, and petitions in the Mid-Qing dynasty. Columbia University Press, 2013.
[6]. Park, Seo-Hyun. “13 The Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895.” East Asia in the World: Twelve Events That Shaped the Modern International Order (2020): 224.
