Qing China and the consequences of the golden age Essay

IntroductionThe Prosperous sequence was a period where Qing chinaware experienced a drastic increase in population, flourishing trade and commerce, and a remarkable level of social and semipolitical st magnate during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong.However, its brilliance was all overshadowed by its later(prenominal) resultant roles and china was soon at its breaking point in the nineteenth ampere-second. This essay would thus evaluate on the implications of the Prosperous Age and how the long-term essences prove to be more negative in the nineteenth century due to a string of crisis, and subsequent problems that continued even in modern china of the 20th century. Negative unlooked-for Long Term ConsequencesReversal of Trade Fortunes with BritainDuring the 18th century, there was mounting European demand for Chinese goods (Hung, 2011). Britain in particular, had concentrated liking and demand for Chinese goods especially tea. Hence, it led to the out flow of British silver into China, but little inflow of silver back into the British preservation resulted in China enjoying a trade surplus (City University HK, 2007) while Britain suffered from a trade deficit.To redress this deficit, Britain began to smuggle and sell opium in China (City University HK, 2007). Chinas attempt to prohibit opium then resulted in the Opium Wars and suffered a tragic beat. The defeat in the Opium War led to the signings of unequal treaties .Upon signing of the unequal treaties, overmuch Chinese marked it as the beginning of a century of shame and humiliation. Although China was never formally colonized, the lack of ability to defend its basic sovereign rights and ability to govern its own country made it look like a like semi-colonized state of Britain. Consequently, the Qing government was promisen as weak and inefficient to combat against the foreigners and much Chinese lost faith in the Manchurian Qing government.As a result, this gave rise to t he Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) where violent revolts and attacks were targeted against foreigners as a sign to elude their influence. Boxers,supported by China, suffered a yet another defeat and were constrained to sign yet another unequal treaty Boxer Protocol, where the reparations drastically cripple the Chinese economy till the mid 20th century (Zheng, 2009).Thus, we back end see that the sign trade surplus, a sign of Prosperous Age resulted in British to redress the situation by selling opium to the Chinese led to the Opium Wars and the unequal treaties which greatly weakened Qing China internally and externally in the 19th century.Chinas failure to counter foreign influence led to their continued defeat in the Boxer Rebellion at the end of 19th century, where another unequal treaty continued to cripple her till mid 20th century , thereby demonstrating the long term consequence of the Prosperous Age was indeed negative in the long run, especially since the consequences did not confine just to the 19th century but even stretched to the 20th century. Reforms did not withstand up with population boomDuring the Prosperous Age, Chinas population tripled from less than 150 million to over 400 million (Perkins, 1969). cultivated Service Exam however continued its strict quota for passing (Bentley & Ziegler, 2003) and that meant a lower ratio of scholar to population passes. The frustration of students led to the rise of authoritative 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 also due to the consequence of the population boom.The consequence of the Taiping Rebellion led to a weakened Qing as they were forced to decentralize causality to provincial elites to deal with the crisis and this power was never to the full recovered even after the rebellion was suppresse d (Sng, 2011). Provincial elites who did not return the power were a growing sign of defiance and could have the hap of rising up against the imperial court.The unneeded civil unrest caused by Taiping Rebellion also served to exacerbate subsequent crisis like the Northern Chinese paucity (1876-1879) where the government was severely blamed for not providing sufficient aid. The excess unrest and loss of power proved to be detrimental in the 19th century as it spirited China and the country with no official political bloc stepping up to assist with the problems and crisis. In short, China was in a arrive disarray and chaotic. Lack of technological advancementQing China favoured political and social stability over technological innovation which they feared would lead to unsettling changes. Furthermore, the vast population functional to firms was a cheaper alternative to increase output, sooner than investment of new technologies which was costly (Bentley & Ziegler, 2003).This prove d to be adverse in the 19th century when China booked in wars. In the Opium Wars, the Qing military 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. consequent wars like the First Sino- lacquerese 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 ground and indicated how backward the Chinese army. It questions the 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 Second Sino-Japanese War . however with the Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895) which was embraced to modernize China was insuffici ent. The subsequent defeats to Allied forces in the Boxer Rebellion and Japanese in the Sino-Japanese Wars marred the success of the movement.Especially significant was the defeat in First Sino-Japanese war as for the first time in over 2000 years of history, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan (Johnson, 2010). Coupled with the defeat, Chinas 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 ConsequencesBuilding a new foundation based on common peopleThe end of Taiping Rebellion inspired nationalists (Del Testa & Lemoine & Strickland, 2001) to fight for the betterment of Chinese. It was because of the consequence of the Prosperous Age that led to the decisive rise of nationalist to seek for reforms. An example would be the decentralizing of power, which meant many parties would be involved in decision-making process, rather than j ust the monarch government.This would ensure that concerns are taken into deliberation before decision-making that will benefit majority of the Chinese, rather than the imperial court only. The nationalist day-dream then culminated in the 1911 Revolution in the early 20th century, where the Qing was overthrown and the Republic of China was established.Nevertheless, the dream of the nationalist was short-lived due to a power fight 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 exile after he stepped down as head of the newly formed Kuomintang (Foster, 2007). The new government was then monopolized by Yuan and led to decades of political division and warlordism, including monarchy restoration (Blecher, 2010).Therefore we can see that the perceived benefits from the consequence of Prosperous Age in the 19th century did not fully encounter in the 20th century. Monarc hy restoration was attempted and defeats the purpose of the promised sharing of power with the people initially. Political and social unrest persisted even with the new government which culminated in the May Fourth Movement (1919). Hence, we can see that China did not become better even with the end of Qing. It would be judgmental to argue 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 Era (1916-1928) as there were no strong political forces to enforce stability and order until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came in 1949. ConclusionHence, we can see that the consequences of the Prosperous Age proved to be more negative. The severity of the negative consequences shed light on thecrises in the 19th century which crippled China internally and externally. The impact of the consequences was so overwhelming that it even snow balled to the 20th century and further crippled modern China. In contrast, the perceived positive consequences was that it make the foundation but the problem was that the foundation was weak and unstable which in turn led to more problems which culminated in more movements and revolutions.Furthermore, problems like sovereign issues were not solved by reforms or Chinas surge in military strength but rather treaties that returned territories to her under imminent conditions . 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 soundly 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.References Hung, H.F. (2011), Protest with Chinese characteristics demonstrations, riots, and petitions (p24-26). 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