AS 201 China: Ming and Qing Dynasties

Founded by an impoverished young man who had sought refuge in a monastery, then joined the Red Turban Rebellion against the Yuan

When it became clear that the Yuan would fall, literati encouraged Zhu Yuanzhang to distance himself from Red Turbans and their millenarianism so he did, and he became sold on the idea of the Mandate of Heaven passing to him, so he founded the Ming (明) "Bright" Dynasty in 1368.

 

Zhu was tough on scholar officials: even beat them at court and had many executed. He had been illiterate in his youth. But he reinstated the Exams. The number of the lowest level degree holders was probably 30,000 though fewer and fewer made it to the upper ranks of degree holders--see pp. 229-30.

All in all, Ming rule was harsher and more sordid than earlier dynasties. But no one was even thinking about alternatives to Confucian Monarachical rule.

Did build the Great Wall that we see today. Agriculture improved, new varieties of crops, poulation grew to over 300 million.

 

New forms of drama and fiction appear so a kind of urban dynamism is evident. Three of the four great classical masterpieces of Chinese literature -

--Journey to the West

--Outlaws of the Marsh, and

-- The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

were all written during this period, in the 16th century. In addition, another two well-known novels,

--Peony Pavilion and

--The Plum in the Golden Vase

were also excellent works appearing in this period. Meanwhile, folk literature prospered, too.

So, a literary flowering, especially in terms of prose works, so we might wonder why sustained prose narratives came so much later than in the highly aristocratic Heian period in Japan?

Also in the Ming period in philosophy, Wang Yangming's new ideas called 'philosophy of the mind' generated a new way of thinking, "an inward turn," which helped shape a new social trend.

This Wang Yangming brand of Confucian philosophy emphasizes that a universal principle exists in the human mind; we need to become attuned to it. So it has an inward looking aspect. Once we do, once we see into our mids, correct moral action will result spontaneously from this true this understanading. It is more intuitive and less bookish than traditiional Neo-Confucianism. More action oriented so it appealed to Tokugawa era samurai.

Scholars seem to feel that Ming thought was, on the whole, introspective, a product of perhaps two things:

-- the lack if office holding and Civil Service Exam opportunities left the educated elite under employed with time to reflect; and

--reflection seemd to be called for to explain how the Mongols could have overwhelmed the Song dynasty.

 

Ming turns out to be the last native or indigenous dynasty. The Yuan Dynasty was the Mongols and the Qing was the Manchus, a steppe-people descended from the Jurchen. They wore hair in long braids called a queue. Manchus were hunters, fishers and farmers. They spoke a Tungusic language more like Korean or Japanese than Chinese. No extensive written language.

First three rulers ruled impeccably, especially Kangxi (r. 1661-1722)--he read, wrote and spoke perfect Chinese. Played the role of Confucian Monarch very impressively. Made dictionaries, invented the kanji radical system that we still use today.

He annexed Mongolia, Tibet, Taiwan, met with Jesuit priests, had European works translated into Chinese.

This is when the "Rites Controversy" occurred which was over the question of whether Chinese ritual practices of honoring family ancestors and other formal Confucian imperial rites qualified as religious rites and thus incompatible with Catholic belief. On one side, the Jesuits argued that these Chinese rites were secular rituals that were compatible with Christianity, while on the other side, the Dominicans and Franciscans maintained it was a form of idolatry and reported the issue to the Vatican. In 1645 the Vatican found against the Jesuits but reversed the ban eleven years later in 1656, and then reversed it back again in 1704.

The Yongzheng Emperor 1723-35 took over when he was 45 yrs old. Hard worker, efficient.

The Qianlong Emperor reigned from 1736-1795. Stepped down so he would not exceed length of the great Kangxi Emperor's reign.

In 1793 Lord Macartney Mission from UK begging the emperor to open China to trade v. the "Tribute System." But the Chinese court had no real interest in the west's "precious objects." We have all we need here and our objective is to achieve "good government," by which they meant a peaceful, orderly, stable agricultural society.

Qing China was huge and economically diverse. Prosperous...but population continued to grow exponentially--reaching 450 million by 1850--undermining that prosperity for many.

China's population doubled from 150 million in 1650 to 300 million by 1800, and reached 450 million by the late nineteenth century (cf. population of the U.S. was 200 million in the 1980s).

By then, there was no longer any land in China's southern and central provinces available for migration: the introduction of New World (American) crops through trade--especially sweet potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco, which required different growing conditions than rice and wheat-- had already claimed previously unusable land. (http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/timelines/china_modern_timeline.htm)

 

1796 White Lotus Rebellion occurred--never a good sign. A Maitreya Buddha of the future, offered a millenarian vision of eternal peace. McCaffrey-sensei studies this event.

 

Other twin sign of dynastic decline? Barbarians arrive at the "gate" but this time, not from North of the Great Wall but from the South by ships, i.e., in the form of Western Imperialism!

 

Modern colonialism begins with the Age of Discovery. Portugal and Spain discovered new lands across the oceans and built trading posts or conquered large expanses of land.

This expansion by western powers is also associated with the Commercial Revolution and the rise of capitalism in Europe.

The 17th century saw the creation of the French colonial empire and the Dutch Empire, as well as the English overseas possessions, which later became the British Empire. Way back on the first or second day of AS 201, I asked about "What makes us modern and when do you think these changes came about?"

The first thing that came to mind was "technology," and yes, indeed, we live in a digital age, computers, handheld devices, iPhones, tablets, screens--the whole package.

 

But lies behind all this? To some extent it has to be industrial capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. There were the Two Great Revolutions:

--the Industrial, and

--the Political, especially the French and American Revolutions creating the model of participatory democracies, relatively open societies where individuals can find their own pathway to social and economic betterment.

Later, there would come the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution, two other great revolutions.

But what the Industrial and political Revolutions offered was a way to build modern, industrial economies which generated capital Investments, had jobs for millions of people = all the keys to modern existence. Didn't these become the goals for almost all societies, and the standards against which we measure ourselves and other countries? Are they economically successful? Are they fair and open? Do they offer opportunities for growth and prosperity? Do they offer sustainable models heading into the future? Perhaps this last question was not asked until relatively recently...

 

In Asia, the rise of dynamic, capitalistic, industrialzed countries in the west meant coming into contact with western merchants and traders who were seeking opportunities. It had a very dark side, as well. The British East India Company in the 1600s was responsible for one of the most egregious horrors of modern times: from the 1700s the Company sold opium grown in parts of India controlled by the British to China. Trade took place at Canton so it is referred to as the "Canton System" which gave designated Chinese traders, called hongs, the sole right to handle the trade. British free traders chafed under these controls.

Opium sales rose gradually from 2,330 chests in 1788 to 4,968 chests in 1810. But once the British got a monopoly, they forced it up to 17,257 chests in 1835, worth millions of British pounds. Britain's Governor-General of India wrote in 1830, "We are taking measures for extending the cultivation of the poppy, with a view to a large increase in the supply of opium."

 

There was a triangular trade. British vessels came to China to pick up Tea and Silk, mainly, plus miscellaneous artifacts, procelain, jade, etc. Chinoiserie. Tea drinking really caught on in England and they were importing so much that they needed something to sell to the Chinese in exchange. From India they could bring Raw Cotton but the market in China was not that significant.

So, they picked opium made from poppies grown in India as the product to carry to China. Once China made opium illegal, the British East India company contracted with private traders, British and Americans, to transport the opium to China where they offloaded it to Chinese smugglers. Our text says that in 1831 there were between 100-200 boats plying the Guandong Coastal Waters engaged in the opium trade.

With thousands of "chests" of opium coming nto China--millions of pounds--China was losing specie--silver--which hurt farmers. In trying to deal with this problem, Commissioner Lin argued it is best to go after the suppliers not the addicts. He confiscated 2.6 million pounds of Opium from British traders and destroyed it.

The Brits didn't like that one bit and they retaliated with force. China was defeated militarily and a treaty forced it to cede Hong Kong to the British and pay for all the opium they destroyed. Ouch!

 

1842 Treaty of Nanjing = an Unequal Treaty. China ceded access to 5 ports, 21 million dollar indemnity and accepted extraterritoriality. A complete humiliation; but Qing military technology was backward compared to British so they could not compete with modern Western technology and military power.

 

1851-1864 Taiping Rebellion. A curious but massive Uprising v. Qing Goverment. See map p. 310. Curious? The founder of the movement, named Hong Xiuquan, was a failed examination candidate from a non-Han group known as the Hakka. When, in 1847 he failed the imperial examinations for the third time he became delirious for 30 days; having read a pamphlet handed to him by a Protestant missionary, he became convinced that he was Jesus' younger brother and his destiny was to great the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace on earth. When he recovered, he believed that he and his band of believers had been chosen to conquer China, destroy the demon Manchu rulers, and establish the Taiping Tianguo (太平天国)— the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace.

Hong Xiuquan believed he was chosen by God  to establish a Heavenly Kingdom here on earth and replace the corrupt Manchu Qing dynasty. The conflict, which took place mostly in south China , the Yangtze valley and in the Shanghai and Nanjing area, killed an estimated from 20,000,000 to 100,000,000 people killed (largely due to famine and wholesale slaughter of captured armies and cities which resisted ). According to the census of 1851 there were  432 million in China. The next census of 1911 shows 375 to 400 million, which shows the staggering impact of the rebellions and natural disasters that beset China. There were other rebellions against the Qing such as the Nian and Muslim rebellions,but the Taiping rebellion was the largest in scale and came closest to toppling the Qing Dynasty.

Gathering followers from the poor and outcast, he and his recruits gradually built up an army and political organization that swept across China. They made their way to central China and by the late 1850s controlled over a third of the country. They cut of their queues, a sign of subjugation to the Manchus, and declared themselves in rebellion. They refused to shave there foreheads as well and were referred to as 'chang mao' or long hair rebels by the Qing.

Their millenarian beliefs, utopian egalitarianism, anti-Manchu message and moral righteousness were a powerful combination when combined with the good organization and administration provided by Yang Xiuqing and other early Taipings, offered a potent alternative to the Confucian social order. They practiced a strict, puritanical morality, opium, tobacco, gambling and foot binding were all prohibited. In theory women were placed on an equal basis and to a remarkable extent in fact, with female solders and administrators. Women were also allowed to take civil service exams, unheard of in the Qing system.

 

Their movement was so strong and so popular that it took the central government millions of dollars and fifteen years to defeat them. Not until 1864 was the rebellion brutally put down, and then only with help from western powers. While the rebellion failed in the end, due to bloody internal fights for power leading to a purge of the more capable leaders in 1856, poor organization and administration, Hong Xiuquan's retreat into a life of pleasure after capturing Nanjing in 1853, failure to win foreign support and failure to win over the Confucian literati and the wealthier classes, it signaled the imminent collapse of China's traditional order and the readiness of large parts of the common Chinese population to revolt against the traditional order.  Where Hong Xiuquan would fail, Mao Zedong would succeed. The Chinese Communists came to regard the Taipings with their egalitarian aspects as heroic revolutionaries fighting against corrupt feudal system; the Communist Revolution began here, they believed. Mao Zedong and Hong Xiuquan both denounced Confucius. Even Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Republic of China in 1911, was greatly influenced by the Taipings, listened to stories told by the Taiping survivor Lai hang-ying and nicknamed himself Hong Xiuquan the Second as a boy. It is estimated that the entire rebellion cost more than twenty million lives (twice that of World War I). http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_taiping.htm）

 

 

Brief Timeline

1860s-1870s Self-Strengthening (ziqiang 自強)Movement. China's effort to find ways to adapt to the demands of modernity. They tried t'i-yung, 體用= Chinese ideas for the Essence (體), and Western ideas for the Function (用). A little like Sakuma Zôzan's idea of "Eastern Values, Western Techniques," but it was a much harder sell in China. Originally, the t'i-yung paradigm had its roots in the Wei-Chin era of Chinese history, whose predominant intellectual trend was "Unification of the Three Teachings" ideology, i.e., the quest for a theoretical reconciliation among Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. So, now it was being put to a very different use, trying to justify the inclusion of some western ideas in and alongside of of Confucianism.

Zeng Guofan was its most articulate advocate, but met with only modest success. Li Hongzhang succeeds him but none of this brought about any changes in the Civil Service Exams or the content of Confucian Teachings, so the Social System remained in tact, with rewards going to those firmly rooted in Confucian teachings.

 

1894-95 defeat by Japan in Sino-Japanese War; more indemnities; humiliating; self-strengthening shown to be inadequate;

1895-98 Meanwhile, there is concern that the imperialist powers will start to carve China up like a melon as different countries enjoy special priviliges in each of several "Spheres of Influence"

 

1898 Meiji-style top-down 100 Days of Reform led by Kang Youwei, the last great Confucian Scholar; he was innivative and courageous but was undermined by conservative Manchus at the court so his reforms end in failure. Many decrees were issued from the palace but they had little effect. Kang had to run for his life; some of his comrades were executed by the Manchus.

 

1899 US Sec of State John Hay circulates the "Open Door" Notes to European Powers, asking them to agree NOT to deny access or cut other powers off from access to resources and commercial opportunities in their respective "Spheres of Influence" in China--Britain, France, Dutch, Germany and Russia. The west did not really consider China a sovereign entity like themselves.

1900 Boxer Rebellion occurs; most of the Boxers were peasants who were anti-foreign, so they targeted western railroad entrepreneurs, foreign missionaries, foreign engineers, foreign business people, and they start to become a mass movement targeting Beijing, the capital of China, and particularly the foreign compound in Beijing where all of the foreign diplomats and many of the foreign business people lived. In the early summer of 1900 they lay siege to this foreign compound, and everyone understands that if this siege succeeds, that they are probably going to massacre all of the foreigners present. Qing Empress Dowager Cixi, 1835-1908 decided to support and ecourage this anti-foreignism so she declared a war on all foreign nations with diplomatic ties in China.This sparks more foreign intervention, this time a joint expedition by the UK, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the U.S.. Results in more indemnities and greater foreign presence in China, as the different European powers start to have their special areas or "concessions" where their businesses operate. They feel troops must stay to protect them.

The Boxer Rebellion formally ended with the signing of the Boxer Protocol on September 7, 1901. By terms of the agreement, forts protecting Beijing were to be destroyed, Boxer and Chinese government officials involved in the uprising were to be punished, foreign legations were permitted to station troops in Beijing for their defense, China was prohibited from importing arms for two years and it agreed to pay more than $330 million in reparations to the foreign nations involved.

1905 Examination system finally eliminated

1911 Weakened by the Opium Wars, the Unequal Treaties, the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the dynasty came to an end in 1911 and China became a republic in 1912. Sun Yatsen's party, the Guomindang or Nationalist Party was nominally in control; but lacking a military arm, the new government was fairly weak.

1913 Military Strongman Yuan Shihkai takes over government as China seems to be disintegrating; another era of Warlordinsm?

1915 WWI and Wilsonianism: Democracy, Self-Determination for all nations, respect for Sovereignty of each nation, basically an end to Colonialism and Imperialism?

But there was deep disillusionment with the 1919 Versailles peace, and the passing on of the German concessions to Japan. and Japan's secret 21 Demands;

1919, May 4, "May Fourth Movement" = China's response to the Versailles Peace Conference passing on the German holdings in Shandong onto Japan instead of returning it to the people of China; for the first time, many, if not all classes of Chinese people are united; shows the pssibilities of a nationalist response.

1920s, the "New Thought and Culture Movement"--many new ideas and fruitful discussions that challenge many of the old Confucian precepts. Historians like C.Y. Hsü (2000) view the New Culture Movement as the third stage of China’s response to Western Impact:

Stage 1: Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895) – Superficial attempts at diplomatic and military modernisation

Stage 2: Reform and Revolution (1898-1912) – Acceptance of Western Political and Educational Institutions

Stage 3: Intellectual Awakening (1917-1923) – A further shift away from traditional Chinese base towards complete Westernisation

At universities and in the pages of new magazines and journals, debates and discussions occur. Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), Dean of Peking University in 1916, was a leader of the "new culture" movement, and editor of New Youth magazine. In his 1916 essay "Our Final Awakening," Chen laments the weakness of China's national strength and civilization, but cautions those who think that democracy and constitutional government can be easily established in China. First, he argues, there must be a change in the thought and character of the people such that their attitudes will support constitutional government. Without a new culture, there will be no new political system. So, it is fair to say that no other event, including the 1911 revolution, managed to deconstruct traditional systems of belief in China as much as the New Culture Movement. In this sense, it was a true ‘renaissance’.

 

1921 Chinese Communist Party emerges challenging Jiang Kaishek and his new Republican Army

 

1927-1928 Jiang's Northern Expedition seeks to unify China under strong, western-style military; Japan's interests are threatened so...

1931 Japan takes over Manchuria, North China

1937 Japan invades all of China

1941 Japan and US at War

1949 Mao's People's Liberation Army defeats Jiang and the Republican Army--they escape to Taiwan; the PLA was an egalitarian, highly effective, guerilla based army. They tried to work with the people whom they served, the villages. Traditionally, a Marxist Revolution must be led by the (urban) proletariat, the capitalist system workers who are the most exploited. But Mao based himself in the countryside so he created a new variant of Marxism-Leninism called "Maoism" which was based on the idea of a "peasant revolution." The USSR did not really approve and they saw themselves as the boss of all Marxists and Marxian Revolutionaries but the chinese were not buying into that...So the Sino-Soviet split occurred in the mid-1950s.

The People's Republic of China was proclaimed:

"The Chinese People have Stood Up!"

Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up. Our revolution has won the sympathy and acclaim of the people of all countries. We have friends all over the world.

It marks a dramatic end to foreign intrusion/Imperialism in China.

There is a story, no doubt apocryphal, that when Mao went to see off some of his Marxist comrades who were setting sail from Shangai for Europe, they passed a public park in the foreign enclave where he pointed to a sign proclaiming "No Chinese or Dogs Allowed." He indicated that this kind of humiliation could not stand for very much longer. September 21, 1949 was his rejoinder.

US did not care for any of this beause the People's Republic was a Marxist Regime. So the US refused to recognize "Red China" and recognized instead the Jiang or Republican regime on Taiwan as the legitimiate government of all the Chinese people. Made no sense in terms of the real world...but that was our policy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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