Modern China
History
After the Qing Dynasty was able to gain
momentum while maintaining the old Chinese practices of the previous
periods, it became challenging for the empire to confront the
seafaring Western powers in the later period. The elements of peace
and self-satisfaction of the Ming Dynasty were greatly adopted by
the ruling empires thereafter.
Even the royal Neo-Confucian
scholar-officials were regarded as the superior powers of Chinese
civilization and were granted higher positions by the ruling elite.
All this in addition to suggesting innovation and promoting the old
foreign ideology was considered equivalent to heretical doctrine.
The imperial army severely punished those who never followed the
orthodoxy.
In the beginning of the nineteenth
century, China was facing economic pressures in terms of its origins
internally. In its initial stages, the period inhibited in excess of
300 million Chinese populace, but no industry or trade could offer
enough scope for the surplus labor. There was extensive rural
restlessness and law and order collapse owing to the scarcity of
land.
These disturbances were further accelerated by the corrupted
bureaucratic and military systems, and increasing urban pauperism.
Many revolts also took place internally amongst different parts of
the empire during the early nineteenth century. Societies including
the White Lotus sect in the north and the Triad Society in the
south, which earlier were under cover, also gained a position
insurrected with anti-Manchu.
The modern China embraced with super
political, economic and military powers is now also absorbing itself
into the international society. As a result, the world has put forth
many questions. What would be the role of China at the international
level? What kind of foreign policy would be followed by China?
After
the handover of British in 1997, how will China govern Hong Kong?
Will China continue with the contributing factors to its successes,
viz. its economic reforms and its Open Door Policy? The answers to
all the above questions can be obtained by evaluating the aftermaths
of the period when China was opened forcefully by gun-boats of
British and Opium War battle ships.
The international relations of
China are greatly influenced by the humiliation and lessons learnt
by the country during Opium War some 150 years back. Before 1840,
China was a close-ended economy with limited trade in Canton city.
Many western countries made use of the opium incident to enter the
huge Chinese market. Later China overwhelmingly signed off the
Treaty of Nanjing and opened itself to Western merchants offering
concessions in many cities and thereafter was made a semi-feudal
semi-colonial state.
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