The Self-strengthening Movement ( 1860-1894 ) was besides named “Yang-Wu Yun-Tung” by the Marxist historiographers. It is because the motion did non beef up China and it depended excessively much on the aliens. All the reform programmes merely imitated the West. In the approaching paragraphs. we are traveling to discourse the causes and failure of it. and how its failure affected China up to 1912.
It has been said that the Self-Strengthening Movement was a response to the West. The perennial lickings which China suffered from the 1st and 2nd Anglo Chinese Wars convinced the Qing Court Officials that the western powers were non barbarians. Alternatively. their arms were really superior. And the foreign powers have been kept seeking advantages and privileges from China. As a consequence. China has to beef up herself in order to defy foreign aggressions. To a big extent. it explains why the Self-strengthening Movement is military oriented.
In the 1860s’ . western threat was non so great as it seemed to be. As a affair of fact. the sign language of the peace pacts and the peaceable backdown of ground forces from Peking showed that the foreign powers had no purpose of suppressing whole China. They even helped China to stamp down the internal rebellions by directing the Ever-victorious Army. The good organized construction and high-tech arms fascinated the Chinese functionaries such as Li Hongzhang. one of the Movement leaders. Converting the Chinese should transport out military reforms. Furthermore. the foreign powers adopted to co-operative foreign policy at the average clip.
The earnestness of the western diplomats in China besides showed the friendliness of the aliens. For illustration: Alcock. Burlingame and Robert Hart. It helped to ease the misinterpretation between China and the West.
The Self-strengthening Movement was besides a response to internal rebellion. It is undeniable that the domestic rebellions were serious menace to the Qing Dynasty. By 1860. the domestic rebellions had come to a high tide with the progress of the Taipings. Throughout the 1860s’ and the early 1870s’ . there were legion rebellions appeared e. g. the Nien Rebellion and the Moslem Rebellion. Unlike the foreign powers. these rebellions aimed at destructing the Dynasty. This urged the Qing to beef up the country’s military power to stamp down the internal rebellions.
Despite the Self-strengthening Movement has been lasted for more than 30 old ages. it ended up in failure. In malice of how much attempt they have been put in to the military reform programmes. it ended up in being defeated by the small Japan in the Sino-Japanese War ( 1894-1985 ) . What were the causes of failure?
One of the ground for the failure of the Self-strengthening Movement was its reactionist character. The self-strengthening Movement was merely used to stamp down the rebellions of the common people and to continue the Manchu regulation. The Qing Court did non transport out the programmes with earnestness. Cixi took the reform support for constructing her epicurean Summer Palace explains it. However. it had small support from the people ( e. g. the people thought the puting up of railroad would upset the feng-shui ) . As a consequence. it failed.
The heavy trust on aliens besides explains the failure. As the self-strengthening motion was a motion to copy the western military engineering. it is inevitable we need help from the western powers. However. the functionaries ne’er think of developing the Chinese to go the experts. They merely kept on trusting on the aliens unreasonably. The Chinese assumed that all the aliens were demigods. or all of them were experts. Ironically. there were aliens who were fundamentally iron workers being treated as scientists by the Chinese. merely because they were aliens. Besides. what makes you think that the alien would work for you unfeignedly? To uncover the truth. they merely wanted to derive more political and economical rights in China.
The economic monopolistic nature of the self-strengthening motion besides contributed to its failure. Most of the industries under the motion were controlled by the officials-comprador category. The monopolized certain industries under their control. However. many evil influences such as corruptness. inefficiency. etc. originate in the industries which were under their control. As a consequence. the industries under the self-strengthening motion all ended in failure.
Confucianism worked as a stumbling block for the modernisation. In fact. all the leaders of the self-strengthening motion were knowing with Confucianism. In their eyes. Confucianism was the cosmopolitan truth and nil should be changed about the Confucian societal. economic and political order. Therefore. they merely adopted superficial reform programmes on military. Chang Chi-tung’s word. “Chinese acquisition as the cardinal. western larning as application” clearly exposed their attitude towards reformation. In the order words. the reform programmes were limited by psychological inactiveness.
Bing bombarded by the Confucian surveies. the reform leaders had no purpose of reforming the societal order. They did non of all time recognize that societal reform was necessary for a state to go modernize. For illustration. they did non emphasize the importance of western acquisition. Besides. they had small thought of cosmopolitan instruction which was the foundation for the strength of the West. The limited range of the reform led to the failure of the Self-strengthening Movement. Being influenced by their assurance in Confucianism. the Chinese idea that the Chinese province and society was perfect and there should non be reform in this facet.
Regionalism is one of the grounds that should non be left behind to explicate the failure of the ego beef uping motion. Within the reform programmes. there was barely any co-ordination. nor co-operation. The local provincial leaders established some endeavors chiefly for their opportunisms. They regarded their accomplishment as the foundation of personal power. They had no thought in transporting reform in a national graduated table. As a consequence. piecemeal and effectiveless undertakings were carried out. and money was wasted. Therefore. the reform turned in failure.
Last. the failure of the motion was clearly shown in the licking of Sino-Japanese War ( 1894-1895 ) . It was really ashamed of being defeated by the little. weak Japan. Particularly the state has been undergoing a reform motion over 30 old ages. The failure of the self-strengthening motion necessarily posed serious influence to China in approaching century.
The licking of the Sino Japanese war ( 1894-95 ) reveals China’s incapableness. After subscribing the pact of Shimonoseki. the Scramble for grants ( 1895-1890 ) came into consequence. Knowing Qing Court’s failings. the foreign powers started rending China off. They claimed different parts of China as their domain of influence and about divided China up. For illustration. the Shangdong state was German Concession and Fujian was Japan’s sphere of influence. This showed the failure of the Self-strengthening motion one time affected China’s sovereignty.
However. the failure didn’t halt the tide of reform motion. After the licking of the Sino-Japanese war. the new intellectuals nurtured from the Self-strengthening motion started to reflect why the self-strengthening motion failed. Hence. the Hundred Days’ reform ( 1898 ) was brought up. Guangxu initiated the reform with the assistance of two intellectuals – Kang Youwei and Liang Qichiao. Actually. Guangxu was seeking to derive back the power from Cixi’s manus by the agencies of transporting out a reform. In other words. there was a power battle between Cixi and Guangxu. At the terminal. the putsch d’etat failed. and Guangxu was imprisoned by Cixi. Kang and Liang was able to get away from China with the aid of aliens. and aliens gave Cixi force per unit area to let go of Guangxu.
The empress dowager thought she was being constrained. and therefore upset. Because of this. the anti-foreign feeling of Cixi aroused. It explains portion of the cause of Boxer Uprising and Eight Power Expedition ( Cixi supported the Boxers in the Boxers Uprising. in fact she has released an imperial edict saying her encouragement of devastation of any marks of aliens. A wages system was even introduced. The aliens were angered by this. and they sent a joint ground forces to capture Beijing. Part of the summer castle was even burned into ashes. ) This means the failure of the SSM indirectly led to Power Struggle and farther devastation of China.
The Late Qing Reform ( 1901-1910 ) was regarded as a response to the Boxer Protocol which signed after the Eight Power Expedition. The Qing Court foreseen that a reform motion is desperately needed in order to protract the Manchu regulation. Therefore. the Late Qing Reform was initiated by the Qing Court themselves. However. the deficiency of earnestness of transporting out a reform was clearly shown in the reform undertakings. ( E. g. the nine twelvemonth fundamental law announced in 1908 ) discouraged the people and failed the intellectuals who hoped for cardinal reforms. This drove more and more people to the radical side. ( i. e. the Revolutionary party headed by Sun Yixian ) Therefore. the failure of SSM brought China into a revolution epoch.
The 1911 Revolution win with the mass support. ( Suffering from the Late Qing Reform. the people no longer had destiny to the Qing Court. hence. people from different societal background all seek for new leader i. e. the Revolutionaries. ) To reason. the SSM contributed to the ruin of the Qing Court.
From above grounds. you can see that there was really an unbreakable concatenation effects. ( i. e. SSM – & gt ; Scramble for Concessions – & gt ; HDR – & gt ; Boxers’ Uprising & A ; Eight Power Expedition – & gt ; Late Qing Reform – & gt ; 1911 Revolution – & gt ; Downfall of Qing Court ) The failure of self-strengthening motion straight and indirectly raised the power of revolutionists and led to the ruin of Qing Court. Hence. it is convinced the Self-strengthening Movement possess drastic fondness to the China in the undermentioned century.
