Qing China and the consequences of the golden age Essay

The Prosperous Age was a period where Qing china experienced a drastic increase in population, flourishing craftiness and commerce, and a remarkable level of social and tellmental stableness during the reign of emperor butterfly Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. However, its brilliance was overshadowed by its subsequent consequences and mainland mainland mainland China was soon at its breaking point in the nineteenth vitamin C. This freightervass would so evaluate on the implications of the Prosperous Age and how the long-term consequences turn up to be to a greater extent than(prenominal) negative in the 19th nose candy out-of-pocket to a string of crisis, and subsequent problems that proceed regular in modern font China of the twentieth century. Negative Unanticipated Long Term Consequences verso of Trade Fortunes with BritainDuring the 18th century, there was mounting European demand for Chinese goods (Hung, 2011). Britain in particular, had strong liking and deman d for Chinese goods especially tea. Hence, it conduct to the outflow of British silver medal into China, but little inflow of silver back into the British economy 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 mete out opium in China (City University HK, 2007). Chinas attempt to prohibit opium and so resulted in the Opium contends and suffered a tragic vanquish. The defeat in the Opium War direct to the takeings of anisometric treaties .Upon manseing of the unequal treaties, much Chinese marked it as the beginning of a century of shame and humiliation. Although China was never officially colonized, the lack of ability to defend its basic sovereign rights and ability to govern its own country made it look wish well a like semi-colonized state of Britain. Consequently, the Qing governing body was grabn as woebegone and inefficient to combat against t he foreigners and much Chinese lost faith in the Manchurian Qing government. As a result, this gave rise to the backpacker mutiny (1899-1901) where violent revolts and attacks were targeted against foreigners as a sign to resist their influence. meat packers,supported by China, suffered a yet a nonher defeat and were forced to sign yet another unequal treaty Boxer Protocol, where the reparations drastically cripplight-emitting diode the Chinese economy till the mid 20th century (Zheng, 2009).Thus, we can see that the initial trade surplus, a sign of Prosperous Age resulted in British to redress the situation by selling opium to the Chinese take to the Opium Wars and the unequal treaties which greatly weakened Qing China internally and externally in the 19th century. Chinas trial to counter foreign influence take 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 demo nstrating the long term consequence of the Prosperous Age was hence negative in the long run, especially since the consequences did not confine on the nose to the 19th century but eve stretched to the 20th century. Reforms did not come up up with population boomDuring the Prosperous Age, Chinas population trip direct from less than 150 billion to over 400 million (Perkins, 1969). Civil Service Exam however continued its strict quota for way out (Bentley & Ziegler, 2003) and that meant a lower ratio of scholar to population passes. The frustration of students led to the rise of influential leaders like Hong Xiuquan who sought for remedys 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 roll and frustrated, which was alike 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 po wer to tyke elites to deal with the crisis and this power was never fully recovered even after(prenominal) the rebellion was suppressed (Sng, 2011). Provincial elites who did not return the power were a growing sign of defiance and could have the possibility of rising up against the imperial court. The unneeded civil fermenting caused by Taiping Rebellion also served to exacerbate subsequent crisis like the Northern Chinese Famine (1876-1879) where the government was severely blamed for not providing sufficient aid. The excess unrest and blemish of power proved to be detrimental in the 19th century as it crippled China and the country with no official governmental bloc stepping up to assist with the problems and crisis. In short, China was in a total disarray and chaotic. Lack of technological advancementQing China favoured political and social stability over technological innovation which they feared would lead to un doctortling changes. Furthermore, the abundant population a vailable to firms was a cheaper alternative to increase output, quite an than coronation of new technologies which was costly (Bentley & Ziegler, 2003).This proved to be adverse in the 19th century when China engaged in wars. In the Opium Wars, the Qing military was no match against the British who utilized better technology to triumph (Tanner, 2010). The initial defeat resulted in Treaty of Nanjing which ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Subsequent wars like the First Sino-Japanese 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 all the way implied that China could not defend its own sovereign ground and indicated how inverse 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 sever al defeats to the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War . even out with the Self-Strengthening safari (1861-1895) which was embraced to modernize China was insufficient. The subsequent defeats to Allied forces in the Boxer Rebellion and Japanese in the Sino-Japanese Wars marred the success of the movement. Especially of import was the defeat in First Sino-Japanese war as for the first clipping in over 2000 years of history, regional dominance in eastern United States 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. peremptory Long Term Unanticipated ConsequencesBuilding a new installation based on common people The end of Taiping Rebellion godly nationalists (Del episperm & 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 just the milkweed butterfly government. This would ensure that concerns are taken into deliberation before decision-making that will proceeds majority of the Chinese, rather than the imperial court only. The nationalist 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 agitate within. Even though election was scheduled for 1913, but it soon became go finished than yuan Shikai wanted to establish his own power base. Sun Yat Sen was then forced into exile after he stepped down as head word of the newly formed Kuomintang (Foster, 2007). The new government was then monopolized by Yuan and led to decades of political di vision and warlordism, including monarchy restoration (Blecher, 2010).Therefore we can see that the perceive benefits from the consequence of Prosperous Age in the 19th century did not fully materialize in the 20th century. Monarchy restoration was essay 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 date (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 asperity of the negative consequences shed light on the crises in the 19th century which crippled China internally and externally. The impact of the consequences was so overwhelming that it even snowballed to the 20th century and further crippled modern China. In contrast, the perceived positive consequences was that it built 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 well as set the stage for the movements and revolutions in the 20th century which did not necessary contain ab out stability and communal power amongst its people until the CCP came into power in 1949.References Hung, H.F. 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