The Chinese dynastic system was highly admired for its vast structural integrity which allowed it to persevere for more than two millennia. The Xia Dynasty was the first recorded dynasty in Chinese history, founded by a man named Shun who renounced his throne to his trusted official Yu. Rather than pass the power to someone qualified for the position, Yu then entrusted the Dynasty to his son Qi, setting the precedence for the Dynastic rule. 1 This ushered in the Hereditary System which was followed by many dynasties to come. Under the hereditary system the power was passed down through the family members. This system also had an added benefit of ensuring stability and continuity within the nation’s infrastructure.2 However in the later years of the Chinese empire, dynasties began to shift towards selecting government officials based upon their merit. From the Sui Dynasty in 581 to the end of the dynastic system around 1911, government officials were chosen based upon their abilities and characteristics, rather than their lineage.3 The selection process, known as the civil exams, insured that qualified citizens would run the country. The civil exams were extremely difficult and were governed by tight quotas and highly specific and invariable material. Even though the tight restrictions insured that the participants were highly qualified, it also had a negative effect. It inhibited the growth of knowledge amongst the selected officials, also known as the scholar gentry.4 The intricacies and implications of this system will be discussed in detail later in this essay. The transition from dynasty to dynasty differed greatly from other well known political systems of the early world. The people of China believed in the Mandate of ... ... middle of paper ... ...hina . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. (Pg. 187-200) 17. Franke, The Cambridge History of China. (Pg. 202-210) 18. Gascoigne, The Dynasties of China: A History. (Pg. 140) 19. Franke, The Cambridge History of China. (Pg. 150-156) 20. Franke, The Cambridge History of China. (Pg. 168-178) 21. Hucker, China’s Imperial Past : An Introduction to Chinese History & Culture. (Pg. 280) 22. Grasso, June, Jay P. Corrin, and Michael Kort. Modernization and Revolution in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power . N.p.: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. (Pg. 78-90) 23. Grasso, Modernization and Revolution in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power (Pg. 89-100) 24. Grasso, Modernization and Revolution in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power (Pg. 100) 25. Franke, The Cambridge History of China. (Pg. 267-270) 26. Gascoigne, The Dynasties of China: A History. (Pg. 140)
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
The title of Ray Huang’s book 1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty Decline suggests that this book is a work based on a single year in which little occurred. But in reality, Huang’s look at the events of 1587 demonstrate the complex workings of the leadership during the decline of the Ming dynasty, giving the reader an insight into the societal structure, the governmental process, and the mistakes that occurred systematically to enhance the progression towards the seemingly inevitable downfall. Though nothing of historical significance occurred during the year 1587, Huang is able to demonstrate the way in which the existing culture and the smaller, more systematic elements of political leadership can be understood within the context of a seemingly unimportant period of time.
There were many problems with the system of trade in China; even before opium trading began. China, believing herself to be the most civilized and advanced country, did not feel the need to satisfy Britain, a “barbarian” country’s request for freer trade and were concerned the British wanted land. Britain however, had no desire for land and only wished to trade, believing it was their right to do so. These misunderstandings and differing opinions were only the start of more to come. They set the foundations to the British and Chinese hostilities.
China was plagued by famine, natural disasters and economic problems which the government failed to recover from in the nineteenth century. Empress Dowager Cixi was a reluctant reformist and made sure China remained a monarchy till her last breath in 1908 which created anti-Qing feeling. Although the fall of the Qing Dynasty can argued as a result of its failure to reform and modernize China to keep its people content, perhaps the most significant factor was due to foreign intervention. A loser of the Opium War of 1842, the Qing government fully exposed its weakness and inefficiency when fighting against the foreign powers and signing the ‘Unequal Treaties’ afterwards. The Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 further humiliated the imperial government. Defeat from the Japanese was followed by a period where foreign powers scrambled for privileges in China, exacting lease territories, railroad concessions and mining rights, and carving out their respective ‘spheres of influence.’ Therefore, it is important to understand whether foreign intervention in China was the most significant factor in exposing the Qing governments’ weaknesses which led to anti-foreign sentiment and would spark revolutionary ideas from key figures such as Sun Yat Sen to overthrow the dynasty. The revolt that toppled the world’s longest lasting empire had been developing for decades but, when it finally came in October 1911, it was sparked by accident when a bomb exploded in the office of a group of revolutionary soldiers in the Russian concession of the city of Hankou on the river Yangtze in central China. The events led to the abdication of the last emperor, Puyi, four months later on February 12th, 1912 and marked the end of the Qing Dy...
“Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body (Cocteau).” China is the human body of this metaphor, as Cocteau points out the destruction and chaos opium can cause in the body of man; it does the same to the well-being of China during the early to mid eighteen-hundreds. The aim of this paper is to discuss a key issue in which plagued China in their opposition to opium trade leading up to and during the Opium War. While there are many important issues related to China’s opium problem, the scope of this paper will be strategic errors. It is important to note that if improvements were made in this field, it does not guarantee that the
Graham, Hutchings. Modern China; A Guide to a Century of Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,2001
Melancon, Glenn. "Honour in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839-1840." The International History Review 21.4 (1999): 855-74. JSTOR. Web. .
While the leaders of the self-strengthening movement desired to adopt Western military technology, they failed to recognize the strength and superiority of the Western political systems behind the armies. The ruling Qing dynasty, factionalized and ineffectual, did not provide a stable platform to initiate reforms. The Qing’s response to the opium trade, which devastated the health of citizens and threatened China’s control of trade, evidenced its lack of authority. Emperor Daoguang issued twelve imperial edicts between 1813 and 1839, yet the numbers of opium chests smuggled into China grew from 4,000 to...
Allingham,, Philip V. "England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60." The Victorian Web: An Overview. 24 June 2006. Web. 06 Apr. 2011.
Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1986.
These elite groups were high ranked officials who had similar tasks as government officials, and the source of their power was relatively similar in every aspect. The yangban of Korea used an examination system to elect and appoint officials, so scholarly merit awarded a spot in office instead of heredity. Although the yangban used the civil service examinations wealth still defined yangban from the commoners. Yangban owned both land and slaves. Ancestry was a factor as well because yangban families wanted to produce a lineage of yangban officials. It solidified the family’s name if their subsequent generations contained successful yangban. The source of power that gave the gentry their official positi...
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to market. Oxford University Press, 2005.
It is widely acknowledged and respected that China is one of the most modernized and advanced countries in the world. However, this has not always been the case for this great nation. Nowadays referred to as the People’s Republic of China, it is booming economically, technologically, et cetera. Yet, prior to the Opium Wars that began in 1839, China could not compare to the prominent countries at that time that were primarily European. China is located in East Asia and did not have the same culture, traditions, or technology that the majority of Europeans possessed and used in everyday life. The Europeans and Americans on the western hemisphere were leading the world in terms of all areas of innovation. Preceding the Wars,
Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, 1995. The Rise of Modern China.5Rev Ed Edition. Oxford University Press, USA.