Ti Yong Distinction

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Recommended: Failures of the Qing dynasty

With the Industrial Revolution and Age of Imperialism intensifying among Western nations in the 19th century, China faced an impending threat to its ancient cultural values. Pressured to adapt to the changing global environment but fearful of losing its traditional identity, China and its reform leaders have since attempted to incorporate a “ti-yong” distinction between utilizing Western function and preserving Chinese values, most notably in the Self-Strengthening movement beginning in 1860 and Deng Xiaopeng’s economic reforms of the 1980s. The Qing’s attempts at self-strengthening proved unsuccessful with humiliating defeats in the Sino-French and Sino-Japanese Wars in the late 1800s. However, Deng’s utilization of Western market techniques in China’s socialist state proved wildly successful, with annual economic growth of 8-15% throughout the decade. The disparity of success between these two movements demonstrates the evolving political strength of the Chinese state that has revolutionized in its sovereignty and organization since the mid-nineteenth century, providing the foundation for mass reform and Chinese modernization.
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...

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...with the world’s greatest powers. Yet, it must continue to deal with the domestic crises and issues that arise as China continues to modernize and open up to the rest of the world.

Works Cited
Liang, Heng, and Judith Shapiro. Son of the Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1984. Print.
New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Apr 26, 1853; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. 2
Professor Fei Lecture Slides, Early PRC 1949-56. https://courseweb.library.upenn.edu
Schoppa, R.K. Revolution and its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History (2010)
Theodore de Bary, W.M. & Lufrano, Richard. Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York, 1999)
World Bank. World Development Indicators. 22 Jan. 2009. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
< http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?page=4>
Yuan, Wei. Chinese Account of the Opium War, trans. Edward Harper Parker (1888)

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