CIVILIZATIONS IN CRISIS,
CONFLICT AND CHANGE
CHAPTER 31
EURASIA CIVILIZATIONS IN CRISIS
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The Problem for the Middle Eastern empires and Qing China
– Internal Political Decline and inability to reform
– Western Intrusion economically, socially and politically
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1750
– Manchu China in 1750
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Came to power in 1644
Manchu were last nomadic invaders to overrun a sedentary state – took name of Qing
It appeared that China would recover fully under the Manchus
Looked like Western merchants could be contained at the ports of Macao and Canton.
– The Muslim States in 1750
• The Ottoman Empire seemed on the verge of collapse in the 18th century
– Internal independence movements
– European encroachments
– Political disarray at Constantinople
• India and Persia were weakening and increasingly under pressure from West
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1850
– Qing China
• European military intervention in China exposed the Qing dynasty as weak to external assault
• Internal disruptions swept away the imperial system of China, leaving little in its place
• Foreign forces competed for dominance in the wreckage of the Qing Empire
– The Ottoman Empire recovered from is 18th-century malaise.
• Much of the Middle East was lost
• Turkish reformers overthrew the sultanate but quickly reformulated a new government
OTTOMAN PROBLEMS
• The Ottoman Empire depended on capable sultans
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The quality of rulers declined
Internal disintegration was rapid
Factional struggles within the palace common
Corruption of provincial officials paralyzed government.
• Economic Decline
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Competition with European imports hurt
Destroyed the market for Ottoman products
Urban artisans rebelled.
Ottomans became progressively more dependent on European goods.
• External Pressure
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Was severe.
First the Habsburg Empire and then the Russians seized territory.
Independence movements in the Balkans arose
Threw off Ottoman rule.
REFORM AND SURVIVAL
• Britain as savior
– Britain, France intervene in Crimean War
– Prevented Russian access; saved the Ottoman Empire from collapse
• Reforming Sultans
– Sultan Selim III
• Tried to enact military and administrative changes
• Angered the Janissaries, who overthrew him in 1807.
– Sultan Mahmud II
• Fear of Janissary conservatism led Sultan Mahmud II to destroy the corps in 1826.
• Created a diplomatic corps and westernized the remaining military forces.
• Tanzimat reforms from 1839 to 1876
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Westernization was introduced to other facets of Ottoman society
University education was reorganized
Postal and telegraph systems were introduced; newspapers were established
Legal reforms were mandated
New constitution along Western lines appeared in 1876 as the culmination of the reforms.
Artisans suffered from the opening of the empire to Western trade
Women gained little from the reforms
REPRESSION AND REVOLT
• Reaction
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The reforms produced a Western-educated elite
Many came to view the sultanate itself as archaic.
Sultan Abdul Hamid reacted by nullifying the new constitution
Imprisoned many of the Western-oriented elite
• Young Turks
– Resistance to Abdul Hamid's reactionism led to his overthrow in 1908
– Young Turks
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A group of military officers seized the government
Restored the constitution and promised additional reforms
The sultan was reduced to a powerless religious figurehead
The officers proved no more successful than the sultans
– Arab portions of empire became increasingly resistant to Turkish rule
• Turkey In World War I
– Turkey participated in World War I on the side of the Germans
– Initiated the final dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
– Allies supported Arabs, Greeks, Armenians and partition
EGYPT
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Muhammad Ali in Egypt
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Emerged as the ruler of the region
He introduced Western-style military reforms
Enabled him to ignore the Ottoman sultan
Muhammad Ali extended his control to Arab Syria
Economic reforms based on commercial crops
Export of cotton less successful
Muhammad Ali’s Khedive successors
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Muhammad Ali's successors continued his general plans with disastrous results.
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Cotton production expanded at the expense of food products.
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As a single export commodity, cotton vulnerable to price, demand swings in world market
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Educational reforms were limited to the elite
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The general population barely profited from the reforms.
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By the middle of the 19th century
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Khedives were heavily in debt to European creditors
Europeans were attracted to Egyptian cotton and the plan to construct the Suez Canal
Islamic intellectuals met in Egypt to discuss means of expelling the European threat
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Some argued for strict Islamic religious observance
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Others for greater Westernization in science and technology
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The two groups were unable to reconcile their different approaches.
French and British investors
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Held the majority of shares in the Suez Canal
Urged their governments to intervene directly in Egypt
An Egyptian army rebellion under Ahmad Orabi
British send military units to Egypt in 1882
Thereafter the administration of Egypt was in the hands of British consuls.
THE SUDAN
• Egypt and the Sudan
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Egyptian forces long engaged in attempts to extend control down the Nile River
The khedives enjoyed little success
Their control was limited to towns,such as Khartoum
Attempts in the 1870s to eliminate the slave trade added to discontent
• Resistance and Revolt
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Resistance to Egyptian and British influence was focused by Muhammad Achmad
He was head of a Sufi brotherhood in the Sudan
Took title of Mahdi, claimed descent from Muhammad, declared a jihad
He offered to purge Islam of foreign influences and restore purity
Military forces of the Mahdi enjoyed military success against Egyptians
His role as leader of the Sudan insurgence was taken by Khalifa Abdallahi.
• British Respond
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A British expeditionary force led by General Kitchener defeated the Mahdist army in 1898
The British thus extended their power along the Nile
Much Islamic territory passed under the control of Western forces during the 19th century.
Neither reformers and religious revolutionaries were able to slow the process
Could not halt it entirely
• Islamic civilization became increasingly anxious over its fate.
THE MANCHUS
• Nurhaci
– Able to unite the Manchu nomads
– Created eight banner armies
– Introduced Chinese administrative reforms into government
• 1644
– Local Chinese official invited the Manchus within the Great Wall
– Nomads advanced, captured the Beijing in 1644
– The Manchus were able to establish a new dynasty
• The Qing
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The Qing incorporated much of former Ming including scholar-gentry
Direct role appointment of local officials
Ethnic Chinese continued to be admitted into imperial government
Manchus, unlike Mongols, retained civil-service examination system.
MANCHU SOCIETY
• Manchus preserved the Confucian social hierarchy
– Women subject to patriarchal authority in home
– They might gain some control over household activities.
• The Peasants
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Qing attempted to relieve distress among peasantry
Population pressures made their efforts virtually useless.
Value of labor fell
Rural landlords gained stranglehold over rural economy
• Commerce and the City
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Commercial and urban expansion continued under the Qing
Profits from exports produced new group of merchants
Called compradors, they specialized in silk exports
Also worked in Canton with foreigners as middlemen
BREAKDOWN, DISSINTEGRATION
• By the late 18th century
– Corruption riddled civil-service examination system
– Posts became hereditary or available for purchase
– Wealthy families
• Used bureaucracy as a means of establishing local authority.
• Revenues diverted from state projects to enrich bureaucrats
• Spending on military, public works projects declined
– Floods wiped out some of most productive farmland
– Food shortages produced widespread peasant migrations
– Rise of banditry
• Problems were of such scale that the normal cycle of
dynastic decline and replacement was threatened.
OPIUM WAR AND AFTER
• The Westerners are Coming, the Westerners are Coming!
– A new type of barbarian, the Europeans, threatened China
• British plan to export opium from India to China
• Wanted to improve their balance of trade (stop loss of silver)
• Qing recognized threat to its economy and its society
– In the 1830s
• Emperor appointed Lin Zexu to stamp out opium trade
• Lin blockaded Canton and confiscated European opium supplies.
• British merchants demanded their government intervene to protect profits
– In 1839
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British routed the Chinese junks in the first stages of the Opium War.
British sent a military force ashore, the Qing emperor sued for peace.
British obtain Hong Kong
Forced China to open ports to trade and recognize extraterritoriality of foreigners
• By the 1890s
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90 Chinese ports were open to European, Japanese, and American merchants
Britain, France, Germany, and Russia actually leased certain ports and their hinterlands
Trade passed increasingly into the hands of the non-Chinese
Qing court was forced to accept European diplomats.
FAILED REFORMS
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Defeat by the British helped to set off series of rebellions against the Qing
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In the 1850s and 1860s
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The Taiping Rebellion
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Honest officials at the provincial level
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Manchus continued to obstruct almost all programs of reform
Defeats by Europeans and Japanese continue
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French in Indo-China 1885 and British in the Arrow War 1860s
Sino-Japanese War in 1895
The Dowager Empress Cixi
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Began to carry out much needed reforms; built railways, modernized military
Resources moved from the central court to the provinces
Qing Reaction
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A semi-Christian movement under a prophetic leader, who wanted
» Land redistribution and the liberation of women
» End to influence of the Confucian scholar-gentry
Provincial forces finally defeated the rebellion; more than 50 million dead in civil war
Cixi assumed regency for her son, grandson – refused all attempts at reform
Clandestinely supported the Boxer Rebellion from 1898 to 1901 as a means of ousting foreign influence.
Boxer Rebellion
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Society of Righteous and Harmonious Firsts
Anti-modernization, anti-westernization forces in country side
Attacked western built technology and missionaries; attacked European diplomats in Beijing
Europeans, US, Japanese intervene to rescue diplomats
Forced China to accept Western control and intervention in their society, politics
FALL OF THE QING
• Resistance
– Resistance to the Qing centered in secret societies
• Sponsored local uprisings against the central government
• Western-educated compradors and some scholar-gentry involved
– Goals
• Drew on Western ideas for a reformed government
• Wanted to restore Chinese territorial integrity, expel foreigners from their soil
– Sun Yat Sen
• Western educated doctor who became a leader of China after 1911 Revolution
• Sought to build a Chinese nation-state on a western model
• Favored wide-spread social reforms especially for peasants and workers
• 1911 Revolution
– Widespread uprisings throughout China by the secret societies
– Could not be put down by provincial officials
– Military often joined rebellion in open mutiny
• In 1912, the last Qing emperor, Puyi, a boy of 12, abdicated.
– Prior to their abdication the Qing had abandoned the Confucian examination system
– Abandonment of the examinations signaled the end of patterns of civilization in China
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
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Muslims
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China
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Long accustomed to the military threat posed by the West.
Could justify some borrowing from West on basis of a shared Judeo-Christian , Greek heritage
More politically fragmented than Chinese but Muslims had time to learn from early mistakes.
Muslims could always fall back on religious faith as a last resort.
West's military dominance came as a rude surprise.
China had remained intentionally culturally isolated from the West.
They regarded Western culture as barbaric.
The Chinese equated the survival of the civilization with the maintenance of the Qing dynasty.
When the dynasty collapsed, Chinese civilization was destroyed.
Chinese had no great religious tradition to counter European belief in its inherent superiority.
Versus Other Lands
– China and the Ottoman Muslim lands differed from Africa
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They were only partially colonized
– Differed from Latin America
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Which had deeper ties to the West
– Differed from Russia and Japan
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Which industrialized and which maintained independence.
WHAT IS IT?
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TAIPING REBELLION
TANZIMAT REFORMS
SUEZ CANAL
OPIUM WARS
SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT
BOXER REBELLION
EXTRATERRITORIALITY
TREATY PORTS
OPEN DOOR POLICY
WHO ARE THEY?
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YOUNG TURKS
MUHAMMAD ALI (MEHMET ALI)
KHEDIVES
AL AFGHANI
THE MADHI
NURHACI
MANCHUS/QING
COMPRADORS
COMMISSIONER LIN
HONG XIUGUAN
SUN YAT SEN