The West and the World
1. Industrialization and the World Economy
1. The Rise of the Global Inequality
1. The ultimate significance of the Industrial Revolution was that it allowed
those regions of the world that industrialized in the nineteenth century to
increase their wealth and power enormously in comparison to those that
did not
1. The gap between the industrializing regions and the
nonindustrilaizing regions open up and grew steadily throughout
the nineteenth century
2. Pattern of uneven global development became institutionalized or
built into the structure of the world economy (“lopsided world” -world of rich lands and poor)
3. Developed (industrialized) and the “Third World” (Africa, Asia,
Latin America)
2. In 1750, the average standard of living was no higher in Europe as a whole
than in the rest of the world (Great Britain was the wealthiest European
country)
3. Industrialization opened the gaps in average wealth and well-being among
regions
4. Income per person was idle in the Third World before 1913 and only after
1945 did Third World countries finally make some real economic progress
(industrialization)
5. Some historians believe that the West used science, technology, capitalist
organization to create wealth and well-being while others argues that the
West used its political and economic power to steal much of its riches
during era of expansion
2. The World Market
1. Commerce between nations had been a powerful stimulus to economic
development
2. World trade grew modestly until about 1840, and then trade took off after
that time
1. In 1913, the value of world trade was about twenty-five times than
in 1800
2. Enormous increase in international commerce summed up the
growth of an interlocking world economy centered in and directed
by Europe
3. Great Britain played a key role in using trade to tie the world together
economically
1. The technological breakthroughs of the Industrial Revolution
allowed Britain to manufacture cotton textiles, iron, more cheaply
and far outstrip domestic demands and British manufacturers
sought export markets around Europe, then the world
2. After the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, Britain became the
world’s single best market and until 1914 remained the world’s
“emporium” (free access)
4. The growth of trade was facilitated by the conquest of distance
1. The earliest railroad construction occurred in Europe and in
America north of the Rio Grande and wherever railroads were
built, they reduced transportation costs, opened new economic
opportunities and called forth new skills and attitudes
2. The power of steam revolutionized transportation by sea as well as
land
3. Steampower began to supplant sails on the oceans of the world in
the late 1860s
4. Passenger and freight rates tumbled and the intercontinental
shipment of lower-priced raw materials became feasible
(development of 19th century global trade)
5. The revolution in land and sea transportation helped European pioneers
open up vast new territories and produce agricultural products and raw
materials for sale in Europe
6. Intercontinental trade was enormously facilitated by the Suez and Panama
canals; investment in modern port facilities made lading and unloading
cheaper and more dependable; transoceanic telegraph cables inaugurated
rapid communications
7. The growth of trade and the conquest of distance encouraged the
expanding European economy to make massive foreign investments
(Great Britain, France, and Germany)
8. Most of the capital exported did not go the European colonies or
protectorates in Asia and Africa but rather to other European countries
(construction of utilities for settling)
9. Europeans collected interest and opened up trade but victims were native
American Indians and Australian aborigines who were decimated by
expanding Western society
3. The Opening of China and Japan
1. With densely populated civilizations, Europeans increased their trade and
profit
2. The expanding Western society was prepared to use force, if necessary, to
attain its desires in China and Japan (examples of general pattern of
intrusion)
3. Traditional Chinese civilization was self-sufficient and China had sent
more goods and inventions to Europe than it had received in the eighteenth
century (Chinese tea)
1. Trade with Europe was carefully regulated by the Chinese imperial
government (Manchu Dynasty) which was more interested in
isolating and controlling the strange “sea barbarians” than in
pursuing commercial exchange
2. The imperial government refused to establish diplomatic relations
with Europe and required all foreign merchants to live in the
southern city of Canton
3. Practices considered harmful to Chinese interests, such as the sale
of opium and the export of silver from China, were strictly
forbidden
4. By the 1820s, the dominant group, the British, introduced the smoking of
opium
1. Grown legally in India, opium was smuggled into China by means
of fast ships and bribed officials and as the British merchants
became greedier, the more they resented the patriotic attempts of
the Chinese government to stem drug addiction
2. By 1836, the aggressive goal of the British merchants in Canton
was an independent British colony in China and “safe and
unrestricted liberty” in trade
3. They pressured the British government to take decisive action and
at the same time, the Manchu government decided that the opium
trade had to be stopped
4. The government began to prosecute Chinese drug deals and in
1839, send special envoy Lin Tse-hsu to Canton who ordered the
merchants to obey China’s laws
5. Using troops from India and controlling the seas, the British occupied
several coastal cities and forced China to surrender after declaring war; in
the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the imperial government was forced to
cede the island of Hong Kong, pay an indemnity of 100 million dollars
and open up four cities to foreign trade (low tariffs)
6. The opium trade and Hong Kong developed rapidly as an Anglo-Chinese
commune
7. The Chinese, however, refused to accept foreign diplomats in Peking, the
imperial capital, and there was a second round of foreign attack between
1856 and 1860, culminating in the occupation of Peking by British and
French troops; another round of harsh treaties gave European merchants
and missionaries privileges and protection
8. The government of Japan decided to seal off the country from all
European influences in order to preserve traditional Japanese culture and
society (after 1640)
9. Japan’s unbending isolation seemed hostile to the West, particularly to the
U.S.
1. The isolation complicated the practical problems of shipwrecked
American sailors and the provisioning of whaling ships and China
traders sailing in the Pacific
2. Americans shared self-confidence and dynamism of expanding
Western society
10. After unsuccessful attempts to establish commercial relations with Japan
Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay in 1853 demanding
diplomatic negotiations
11. Senior officials realized how defenseless cities were against naval
bombardment and they reluctantly signed a treaty with the U.S. that
opened two ports permitting trade
4. Western Penetration of Egypt
1. European involvement in Egypt led to a new model of formal political
control
2. Egypt had been ruled by the Ottoman Turks and then after the occupation
of the French armies for three years stepped in Turkish general,
Muhammad Ali
1. First appointed governor of Egypt by the Turkish sultan, Ali set out
to build his own state on the strength of a large, powerful army
organized along European lines; he drafted the illiterate and hired
army European army officers to train
2. By the time of his death in 1849, Muhammad Ali had established a
strong and virtually independent Egyptian state to be ruled by his
family on hereditary basis
3. Ali’s policies of modernization attracted large numbers of
Europeans to Egypt
4. Europeans served as army officers, engineers, doctors, high
government officials, and police officers; other found prosperity in
trade, finance, and shipping
3. To pay for a modern army and European services and manufactured
goods, Muhammad Ali encouraged the development of commercial
agriculture geared to the European market (new landlords made the
peasants their tenants and forced them to grow cash crops for European
markets and modernized agriculture in Egypt)
4. Muhammad Ali’s grandson Ismail, (in 1863 began rule as Egypt’s
khedive, or prince) was a westernizing autocrat, promoting large irrigation
networks (cotton production)
5. Ismail borrowed large sums to install modern communications; Suez
Canal completed by a French company in 1869 and Arabic of the masses
became the official language
6. Egyptians educated in Europe helped spread new skills and ideas in the
bureaucracy
7. Ismail’s projects were too expensive and by 1876, Egypt owned foreign
bondholders 450 million dollars but the governments of France and Great
Britain intervened politically to protect the European bankers who held the
Egyptian bonds; they forced Ismail to appoint French and British
commissioners to oversee Egyptian finances
8. Foreign financial control evoked a nationalistic reaction among Egyptian
religious leaders and in 1879, under Colonel Ahmed Arabi, they formed
the Egyptian Nationalist party and forced Ismail to abdicate in favor of his
weak son Tewfiq
9. All this resulted in bloody anti-European riots in Alexandria in 1882 and a
number of Europeans were killed and Tewfiq and his court had to flee to
British ships for safety
10. Riots swept the country but a British expeditionary force decimated
Arabi’s forces and as a result, occupied all of Egypt; the British
maintained the façade of the khedive’s government as an autonomous
province of the Ottoman empire and the British consul, General Evelyn
Baring (Lord Cromer) ruled the country after 1883
11. Egypt shoed such expansion was based on military force, political
domination, and a self-justifying ideology of beneficial reform
(predominate until 1814)
2. The Great Migration
1. The Pressure of Population
1. In the early 18th century, the growth of European population entered a
decisive stage; birthrates eventually declined in the nineteenth century but
so did death rates because of rising standard of living and medical
revolution (population doubled in Europe)
2. Between 1815 and 1932, more than sixty million people left Europe and
the population of North America grew from six million to eighty-one
million from 1800-1900; population grew more slowly in Africa and Asia
(Europeans 38 % of world)
3. The growing number of Europeans provided the drive for expansion and
emigration
1. In most countries migration increased twenty years after a rapid
growth in population and this pattern was prevalent when rapid
population increase predated extensive industrial development
(hope of creating jobs and reducing poverty)
2. The number of people who left Europe increased rapidly before
World War One
3. Different countries had very different patterns of movement;
people left Britain and Ireland in large numbers, German migration
was irregular, and Italians left
4. Migration patterns mirrored social and economic conditions in the
country
5. Although the United States absorbed the largest number of
European migrants, less than half of all migrants went to the
United States
2. European Migrants
1. The European migrant was often a small peasant landowner or craftsman
whose traditional way of life was threatened by too little land, estate
agriculture, or factories
1. German peasants who left southwestern Germany between 183054 felt trapped by the “dwarf economy” with its tiny landholdings
and declining craft industries
2. Many sold out and moved to buy much cheaper land in the
American Midwest
2. Migrants were a great asset to the countries that received them (vast and
unmarried); they came ready to work hard in the new land, at least for
some time
3. Many Europeans moved but remained within Europe, setting temporarily
or permanently in another European country (vast bulk of this movement
was legal)
4. Many Europeans were truly migrants as opposed to immigrants (returned
after some time) and the likelihood or repatriation varied greatly by
nationality
5. The possibility of buying land in the old country was of central importance
6. The Russia Jews were left in peace until 1881 when a new tsar brought
discrimination
1. Russia’s five million Jews were confined to the market towns and
small cities of the so-called Pale of Settlement where they worked
as artisans and petty traders
2. When Russian Jewish artisans began to escape both factory
competition and oppression by migrating in the 1880s, this was a
once-and-for-all departure
7. The mass movement of Italians illustrates many characteristics of
European migration
1. In the 1880s, three in every four Italians depended on agriculture
and with the influx of cheap North American wheat, industry was
not advancing fast enough to provide jobs for the rapidly growing
population and Italians began to leave
2. Migration provided Italians with an escape valve and possible
income to buy land
3. Many Italians went to the United States, but more went to
Argentina and Brazil
4. Many Italians had no intention of setting abroad permanently
(“swallows”) and harvesting Italy, flew to Argentina to harvest
wheat during the winter months and returned to Italy in the spring
and repeated this exhausting process
5. Italian migrants dominated building trades and architectural
profession in L.A.
8. Other Italians migrated to other European countries and many went to
France
1. Ties of family and friendship played a crucial role in the
movements of peoples
2. Many landless Europeans left because of the spirit of revolt and
independence (young people frustrated by privileged classes in
Norway and Sweden)
9. Migration slowed down when the people won basic political and social
reforms such as the right to vote and the social security system
3. Asian Migrants
1. A substantial number of Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and Filipinos
responded to rural hardship with temporary or permanent migration (three
million moved before 1920)
2. Most went as indentured laborers to work under incredibly difficult
conditions and white estate owners often used Asians after the suppression
of the slave trade
3. In the 1840s, the Spanish government recruited Chinese laborers in Cuba
and they came under eight-year contracts, where paid and fed but between
1853 and 1873, more than 130,000 Chinese laborers went to Cuba and
spent their lives as slaves
4. Asians fled the plantations and gold mines as soon as possible, seeking
greater oppor-tunities in trade and towns and came into conflict with
setters in settlement areas
5. These settlers demanded a halt to Asian migration and by the 1880s,
Americans and Australians were building discriminatory laws designed to
keep Asians out
6. A final, crucial factor in the migrations before 1914 was the general policy
of “whites only” in the open lands of possible permanent settlement (part
of Western dominance)
3. Western Imperialism
1. The Scramble for Africa
1. As late as 1880, European nations controlled only 10 percent of the
African continent
1. The French had begun conquering Algeria in 1830 and European
colonists settled
2. In South Africa, the British had taken possession of Dutch
settlements at Cape Town during the wars of Napoleon I and had
led Dutch ranchers and farmers in 1835 to make the Great Trek
into the interior, where they fought natives for land
3. After 1853, the Boers (Afrikaners, descendents of the Dutch in the
Cape Colony) proclaimed their political independence and
defended it against British armies
4. By 1880 Afrikaner and British settlers taken control from the Zulu
and Xhosa
5. The British conquered in southern Africa in the bloody Boer War
(1899-1902)
2. European trading posts and forts dating back to the Age of Discovery and
the slave trade dotted the coast of West Africa (Portuguese held some old
possessions)
3. From 1880-1900, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy fought for African
possessions and by 1900 nearly the whole continent had been split &
placed under European rule; only Ethiopia in northeast Africa and Liberia
in West Africa remained independent
4. There was the role of Leopold II of Belgium, a monarch with lust for
distant territory
1. By 1876, Leopold was focusing on central Africa and formed a
financial syndicate under his personal control to send Henry M.
Stanley to the Congo basin
5.
6.
7.
8.
2. Stanley was able to establish trading stations, sign “treaties” with
African chiefs, and plant Leopold’s flag (France send out an
expedition under Pierre de Brazza)
3. In 1880 de Brazza signed a treaty of protection with the chief of a
large Teke tribe and began to establish a French protectorate on the
north bank of the Congo river
Leopold’s buccaneering intrusion into the Congo area raised the question
of the political fate of black Africa—Africa south of the Sahara; when the
British successfully invaded Egypt in 1882, Europe had caught “African
fever”
Jules Ferry of France and Otto von Bismarck of Germany arranged an
international conference on Africa in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 and
established the principle that European claims to African territory had to
rest on “effective occupation”
1. It meant that Europeans would push relentlessly into interior
regions from all sides and that no European power would be able
to claim the entire continent
2. The conference recognized Leopold’s personal rule over a neutral
Congo free state and declared all of Congo basin a free trade zone
(wanted to stop slavery)
3. The Berlin conference coincided with Germany’s sudden
emergence as an imperial power; Bismarck has seen little value in
colonies before 1880
4. In 1884 and 1885, Bismarck and Germany established
protectorates over a number of African kingdoms and tribes in
Togo, Cameroon, southwest Africa, and, later, East Africa
(cooperated against the British with France’s Ferry)
5. The French pressed southward from Algeria eastward from the
Senegal coast, and northward from the Congo River (object of
these three thrusts was Lake Chad)
The British began enlarging their West African enclaves and pushed
northward from the Cape Colony and westward from Zanzibar (thrust
southward from Egypt was blocked in the Sudan by independent Muslims
who won at Khartoum in 1885)
In 1895 another British force, under General Horatio Kitchener moved up
the Nile River building a railroad to supply arms and reinforcements as it
went
1. Finally in 1898, the British troops met the Muslim tribesmen,
armed with spears, at Omdurman but were massacred by the
recently invented machine gun
2. Continuing up the Nile after the Battle of Omdurman, Kitchener’s
armies found a French force in the village of Fashoda (France had
tried to beat the British to one of Africa’s last unclaimed areas—
the upper reaches of the Nile
3. The result was a serious diplomatic crisis and even the threat of
war
4. Wracked by the Dreyfus affair, France backed down and withdrew
its forces
2. Imperialism in Asia
1. In 1815, the Dutch ruled the island of Java in the East Indies and brought
almost all of the archipelago under their political authority (shared with
Britain and Germany)
2. In the 1880s, the French under the leadership of Ferry took Indochina
3. Two other great imperialist powers, Russia and the United States, also
acquired rich territories in Asia; Russia had been marked by almost
continual expansion continued to move south of the Caucasus and in
central Asia and nibbled at Far East in 1890s
4. The United States’ great conquest was the Philippines, taken from Spain in
1898 after the Spanish-American War and when it became clear
independence was not going to be granted, Philippine patriots rose in
revolt and were suppressed after bitter fighting
3. Causes of the New Imperialism
1. Economic motives played an important role in the extension of political
empires, especially the British Empire; by the 1870s, France, German, and
the United States were industrializing rapidly behind rising tariff barriers
1. Great Britain was losing its lead and facing competition in foreign
markets, Britain came to value old possessions, such as India and
Canada, more highly
2. When continental powers began to grab all unclaimed territory in
the 1880s, the British followed suit and feared that France and
German would seal off empires with high tariffs and restrictions
and that economic opportunities would be lost
2. The overall economic gains of the new imperialism proved quite limited
before 1914
1. The new colonies were just too poor to buy much and offered few
investments
2. Colonies became important for political and diplomatic reasons
and countries saw colonies as crucial to national security, military
power, and international prestige
3. National security was a factor in a U.S. decision to establish
Panama Canal Zone
3. Many people were convinced that colonies were essential to great nations
and Treitschke’s belief reflected aggressiveness of European nationalism
4. Social Darwinism and harsh racial doctrines fostered imperialist expansion
as well as the industrial world’s unprecedented technological and military
superiority
1. The rapidly firing machine gun was the ultimate weapon in any
unequal battle
2. The newly discovered quinine proved effective in controlling
attacks of malaria
3. The combination of the steamship and the international telegraph
permitted Western powers to quickly concentrate their firepower in
a given area
5. Social tensions and domestic political conflicts contributed to overseas
expansion
1. Conservative political leaders were charged with manipulating
colonial issues in order to divert popular attention from the class
struggle at home (national unity)
2. Government leaders and their allies in the press successfully
encouraged the masses to savor foreign triumphs and glory in the
supposed increase in prestige
6. Certain special-interest groups in each country were powerful agents of
expansion
1. Shipping companies wanted lucrative subsidies and white settlers
on dangerous frontiers constantly demanded more land and greater
protection
2. Missionaries and humanitarians wanted to spread religion but stop
the slave trade; explorers and adventurers sought knowledge and
excitement
3. Military men and colonial officials saw rapid advancement and
high-pay positions in growing empires (actions of such groups
thrust course of empire forward
7. Imperialists developed arguments in order to satisfy their consciences and
their critics
1. Europeans could and should “civilize” more primitive, nonwhite
peoples
2. Many Americans accepted the ideology of the white man’s burden
and was an important factor in the decision to rule, rather than
liberate, the Philippines
3. Peace and stability under European control permitted the spread of
Christianity—the true religion and Europeans competed with Islam
in seeking converts
4. Such successes in black Africa contrasted with general failure of
missionary effort in India, China, and the Islamic world (Christian
believers did not increase)
4. Critics of Imperialism
1. The expansion of empire aroused critics and a forceful attack was
delivered in 1902, after the unpopular Boer War, by English economic
Hobson in his Imperialism
1. Hobson contended that the rust to acquire colonies was due to the
economic needs of unregulated capitalism (the need of the rich to
find outlets for surplus capital)
2. Yet, he argued, imperial possessions did not pay off economically
for the country and only special-interest groups profited from
them, at the expense of people
3. Most people were sold on the idea that imperialism was
economically profitable for the homeland, and a general
enthusiasm for the empire developed
2. Similarly in Heart of Darkness, novelist Joseph Conrad castigated the
“pure selfishness” of Europeans in “civilizing” Africa
3. Critics charged Europeans with applying a degrading double standard and
failing to live up to their own noble ideals (Europeans imposed military
dictatorships on Africans and Asians, forced them to work like slaves, and
discriminated (liberation)
4. Reponses to Western Imperialism
1. Introduction
1. The initial response of African and Asian rulers was to try drive the
foreigners away but beaten in battle, many concentrated on preserving
their cultural traditions
2. Political participation in non-Western lands was usually limited to small
elites and the Europeans received considerable support from both
traditionalists (local chiefs, landowners, religious leaders and modernizers
(Western-education professionals)
3. The nonconformists—the eventual anti-imperialist leaders-developed a
burning desire for human dignity and came to feel such dignity was
incompatible with foreign rule
4. Potential leaders found in the West the ideologies and justification for
their protest
5. Nonconformists found themselves attracted to modern nationalism, which
asserted that every people had the right to control its own destiny (India,
Japan, and China)
2. Empire in India
1. India was ruled more or less absolutely by Britain for a very long time
1. Arriving in India, the British East India Company had conquered
the last independent native state by 1848 and the last “traditional”
response to European rule (military force by ruling classes) was
broken in India in 1857 and 1858
2. During the Great Rebellion, the insurrection by Muslim and Hindu
mercenaries in the British army spread throughout northern and
central India before it was crushed by loyal native troops from
southern India (European domination)
2. After 1858 India was ruled by the British Parliament in London and
administered by a tiny, all-white civil service in India (white elite, backed
by white officers and native troops, was competent and well disposed
toward the welfare of the peasant masses
3. Most of the members considered the Indian people and castes to be
racially inferior
4. The British Parliament in 1883 was considering a major bill to allow
Indian judges to try white Europeans in India, the British community rose
in protest and defeated it
5. The British established a modern system of progressive secondary
education in which all instruction was in English (offered some Indians
opportunities for advancement)
6. The new bureaucratic elite played a crucial role in modern economic
development
1. Irrigation projects for agriculture, the world’s third largest railroad
network for good communications, and large tea and jute
plantations were developed
2. With a well-educated, English-speaking Indian bureaucracy and
modern communications, the British created a unified, powerful
state
3. The British placed under the same general system of law and
administration the different Hindu and Muslim people and the
vanquished kingdoms of the continent
7. The decisive reaction to European rule was the rise of nationalism among
the elite; the top jobs, the best clubs, the modern hotels were sealed off the
Indian people
8. By 1885 when educated Indians came together to found the predominately
Hindu Indian National Congress, demands were increasing for the equality
and self-government; reform of the Hindu religion called for national
independence
3. The Example of Japan
1. When Commodore Perry arrived at Japan (1853), Japan was a complex
feudal society
1. At the top stood a figurehead emperor but real power had been in
the hands of a hereditary military governor, the shogun and with
the help of a warrior-nobility known as samurai, the shogun
governed a country of hard-working people
2. The intensely proud samurai were humiliated by the sudden
American intrusion
2. When foreign diplomats and merchants began to settle in Yokohama,
radical samurai reacted with a wave of anti-foreign terrorism and
antigovernment assassinations between 1858 and 1863; the imperialist
response was swift and unambiguous
3. An allied fleet of American, British, Dutch and French warships
demolished key forts, and further weakening the power and prestige of the
shogun’s government
4. In 1867, a coalition led by patriotic samurai seized control of the
government and restored the political power of the emperor (Meiji
Restoration)
1. The most important goal of the new government was to meet the
foreign threat
2. The young but well-trained, idealistic but flexible leaders of Meiji
Japan dropped their anti-foreign attacks and were convinced that
Western civilization was indeed superior in its military and
industrial aspects (reform along modern lines)
5. In 1871, the new leaders abolished the old feudal structure of aristocratic,
decentralized government and formed a strong unified state; they
dismantled the four-class legal system and declared social equality
(freedom of movement granted)
6. The overriding concern of Japan’s political leadership was always a
powerful state
1. A powerful modern navy was created and the army was completely
reorganized, with three-year military service for all males and a
professional officer corps
2. Japan also borrowed rapidly and adapted skillfully the West’s
science and modern technology, particularly in industry, medicine,
and education
7. By 1890, Japan established an authoritarian constitution and rejected
democracy and Japan successfully copied the imperialism of Western
society (expansion)
1. Japan opened Korea with gunboat diplomacy of imperialism in
1876, defeated China in a war over Korea in 1895 and took
Formosa (current-day Taiwan)
2. In 1904, Japan attacked Russia without warning and Japan
emerged victorious
8. Japan became the first non-Western country to use the ancient love of
country to transform itself and thereby meet the many-sided challenge of
Western expansion; Japan provide as an example of national recovery and
liberation
4. Toward Revolution in China
1. In 1860, the Manchu Dynasty in China appeared on the verge of collapse;
efforts to repel foreigners had failed, and rebellion and chaos wracked the
country
2. The government drew on its traditional strengths and made a surprising
comeback
1. Traditional ruling groups temporarily produced new and effective
leadership; loyal scholar-statesmen and generals quelled
disturbances such as the great Tai Ping rebellion and empress
dowager Tzu Hsi revitalized the bureaucracy
2. Destructive foreign aggression lessened for the Europeans had
obtained their primary goal of commercial and diplomatic relations
3. Europeans reorganized China’s customs office and increased tax
receipts, others represented China in foreign lands and helped
strengthen central government
3. The parallel movement toward domestic reform and limited cooperation
with the West collapsed under the blows of Japanese imperialism
4. The Sino-Japanese war of 1894 to 1895 and the subsequent harsh peace
treaty revealed China’s helplessness in the face of aggression, triggering a
rush for foreign concessions and protectorates in China (jealously saved
China from partition
5. The U.S. Open Door policy, which opposed formal annexation of Chinese
territory may have helped tip balance (impact of foreign penetration
accelerated after 1894)
6. Like the leaders of the Meiji Restoration, some modernizers saw salvation
in Western institutions and in 1898, the government launched a desperate
“hundred days of reform” in an attempt to meet the foreign challenge;
many radical reforms came from the peasantry and sought to overthrow
the dynasty altogether and establish a republic
7. Some traditionalists turned back toward ancient practices, political
conservatism and fanatical hatred of the “foreign devils” (clashed with
foreign missionaries)
8. In the agony of defeat and unwanted reforms, secret societies such as the
Boxers rebelled and many foreigners were killed in northeastern China
9. Again response was swift and Peking was occupied by foreign armies
(indemnity)
10. The years after the Boxer Rebellion (1900-1903) were more troubled and
finally in 1912, a spontaneous uprising toppled the Manchu Dynasty;
loose coalition of revolutionaries proclaimed a West-style republic and
called for an elected parliament