HIST 112 Chapter 22 Lecture Shadows over the Pacific East Asia Under Challenge

Internal Decline or Western Pressure?

In 1800, the Qing or Manchu dynasty was at the height of its power.

China had experienced a long period of peace and prosperity under the rule of two great emperors, Kangxi and Qianlong.

Its borders were secure, and its culture and intellectual achievements were the envy of the world.

Its rulers, hidden behind the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing, had every reason to describe their patrimony as the “Central Kingdom.”

But a little over a century later, humiliated and harassed by the black ships and big guns of the Western powers, the Qing dynasty, the last in a series that had endured for more than two thousand years, collapsed in the dust.

Historians once assumed that the primary reason for the rapid decline and fall of the Manchu dynasty was the intense pressure applied by the Western powers.

Now, however, most historians believe that internal changes played a major role in the dynasty’s collapse and that at least some of its problems during the nineteenth century were self-inflicted.

Both explanations have some validity.

Like so many of its predecessors, after an extended period of growth, the Qing dynasty began to suffer from the familiar dynastic ills of official corruption, peasant unrest, and incompetence at court.

Such weaknesses were probably exacerbated by the rapid growth in population.

The long era of peace, the introduction of new crops from the Americas, and the cultivation of new, fast-ripening strains of rice enabled the Chinese population to double between 1550 and 1800 and to reach the unprecedented level of 400 million by the end of the nineteenth century.

Even without the Western powers, the Manchus were probably destined to repeat the fate of their imperial predecessors.

The ships, guns, and ideas of the foreigners simply highlighted the growing weakness of the dynasty and likely hastened its demise.

In doing so, Western imperialism exerted an indelible impact on the history of modern China—but as a contributing, not a causal, factor.

Duiker, William J. The Essential World History, Volume 2: since 1500. Thomson Higher Education, 2018.