Qing Dynasty Essay

In the 7th Century, China was the model to imitate as the Tang dynasty was one of the richest civilizations in the world (“What China wants,” 2014). The Qing dynasty began to decline in the 1800s as Western powers assert control of China. To restore to its former glory, China launched several reforms and revolutions during the 19th and 20th century but was only successful during the 1980s.

Self-Strengthening Movement The Qing dynasty initiated the Self-Strengthening Movement to learn Western science and knowledge, all of which could be employed to defend the dynasty from foreign aggressors. Typically dated 1861 to 1894, the reform was limited to acquiring technology, as the elites still held on to Confucianism and were adverse to Western ideologies (Wan, 2014). However, the rapid advancement in technology and military organization did not prevent China from suffering losses during the Sino-French War in 1884 and the Sino-Japanese

There was a need to unite the nation and improve the literacy level of its people. The leaders of the new nation-state believed that they could meet their goals by creating national standards for language use (Wan, 2014). Following the revolution, the Republic of China inherited all the territories of the Qing Empire, which included Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. In order to create a national language, the Han bureaucrats worked to homogenize the multi-ethnic nation-state by declaring that Han, Manchu, and Tibetans originated from the same ancestry (Wan, 2014). Promoting Mandarin as the national language alienated not only the minority ethnic groups, but also people living in Canton, and other non-Mandarin areas. With no modern institutions to support it, the new republic soon collapsed into a civil war that ended with Mao Zedong’s Communists establishing the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (“What China wants,”