China Changes caused by European Domination of the 1800’s

Throughout most of its history, China had been isolated from most European trade. Under the Qing Dynasty, China was self-sufficient, so it did not believe that it needed any European supplies. The Chinese had plenty of rice, corn, potatoes, and peanuts (that it had imported from other areas, but grew well in southern China), and they also had plenty of mineral resources. In other words, the Chinese didn’t need anything from Europe, but Europeans wanted the silks, teas, iron, and other goods from China…but how to get them.???

Since the first trade began between the Chinese and Europeans, the Chinese had limited European activity. Europeans were only allowed to trade in the port city of Guangzhou, and the Chinese sold a whole lot more than they bought. This continued to make China richer and richer. Europeans struggled to find a product that the Chinese would want or crave, but late in the 18 th century they found it. Opium. Opium is a drug that is produced from the poppy plant. It was originally used as a pain killer, but the English sold it to the Chinese as a drug to smoke and get high with.

By 1835, at least 12 million Chinese were addicted to Opium and a major trade product had been produced. The Chinese government obviously didn’t like having its citizens drugged by the British so they argued and protested. The British refused to stop selling Opium and China eventually went to war in Old Chinese sailing ships were no match for British steam-powered ships so the British won the war. As a result, according to the Treaty of Nanjing the British took control of the island of Hong Kong. Other European countries and the United States also moved in and forced China to sign trade agreements. Chinese independence was pretty much gone.

Not only were the Chinese having problems with foreigners, but they were having problems internally also. The population has risen from about 320 million to about 440 million in the first half of the 1800s. They simply didn’t have enough food for everybody. China had quickly gone from a great empire, to a country of poor, starving, backwards drug addicts, and they weren’t happy about it.

A man named Hong Xiuquan began to lead a revolution. He wanted Chinese wealth and resources to belong to Chinese people, not foreigners. His revolt was known as the Taiping Revolution. His army of over 1 million took over large areas of China before being defeated by combined troops from England, France and the official Chinese government. The Taiping Revolution was defeated and over 20 million Chinese died in the fighting. Not only did China lose 20 million people, but they also lost what was left of control of their own country.

Dowager Empress Cixi took control of China and struggled to keep the country under control. She was forced to balance the desires of the Chinese people, with the demands of the foreign invaders. She did improve the educational system and the military, in a move to modernize the country, but her efforts were hindered by Europeans who wanted to continue taking advantage of the Chinese, as well as Chinese who did not want to change from their traditional ways.

While China was split between reformers and traditionalists, Europeans took even more control. They created “spheres of influence” in which European countries took certain regions of China and completely controlled all economic activity in that region. Worried that it would lose out on the wealth of China, the United States organized an agreement called the “Open door policy” in which all regions of China could openly trade with anybody, regardless of what the other Europeans or even the Chinese government wanted. Now China was completely at the mercy of foreigners.

Frustration with their lack of power in their own country, many peasants began to speak out and be punished. Eventually a large group known as the “Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists”, and later simply called “the Boxers”, revolted. In 1900 the Boxers moved to the capital city of Beijing and began rebelling against Europeans in the city. They were defeated by European armies.

Although the Boxers had been defeated, the nationalistic ideas of China were growing. They wanted to be free from European influence, but strangely the only way to get this was to change their government to a more European style democracy or constitutional monarchy. By 1908, it was decided that China would indeed move to a constitutional government that would take over by This move was intended to end foreign domination of China and stabilize the country internally. It did neither.

1.What Dynasty was controlling China at the beginning of the 19 th century (1800s)? 2.What product did the British begin selling to the Chinese to change the balance of trade? 3.What treaty ended the Opium War? What agreements did it make? 4.Why was China having internal problems in the 1800s? 5.Who was Hong Xiuquan and what did he do? 6.What was the main problem faced by Empress Cixi? 7.What were “spheres of influence” and the “Open Door Policy” and how did they impact China? 8.Who were the Boxers and what did they want? Were they successful?