ramana, my response was with respect only to your following quote, which talks of geopolitics.ramana wrote:Read the speeches by Republic of China intellectual Hu Shih. He puts all those acts in the CoH.
Qing order collapsed due to the indignities heaped on ordinary Chinese.
Specifically COH period is 1839-1949.
The collapse of the Qing is not entirely due to these. All I am saying is that during the terminal phase of the Qing dynasty, they had their plate full when it came to geopolitics not only within China itself but also in the region surrounding them. It was of an order of magnitude severer than what China had ever seen before.Far from being hobbled by a Sinocentric worldview, Qing China's officials and scholars paid close attention to foreign affairs. To meet the growing British threat, they adapted institutional practices and geopolitical assumptions to coordinate a response across their maritime and inland borderlands. In time, the new and more active response to Western imperialism built on this foundation reshaped not only China's diplomacy but also the internal relationship between Beijing and its frontiers.
It is no doubt that the sense of humiliation felt by the Han due to the occupation of China by foreigners was a big cause of the Qing's collapse. That was the reason for the Boxers' Revolution which even the Qing Army joined against the 'foreigners'. But, there were several other reasons as well. I will list the following reasons for the collapse of the Qing dynasty, not in any particular order:
- The Chinese revolutionaries were influenced by developments in Japan, the Meiji Restoration, the establishment of Democracy, and the phenomenal economic, political and military growth that the 'ancient rival', Japan, began to experience. They thought that the Chinese dynastic rule stood in the way of modernization. Even the Qing recognized that and tried to change. For example, they abolished the 'Examination' System that has been in vogue for nearly 2000 years.
- Thinkers like Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and later Sun Yat-sen & Song Jiaoren appeared on the scene. The 1895 defeat of Qing China at the hands of Japan, the loss of Korea & Ryukyu, and granting of the MFN label to Japan added fuel to these thinkers that unless Imperialism was done away with, China won't see similar progress. The Shimonoseki Treaty was humiliating to the Han and the Qing were blamed for that.
- The sentiments behind the Boxers' Revolution and the Beijing siege were exploited. Some of these thinkers escaped from China and even travelled to and stayed in Japan and the US to direct movements in China.
- A campaign was started that the Manchus were alien and barbarian Tatars and China must be restored to the Ming
CoH has also been repeatedly invoked from Mao to XJP to serve their needs.