After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the so-called "China's theory of extinction" prevailed among the great powers. They think that China is actually extinct and can be easily divided into several countries or regions, and then ruled separately according to the "sphere of influence" that each country has formed in China. However, this situation did not form in the end. Is it the "kindness" of a big country or China's ability to fight?
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The foreign powers invaded China,
The gradual process was chosen.
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After the Middle Ages, the concentrated outbreak of wars between countries mainly began in Europe. After Spain, Portugal and other traditional powers, the Netherlands, France, Britain and Germany have risen one after another. With the rise of every emerging power, there is often one or several wars. Relatively speaking, Asia in the East is relatively calm. Since the 7th century, China has changed dynasties every two or three hundred years, except in accordance with the "historical cycle rate".
The change came from the beginning of the19th century, when China's national strength gradually weakened and the hegemonic pattern of European powers took shape. The worldwide colonial struggle has entered a new stage. On the one hand, hunters, on the other hand, are unconscious prey, and a hunting activity has been launched around China, which has not been colonized.
At that time, China had a population of more than 400 million, more than 20 times that of Britain, and its total economic output accounted for more than 30% of the world, which should not be underestimated by any country. China also has a standing army of more than 800,000, ranking first in the world in number, and any western country will definitely not dare to deal with China by direct conquest. So after Holland, Portugal and Spain, Britain, which came to China with great interest, initially sent not their troops, but the merchant ships of the East India Company.
Industrial manufacturing and foreign trade are the most powerful weapons for Britain to conquer the world, and they have been invincible in other corners of the world. However, when I came to China, I felt at a loss. Tea in China is an essential means of livelihood for the British, and it is imported in large quantities every year. However, it is difficult for British machine-made products and wool textiles to open the market in China, which is used to self-sufficiency.
Maintaining the strong position of the pound is an important part of British global hegemony, and controlling the export of gold and silver is the most important way to maintain the strong position of the pound. For this reason, Britain has enacted strict laws, but in the case of a serious deficit with China's goods, Britain can only watch the glittering silver being shipped to the East one after another.
If the military is the continuation of politics, then the economy is the forerunner of politics. Traditional powers and emerging powers will initially start in the form of trade wars before launching a comprehensive contest. In order to change the passive situation of trade, the British took out opium grown in India. They insist that this is purely an economic issue and avoid coming forward in the form of a country, but these cannot change the moral debt of the opium trade at all, so the two sides launched a fierce confrontation around smoking ban and smoking ban.
The Great Qing Dynasty was defeated, but perhaps out of self-knowledge, Britain still dared not be too greedy at this time. Apart from war reparations and the cession of Hong Kong Island, they are more interested in the increase of trading ports and the convenience of tariffs. They still believe that as long as the real "free trade" is realized, they still have enough confidence to conquer this country first economically.
But after several years, they found that the effect was not great. China was too big and old, and there were many things that outsiders could not easily understand. At the initiative of Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other European and American countries eager to expand their interests in China, they have proposed "amending the treaty" one after another. After repeated diplomatic exchanges, naval guns finally had the final say, so there was the Second Opium War and the invasion of Beijing by British and French Coalition forces, and there were the Tianjin Treaty and the Tianjin Treaty.
Unequal treaties are like ropes. Every time you sign one, it is like putting one on the huge body of the Great Qing Dynasty. European and American countries launched a "dragon slayer" war, but they didn't want this dragon to die soon. Just before and after the Second Opium War, the Belal Uprising of 1853, the Oder Uprising of 1856 and the Oder Uprising of 1857 broke out in the British colony. Looking for a new colonial model, here in China, they may think that they can control everything in this country without destroying its regime or directly ruling its people instead of its government. Only by completely controlling it economically can they realize long-term rule over this country.
So a strange phenomenon appeared: during the Second Opium War, British and French gunboats constantly threatened to attack Beijing and burned down the Forbidden City in Dagukou, Tianjin, but outside Shanghai, they mobilized troops to cooperate with the Qing army and aimed their guns at the Taiping Army trying to overthrow the rule of the Qing government. For the long-term interests of European and American powers, they know that they can't even rule India well, and direct rule over China can only be counterproductive, so they need a weak but unyielding Qing government.
After the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War and Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion, Empress Dowager Cixi accepted blackmail from the great powers in order to keep her precarious position. After foreign troops entered Beijing and its surrounding areas, Empress Dowager Cixi and her regime were firmly controlled by the great powers militarily, politically and economically. At this time, the Qing government had undergone a qualitative change: it no longer represented China's population of more than 400 million, but became the agent of the foreign powers ruling China, and China was completely "trapped" by the foreign powers.
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Economic division is more thorough than territorial division.
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If all this is caused by the greedy nature of western colonialism, it ignores the internal side of historical tragedy; If all this is caused by the capitulationism and incompetence of Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi, Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi, then we just don't fully understand history.
In fact, except for the young emperor Tongzhi, several others were generally "xenophobic" or at least "hard-liners" in spirit. Daoguang banned smoking for more than a dozen times and declared war twice; Emperor Xianfeng has always been disgusted with the powers, and his mouth is tougher than his predecessor. He has repeatedly said that he will not hesitate to fight. Although Emperor Guangxu was out of office most of the time, he also urged Qiang Bing to become a rich country in a limited space, hoping that the country would get rich and get rid of the control of foreign powers. As for Empress Dowager Cixi, although most people think her image is negative, she is not a complete capitulator. She ordered to declare war on the powers of 1 1 at the same time.
At that time, China's problems were not caused by a few top leaders, so how to do it was too simple. The problem of China is so complicated that no one can do anything about it. These problems can be summarized from different angles. Some people say that the western powers have been fighting fiercely since19th century, and China is still in16th century. In fact, the16th century is probably overestimated, and it is generally correct to say that China is still in the10th century.
Since the establishment of the unified feudal system in the Qin Dynasty, although its system has been constantly updated and reformed for more than two thousand years, its core has not changed much. This system emphasizes the supremacy of kings and centralization in politics and agriculture over commerce in economy. With this model, the Han Dynasty ruled easily for 4 10 years, the Tang Dynasty for 290 years, the Song Dynasty for 320 years and the Ming Dynasty for 276 years. In the eyes of rulers, stability is its advantage.
After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, this system was continued. Although the means of governing the country are different from those in the Han and Tang dynasties, there is little difference in essence. From the financial system, it has continued the tax method of agricultural countries and established a tax system with land tax as the main body. There is a complete method for how much to collect and how much to raise. If there is nothing or nothing big in the world, it can keep running. However, when some problems that have never been encountered appear, how to deal with them only from the economic level will become a thorny issue, which is very prominent in the late Qing Dynasty.
The late Qing government had no concept of public finance. This is a framework of "small government". It collected some taxes from agricultural taxes and used more than half of them to support its standing army. The rest of the officials' salaries, royal expenses and disaster relief expenses are gone. The role of finance in regulating the economy, investing in infrastructure and strengthening national defense is basically not reflected. Although the country was big and the government was small, the Opium War was easily defeated.
Modern economy is not only guided by industrialization, but also attaches more importance to the financial function of the government, the development of foreign trade and the promotion of finance to economic development. In terms of financial construction, the late Qing government almost handed in a blank sheet of paper: for a long time, there was no financial regulation, no central bank or even a commercial bank operated by domestic capital, but their attempt to issue paper money failed, and they sat idly by while 20 foreign banks issued paper money in China and circulated everywhere; Without financial support, the Westernization Movement would become an "unfinished project". The serious consequences caused by the lack of these systems and mechanisms, in turn, affect the whole economy and military, affect politics, and make China's rope tighter.
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Why did several attempts to "untie" fail?
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The people of China never want to be oppressed and enslaved, and certainly they will not lose the struggle. The history of foreign powers' invasion of China is also the history of countless China people's efforts to save themselves and strive for self-improvement.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was a self-help movement initiated by a group of farmers. Although their target was the incompetent Manchu government, their motive was to free more than 400 million China people from internal and external oppression and exploitation and rebuild a powerful country, so what they did could be regarded as a "settlement" action. Like many peasant uprisings in China's history, Taiping Army played the slogan of "land equalization system", which immediately generated great appeal and enabled it to confront the Qing government in just three years.
But different from previous dynasties, the situation at home and abroad has changed greatly at this time. China's social stratum is no longer the original simple agricultural population as the absolute subject. The rise of various new classes has produced diversified interests, and economic development has also shown diversity. A simple slogan of land reform and a political proposition in a religious cloak cannot mobilize all sectors of society to join the revolution. The Taiping Army lost its momentum in the early stage, but its spirit gradually faded. The root cause is.
Moreover, in the past, peasant uprisings were never interfered by external forces, and the Taiping Army had to face western powers. After accurate calculation, the western forces believe that standing on the side of the Qing government is the embodiment of maximizing their interests. Although they were rivals with the Qing government, they chose to support it, and the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement failed under internal and external attack.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was a struggle outside the system, and the elites inside the system then launched the Westernization Movement, trying to "solve the problem" for China. On the surface, this movement is developing vigorously. Actually, there are too many shortcomings. The most fundamental guiding ideology is that a "Chinese style and westernization" shows the mentality of the Westernization School and their anxiety: they dare not take political risks, but they want to smoothly promote their modernization, so the support they get from it is bound to be limited and conditional.
This movement, which is full of contradictions and defects from ideology to system and mechanism, is easy to expose flaws when it encounters key links. Low efficiency and lack of innovation are the overall evaluation of Westernization Movement. Relying on this economic movement, which is deficient in nature and weak in the day after tomorrow, it is still difficult for China to break free from the ropes of the great powers.
Although failure is a common occurrence, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 still stunned Chinese people because the opponent was Japan. Not long ago, this country was not as good as itself. Now it is on an equal footing with the great powers, and it is also qualified to put the rope they threw on China.
This great change triggered the political reform movement in China. It is not so much a replica of Meiji Restoration in China as a "imitation show" in which a group of intellectuals with inferior ideas are doomed to fail, because China at this time no longer has the internal and external conditions to launch Meiji Restoration, which is due to political, economic and ideological reasons as well as foreign powers. European and American powers can tolerate the rise of Japan, but they will not sit idly by and watch China break the rope.
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The tragedy of "the country perishes and the people live" cannot be repeated.
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Memories of the past are the teachers of the future, revealing what painful scars are for. Looking back on the colonial history since modern times, we not only have anger and sadness in our hearts, but also have calm thinking.
Although it has been over 100 years, many things seem to have happened yesterday. Some people, some words, seem to float before our eyes and ears from time to time. We can't even guarantee that the humiliation of the past will never happen again. When we encounter similar challenges again, we cannot predict whether we will do better than our predecessors.
China in the late Qing Dynasty was still not a small country, although its interior was extremely empty and fragile. When the British first used gunboats to force the Qing government to submit, the conditions put forward were still limited. It's not that the colonists at that time were still kind, but if China was pushed to the edge of the cliff at that time, the supreme ruler and people could only choose World War I, and the result was unpredictable.
Within the Qing government, treaty of nanking was called the "Peace Treaty of Ten Thousand Years", thinking that the nightmare could end from now on, but what they didn't know was that once the devil's box was opened, it could no longer be covered, and the events behind it became out of control, and the rope around him was gradually tightened by the powers until it was completely "trapped".
The enlightenment of history is that there is no difference between the size and the number of "losses" involving national interests and principles, and there is no choice but to resist. Tolerance and compromise can't buy national dignity. Even if the body of a completely "trapped" China is still there, the country has already perished. As an aggressor said, China people will eventually become another Jewish people, "the country perishes and the people live".
The wheel of history will not stop for you to reflect, you can only move forward while thinking. The road ahead is always bumpy. Although the road is wide, you cannot walk alone. You have friends and opponents around you. More often, you will become stronger because of the existence of your opponent. For poor and weak modern China, some people say that it is a sleeping lion, and once it wakes up, it will shock the world. The problem is, after all, you can't sleep too long, and you can't let your opponent think that you are really dead!