Althoughthe Manchus were not Han Chinese and were strongly resisted, especiallyin the south, they had assimilated a great deal of Chinese culture beforeconquering China Proper. Realizing that to dominate the empire they wouldhave to do things the Chinese way, the Manchus retained many institutionsof Ming and earlier Chinese derivation. They continued the Confucian courtpractices and temple rituals, over which the emperors had traditionallypresided. The Manchus continued the Confucian civilservice system. Although Chinese were barred from the highest offices,Chinese officials predominated over Manchu officeholders outside the capital,except in military positions. The Neo-Confucian philosophy, emphasizingthe obedience of subject to ruler, was enforced as the state creed. TheManchu emperors also supported Chinese literary and historical projectsof enormous scope; the survival of much of China's ancient literature isattributed to these projects. Ever suspicious of Han Chinese, the Qing rulersput into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchusinto the dominant Han Chinese population. Han Chinese were prohibited frommigrating into the Manchu homeland, and Manchus were forbidden to engagein trade or manual labor. Intermarriage between the two groups was forbidden.In many government positions a system of dual appointments was used--theChinese appointee was required to do the substantive work and the Manchuto ensure Han loyalty to Qing rule. The Qing regime was determined to protectitself not only from internal rebellion but also from foreign invasion.After China Proper had been subdued, the Manchus conquered Outer Mongolia(now the Mongolian People's Republic) in the late seventeenth century.In the eighteenth century they gained control of Central Asia as far asthe Pamir Mountains and established a protectorate over the area the Chinesecall Xizang, but commonly known in the West as Tibet. The Qing thus becamethe first dynasty to eliminate successfully all danger to China Properfrom across its land borders. Under Manchu rule the empire grew to includea larger area than before or since; Taiwan, the last outpost of anti-Manchuresistance, was also incorporated into China for the first time. In addition,Qing emperors received tribute from the various border states. The chief threat to China's integrity didnot come overland, as it had so often in the past, but by sea, reachingthe southern coastal area first. Western traders, missionaries, and soldiersof fortune began to arrive in large numbers even before the Qing, in thesixteenth century. The empire's inability to evaluate correctly the natureof the new challenge or to respond flexibly to it resulted in the demiseof the Qing and the collapse of the entire millennia-old framework of dynasticrule. In 1644, the Manchus took over China andfounded the Qing dynasty. The Qing weren't the worst rulers; under themthe arts flowered (China's greatest novel, a work known variously as TheDream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of theStone, was written during the Qing) and culture bloomed. Moreover, theyattempted to copy Chinese institutions and philosophy to a much greaterextent than then the Mongols of the Yuan. However, in their attempt toto emulate the Chinese, they were even more conservative and inflexiblethan the Ming. Their approach to foreign policy, which was to make everyonetreat the Emperor like the Son of Heaven and not acknowledge other countriesas being equal to China, didn't rub the West the right way, even when theChinese were in the moral right (as in the Opium Wars, which netted BritainHong Kong and Kowloon). To live during the Qing Dynasty was to livein interesting times. Most importantly, the Western world attempted tomake contact on a government-to-government basis, and, at least initially,failed. The Chinese (more specifically, the ultra-conservative Manchus)had no room in their world-view for the idea of independent, equal nations(this viewpoint, to a certain degree, still persists today). There wasthe rest of the world, and then there was China. It wasn't that they rejectedthe idea of a community of nations; it's that they couldn't conceive ofit. It would be like trying to teach a Buddhist monk about the Father,Son, and the Holy Ghost. This viewpoint was so pervasive that Chinese reformerswho advocated more flexibility in China's dealings with the West were oftenaccused of being Westerners with Chinese faces. Other problems that plagued the late (1840onwards) Qing included rampant corruption, a steady decentralization ofpower, and the unfortunate fact that they were losing control on too manyfronts at the same time. Rebellions sprouted like mushrooms after a rain;apocalyptic cults undermined what little official authority remained. Severalof the rebellions, such as the Taiping Rebellion, very nearly succeeded.Compounding the problems was squabbling between various reformers who disagreedon how to best combat the chaos and the West (not necessarily in that order);in hindsight, it is clear that the entire system was slowly collapsing.An excellent account of this period is Frederic Wakeman Jr.'s TheFall of Imperial China. The attitude of the Western powers towardsChina (England, Russia, Germany, France, and the United States, were, moreor less, the primary players) was strangely ambivalent. On the one hand,they did their best to undermine what they considered to be restrictivetrading and governmental regulations; the best (or worst, depending onyour point of view) example of that was the British smuggling of opiuminto Southern China. Other examples included the 'right' for foreign naviesto sail up Chinese rivers and waterways, and extra-territoriality, whichmeant that if a British citizen committed a crime in Qing China, he wouldbe tried in a British council under British law. Most of these 'rights'came into being under a series of treaties that came to be known, and rightlyso, as the Unequal Treaties. On the other hand, they did do their bestto prop up the ailing Qing, the most notable example being the crushingof the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 by foreign troops (primarily U.S. Marines).What the Western powers were interested in was the carving up of Chinafor their own purposes, and that, paradoxically, required keeping Chinatogether. But two things happened to prevent that. First,in 1911, the Qing dynasty collapsed and China plunged headlong into chaos.Second, in 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand told his driver to go down a streetin Sarajevo he shouldn't have, and Europe plunged headlong into chaos. The period from 1644 AD to 1911 AD is knownas the Qing Dynasty. From the north, the Manchus invaded and set up thelast Imperial dynasty, the Qing. During the reign of Emperor Kang Xi (1661-1722),Chinese influence was extended to Mongolia, Central Asia, Tibet, Korea,Annam, Burma, and Thailand. By the 19th century the dynasty had gone intodecline from adherence to obsolete ways, corruption within, and the opiumtrade with Europe. For the first 150 years of their rule, the Manchusgave China good government and strong leadership. In the eighteenth century,China attained the last golden age of the Imperial tradition and was verylikely the most awe-inspiring state in the world. Its principles of governanceand social organization were so admired by Voltaire and other Western intellectualsthat Confucianism became a much studied philosophy in Europe. Chinese objectsand themes had a lasting influence on European art, literature, architecture,gardens and decor. In 1911 revolutionary groups, inspired by Dr. Sun Yat-sen,a Western-educated physician, succeeded in overthrowing the Qing, bringingto an end more than 2,000 years of intermittent Imperial rule by eightmajor dynasties. 
|
