The boundaries of China are presently based on the territory that was controlled by the famous Qing dynasty that ruled a large of chunk of the Asia from 1644 to 1912.. The first few years of this dynasty witnessed great peace and prosperity in China. There were relatively very few revolts or uprisings. However, as time progressed and the power changed hands, opposition against the Qing rule started to spring up and people started to become discontented with rule. The leaders of the opposition were mainly the peasants who experienced massive economic decline as taxation became rampant throughout the empire. The rebellions towards the Qing’s dynasty rule rose to stupendous levels in the 19th Century and tricked over to the 20th Century. Coupled with other factors, the rebellions eventually culminated into the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1922 bringing an end to one of the world’s longest standing dynasties (Smith 23).
The weakening of the Qing Dynasty in the 19th Century was a result of both internal and external factors. As mentioned earlier, rebellion was one of the factors that contributed to the weakening of the dynasty. The most prominent of these rebellions was the Taiping rebellion. Perhaps it would be wise top first look at the factors that stimulated the emergence of the rebellion before looking at the rebellion itself. They Qing dynasty had for the first 150 years experienced relative calm and the number of revolts and uprising were hugely reserved. A significant contributor to this was the stagnancy in demographic trends. The 19th Century was however a very different Century and it experienced unprecedented growth in populated growth, colossal social strife as well as economic stagnation. Rapid population growth particularly had serious consequences as it meant less food for the dynasty’s already stretched food strain. The most affected were the peasants and as result, disgruntle started to rise among them. In addition, corruption became rampant throughout the Kingdom. Social unrest became widespread as more and more people became irritated with the dynasty’s rule. Rebellions therefore sprang up to oppose the government. The Taiping rebellion was the most prominent of these and was founded by Hong Xiunquan, the son of a poor peasant farmer (Michael 15). Xiunquan showed early signs of being an excellent scholar but he however underwent a mental breakdown after failing the common civil service tests. Drawing inspiration from Christian missionaries, he established a rebellion that sought to establish a holy kingdom of Heavenly Peace. The rebellion started protesting against the government in the province of Guanxi in 1850 but they were attacked by the Qing government troops. They however defeated the troops and from there, the rebellion gained momentum and proceeded to capture some of the territory owned by the Qing government. Although the government was finally able to crush the rebellion in 1864 using foreign help, the government was however left in a relative state of weakness (Michael 76).
Apart from these internal pressures, there were a lot of influences from foreign aspects that led to the weakening of the Qing dynasty in the 19th century. One was these factors was the increasing presence of foreign European traders in the Chinese region (Smith 45). The increase in the number of foreigners strained the administration’s ability to effectively deal with change. For example, for a long time, the government had utilized the Canton system which regulated trade with international powers by giving a premise that these powers had to be fully submissive to the Chinese authority for any trade to take place. The British East India Company particularly complied with this doctrine and prohibited Chinese opium importation. There was general increase in trade with foreign powers in the 19th Century but illegal opium trade also rose significantly and more and more Chinese were becoming addicted to opium. The Chinese government appointed a special sect to combat this trade and this led to the arrest of several British shipments. The British were very quick in response and sent several warships to attack the Chinese coast in the year 1840. This once again exposed the weakness of the Dynasty as it could not match the highly advanced British artillery (Smith 67). The war lasted for two years and at the end China was forced to accept several peace treaty terms that included opening up several ports to the British and surrendering Hong Kong. They were further weakened by being forced to pay ernomous damages. In subsequent years, the Chinese were forced to make similar treaties with the US and France further weakening the Chinese central authority.
As opium trade increased, it also created economic problems for the dynast further weakening it. The exchange rate for the silver currency was decreased and this affected the ability of the peasants to pay taxes who made their displease with the situation public and organized themselves into the rebellions. All these factors helped in the weakening the Qing’s dynasty (Haw 62).
Both the internal and the external factors played a role in the weakening of the dynasty and it appears as if the degree was almost the same for both aspects. The Qing dynasty had tried to find some solutions to the increasing problems but these also helped to aggravate the situation, For instance, seizing British shipments in the hope of curbing opium trade only led to more weakening of the government as a result of the harsh terms of the treaty. In addition, choosing to end the rebellions through warfare did not help the situation and in fact only made it worse where many people lost their lives and the government structure became weakened (Haw 333).
The dynasty cannot however be blamed as this is just the normal part of the world’s dynasty. No dynasty is destined to rule forever and it is therefore bound to witness serious rebellion in its latter years and some of its response patterns may not always be effective and this ultimately results in the collapse of the dynasty.
Works Cited
Smith, Richard J. China's Cultural Heritage: The Qing Dynasty, 1644-1912. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994. Print
Haw, Stephen G. Beijing: A Concise History. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Michael, Franz. The Taiping Rebellion; History and Documents. Three volumes. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966–1971.
