The Taiping rebels were led by Hong Xiuquan
( 1814-64), a village
teacher and unsuccessful imperial examination candidate. Hong
formulated an eclectic ideology combining the ideals of
pre-Confucian utopianism with Protestant beliefs. He soon had a
following in the thousands who were heavily anti-Manchu and
anti-establishment. Hong's followers formed a military
organization to protect against bandits and recruited troops not
only among believers but also from among other armed peasant
groups and secret societies. In 1851 Hong Xiuquan and others
launched an uprising in Guizhou (
)
Province. Hong proclaimed the
Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (
or Taiping Tianguo) with himself as king. The new order was to reconstitute a
legendary ancient state in which the peasantry owned and tilled
the land in common; slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage,
opium smoking, footbinding, judicial torture, and the worship of
idols were all to be eliminated. The Taiping tolerance of the
esoteric rituals and quasi-religious societies of south
China--themselves a threat to Qing stability--and their
relentless attacks on Confucianism--still widely accepted as the
moral foundation of Chinese behavior--contributed to the ultimate
defeat of the rebellion. Its advocacy of radical social reforms
alienated the Han Chinese scholar-gentry class. The Taiping army,
although it had captured Nanjing and driven as far north as
Tianjin (
),
failed to establish stable base areas. The movement's
leaders found themselves in a net of internal feuds, defections,
and corruption. Additionally, British and French forces, being
more willing to deal with the weak Qing administration than
contend with the uncertainties of a Taiping regime, came to the
assistance of the imperial army. Before the Chinese army
succeeded in crushing the revolt, however, 14 years had passed,
and well over 30 million people were reported killed.
To defeat the rebellion, the Qing court needed, besides Western
help, an army stronger and more popular than the demoralized
imperial forces. In 1860, scholar-official Zeng Guofan (
1811-72),
from Hunan (
) Province,
was appointed imperial commissioner and
governor-general of the Taiping-controlled territories and placed
in command of the war against the rebels. Zeng's Hunan army,
created and paid for by local taxes, became a powerful new
fighting force under the command of eminent scholar-generals.
Zeng's success gave new power to an emerging Han Chinese elite
and eroded Qing authority. Simultaneous uprisings in north China
(the Nian
Rebellion) and southwest
China (the Muslim Rebellion)
further demonstrated Qing weakness.
The Self-Strengthening Movement
The rude realities of the Opium War, the unequal treaties, and
the mid-century mass uprisings caused Qing courtiers and
officials to recognize the need to strengthen China. Chinese
scholars and officials had been examining and translating
"Western learning" since the 1840s. Under the direction of
modern-thinking Han officials, Western science and languages were
studied, special schools were opened in the larger cities, and
arsenals, factories, and shipyards were established according to
Western models. Western diplomatic practices were adopted by the
Qing, and students were sent abroad by the government and on
individual or community initiative in the hope that national
regeneration could be achieved through the application of Western
practical methods.
Amid these activities came an attempt to arrest the dynastic
decline by restoring the traditional order. The effort was known
as the Tongzhi Restoration, named for the Tongzhi
()Emperor (1862-74),
and was engineered by the young emperor's mother, the
Empress Dowager
Ci Xi (
1835-1908).
The restoration, however,
which applied "practical knowledge" while reaffirming the old
mentality, was not a genuine program of modernization.
The effort to graft Western technology onto Chinese institutions
became known as the Self-Strengthening Movement
(). The movement was
championed by scholar-generals like Li Hongzhang (
1823-1901) and
Zuo Zongtang (
1812-85),
who had fought with the government forces
in the Taiping Rebellion. From 1861 to 1894, leaders such as
these, now turned scholar-administrators, were responsible for
establishing modern institutions, developing basic industries,
communications, and transportation, and modernizing the military.
But despite its leaders' accomplishments, the Self-Strengthening
Movement did not recognize the significance of the political
institutions and social theories that had fostered Western
advances and innovations. This weakness led to the movement's
failure. Modernization during this period would have been
difficult under the best of circumstances. The bureaucracy was
still deeply influenced by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. Chinese
society was still reeling from the ravages of the Taiping and
other rebellions, and foreign encroachments continued to threaten
the integrity of China.
The first step in the foreign powers' effort to carve up the empire was taken by Russia, which had been expanding into Central Asia. By the 1850s, tsarist troops also had invaded the Heilong Jiang watershed of Manchuria, from which their countrymen had been ejected under the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The Russians used the superior knowledge of China they had acquired through their century-long residence in Beijing to further their aggrandizement. In 1860 Russian diplomats secured the secession of all of Manchuria north of the Heilong Jiang and east of the Wusuli Jiang (Ussuri River). Foreign encroachments increased after 1860 by means of a series of treaties imposed on China on one pretext or another. The foreign stranglehold on the vital sectors of the Chinese economy was reinforced through a lengthening list of concessions. Foreign settlements in the treaty ports became extraterritorial--sovereign pockets of territories over which China had no jurisdiction. The safety of these foreign settlements was ensured by the menacing presence of warships and gunboats.
At this time the foreign powers also took over the peripheral
states that had acknowledged Chinese suzerainty and given tribute
to the emperor. France colonized Cochin China, as southern
Vietnam was then called, and by 1864 established a protectorate
over Cambodia. Following a victorious war against China in
1884-85, France also took Annam. Britain gained control over
Burma. Russia penetrated into Chinese Turkestan (the modern-day
Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region). Japan, having emerged from
its century-and-a-half-long seclusion and having gone through its
own modernization movement, defeated China in the war of 1894-95.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki forced China to cede Taiwan and the
Penghu Islands to Japan, pay a huge indemnity, permit the
establishment of Japanese industries in four treaty ports, and
recognize Japanese hegemony over Korea. In 1898 the British
acquired a ninety-nine-year lease over the so-called New
Territories of Kowloon ( or
Jiulong in pinyin), which increased the
size of their Hong Kong colony. Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany,
France, and Belgium each gained spheres of influence in China.
The United States, which had not acquired any territorial
cessions, proposed in 1899 that there be an "open door" policy in
China, whereby all foreign countries would have equal duties and
privileges in all treaty ports within and outside the various
spheres of influence. All but Russia agreed to the United States
overture.