China AH Challenge

Construct a timeline in which Qing China successively modernises in the 19th century and becomes a major power in the early 20th century and by the end of the 20th century is the most powerful nation on Earth.
 
The simplest solution is to change Pope Clement XI's decree on the Chinese Rites Controversy. The Chinese Christians also ritually worshipped their ancestors as part of their Confucian heritage. Jesuit missionaries have long tolerate this and recognized Confucianism as a philosophy rather than religion. However far away in Rome there was a power struggle against the Jesuits and their detractors demanded Chinese Christians conform to Catholic standards.

In 1715 Clement decreed against the Jesuit interpretation. This decision greatly angered Chinese Emperor Kangxi who banned Christian missions in China altogether. This ban led to the isolation of China to Europe and also contributed to the decline of the Jesuit order later in the century.

Prior to this confrontation, Kangxi was quite appreciative of Christians and Western knowlege. He even employed a large number of Jesuits as his official astronomers in the Forbidden City. The conflict over religion couldn't have happened at a worse time since it was in this period that saw great advancement in European science and technology. This was the time of Issac Newton, James Watt and Adam Smith, the era where the West decisively pulled ahead of China.

Had the Jesuits been allowed to continue their work, no doubt Western science would be introduced to China much earlier. The Chinese would be more aware of what the Europeans had to offer and the Jesuits with their expert knowlege of science and Chinese, would have been the perfect bridge of civilizations.
 
That would lead to a more powerful China, but perhaps an unrecognizable one. You can get a fair result simply by eliminating Ci Xi, usually called the Dowager Empress. She was a political genius who systematically eviscerated the Qing state.

When she produced the Emperor's only male offspring, he raised her from concubine to Empress (despite already having an Empress). She encouraged the Emperor to use alcohol and opium to excess and neglect affairs of state, which eventually killed him. She encouraged the same behavior in her son the Emperor as his Regent, culminating in opium overdose at the age of 19. While she ruled China she systematically executed officials who displayed competence and charisma while elevating those strikingly lacking in either; she understood that she was dead if any remotely competent male of noble birth arrived on the political scene, and took pains to see that there was no such person in all China. She pursued no bold policies and gave only lukewarm support to any suggestion, because success anwhere could produce a rival. By her death in 1908 she had created the only state in human history in which the more money and lives squandered and lost by an official, the faster his promotion. Qing China could not survive her.

Without her, the Qing state limps on. Even disdainful of outside knowledge and thoroughly riddled with opium, China is simply too big to avoid becoming a Great Power. It took an evil genius to take them down.
 
That would lead to a more powerful China, but perhaps an unrecognizable one. You can get a fair result simply by eliminating Ci Xi, usually called the Dowager Empress. She was a political genius who systematically eviscerated the Qing state.

When she produced the Emperor's only male offspring, he raised her from concubine to Empress (despite already having an Empress). She encouraged the Emperor to use alcohol and opium to excess and neglect affairs of state, which eventually killed him. She encouraged the same behavior in her son the Emperor as his Regent, culminating in opium overdose at the age of 19. While she ruled China she systematically executed officials who displayed competence and charisma while elevating those strikingly lacking in either; she understood that she was dead if any remotely competent male of noble birth arrived on the political scene, and took pains to see that there was no such person in all China. She pursued no bold policies and gave only lukewarm support to any suggestion, because success anwhere could produce a rival. By her death in 1908 she had created the only state in human history in which the more money and lives squandered and lost by an official, the faster his promotion. Qing China could not survive her.

Without her, the Qing state limps on. Even disdainful of outside knowledge and thoroughly riddled with opium, China is simply too big to avoid becoming a Great Power. It took an evil genius to take them down.

If this statement is true, then we are now in a very dire need to revise the general perception about China of the 19th century !



SOMEBODY CALL HENDRYK !!!!!!!!!
 
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