Could Post-1st Opium War China Pull a Meji?

[Tordenskjold]

I'm sure the question has come up before, but the search function failed me.

Could Imperial China after the first Opium War successfully modernize to become a regional power? I know there were many attempts hampered by various disasters and bureaucratic inefficiency, yet with the resources at their disposal and the relatively high level of centralization it has always been a wonder to me how China didn't become a more successful state than what it was in the 19th to mid-20th century.

How could China, keeping the Imperial government as at least a constitutional monarchy, become a regional whole- or semi-industrialized power after the 1st Opium War (1839-42) and before the outbreak of OTL 2nd Sino-Japanese war (1937)? I'm looking for a few pointers and the grand picture rather than a finished timeline.

 

[gianni_rivera]

Quite difficult, the thing is it is not they did not try, they just do not have the suitable soil to do it.

The scholars in their heart despise the new technology and do not think they need it. They still think they are the centre of the world.

 

[Onkel Willie]

A good PoD is the Hundred Days' Reform initiated by the Guangxu Emperor in 1898. You just have to have Dowager Empress Cixi's coup against him fail, which could be accomplished by having Yuan Shikai side with the Emperor rather than with her or, alternatively, by eliminating Yuan altogether.

 

[Fredrick II Barbarossa]

cpurse they could many pod's are available.
1) Guangxu emperor passes his hundred day reforms, Cixi the old hag dies early and cant pull of her conservative coup.
2) No Taiping rebbelion. Hong dies early, without it China still retains its agricultural population and military forces.
With either of these two PODs I see China pullng Meiji, at least the industrial cities.

Also the chinese were nnot backward thinking. They were already in contact with europeans eg Russia whoom they had trade missions with. Christianity was also not something new and the Orthdox church was already protected in china and had missions in the qing empire, It i just that their maps were slightly innacurate in the sense that Europe was in the periphery for them and Britain was at the most peripheral view. Understandably when the britishers arrived in the 1820,30s, and 40s the Chinse rebuked them because strategically and politically to the chinese government the British were insignificant and rather they focused more on Big Bear Russia, because they failed to take into account its overseas empire. Thus if an emperor like the Qing one was approached by a nation considered to be on the edges of Chinese maps and look insignificant on paper, one can see why the Qing court treated British missions in such a manner.

It was Cixi who screwed up chinese industry cause she and her advisers had no understanding of modern finance and economics. They sold away the rights of their coal and resource rich mines as well as access to railroad lines. Without her and perhaps a bureaucracy that grasps the mdoern central banking system, one can see a stronger china. Probably that will pull a Meiji. It almost did otl.

Edit Onkel gives a good POD.

 

[HongCanucker]

Yes. The idea has been explored numerous times, including in EdT's Fight and Be Right. However, given the conservatism of much of the Qing court, including the Empress Dowager Cixi, who (in)famously held most of the political power in the country following the Tongzhi Restoration, political reforms were held off for a long time, and when they came around they were very quickly opposed. Given some attitude shifts or "Great Awakening" within the court after the Taiping Rebellion and during the Self-Strengthening Movement, like if Cixi had gradually changed her views, or if Prince Gong had asserted control over the regency and decided to implement some new social and political reforms in addition to even more far-reaching economic and industrial ones, it can happen early on, but it would be a very long and tedious process. And as Onkel Willie stated, the Hundred Days' Reform (which Ed used as the main basis for the creation a Qing constitutional monarchy in FaBR BTW) is also a great point for investigation.

 

[Tordenskjold]

Yes. The idea has been explored numerous times, including in EdT's Fight and Be Right. However, given the conservatism of much of the Qing court, including the Empress Dowager Cixi, who (in)famously held most of the political power in the country following the Tongzhi Restoration [...]

I had read about Empress Cixi before, and did have some vague idea that she was a pretty bad ruler. When I was in China some years ago I saw her name denounced in several museum exhibitions, guide books etc. I always put it down to communist revisionism - she was probably more like a scapegoat than anything, I thought.

But with this thread I've read up on her - Jesus Christ!!! A worse ruler for a country in an already difficult situation I could hardly imagine, or maybe it'd have to be a tie between her and Nicholas II of Russia.

Anyhow, if the Boxer Rebellion and some of the worst Imperial excesses could be managed just slightly better China would have tons of potential.

Soil quality was mentioned above - I can't figure out if this is meant as a metaphor or...? Anyhow, what industrial product, raw or semi-raw materials could a resurgent China use to create the surplus needed for industrialization? Was it all about primary goods or did the silk and fabric industry, tea etc. have a significant place in the pre-revolutionary economy? Any help is appreciated.

 

[HIM Dogson]

The Hundred Days Reforms are most definitely doable; have more elements of the army support Guangxu, or a convenient heart attack for Cixi. The more interesting POD is the self strengthening movement; if Prince Gong had been regent instead of Cixi. Cixi, BTW, makes Nicky seem like Frederick the Great. She managed to fuck her country over despite Hemophilia, and you get the idea that she was smart, but used that intellect to maintain her power as regent rather than help China; her conservatism was probably more out of political necessity. Given how China is doing so well today despite Civil War, Cixi, being the West's punching bag, and two devastating wars with Japan, I can only imagine how powerful a modernized Qing Empire would be. It does, however, certainly warm my monarchist heart.

 

[RousseauX]

Quite difficult, the thing is it is not they did not try, they just do not have the suitable soil to do it.

The scholars in their heart despise the new technology and do not think they need it. They still think they are the centre of the world.

This is so incredibly dumb part of the narrative I honestly have no idea how it got so ingrained in everyone's minds.

Literally before the Opium war ended the Chinese were building copies of British frigates, after the war the Qing tried to outright buy a fleet from Britain. During the 1870s-90s western technology were mported en masse, telegraph lines were built, as were railroads, arms factories etc etc. Students were sent abroad to study and an army on European lines was eventually built and ended up overthrowing the dynasty.

The Qing dynasty adapted to western diplomacy on the westphalian model as well, the idea that they were irrationally rejecting western advances was never true.

 

[RousseauX]

The Hundred Days Reforms are most definitely doable; have more elements of the army support Guangxu, or a convenient heart attack for Cixi. The more interesting POD is the self strengthening movement; if Prince Gong had been regent instead of Cixi. Cixi, BTW, makes Nicky seem like Frederick the Great. She managed to fuck her country over despite Hemophilia, and you get the idea that she was smart, but used that intellect to maintain her power as regent rather than help China; her conservatism was probably more out of political necessity. Given how China is doing so well today despite Civil War, Cixi, being the West's punching bag, and two devastating wars with Japan, I can only imagine how powerful a modernized Qing Empire would be. It does, however, certainly warm my monarchist heart.

The hundreds days was already too late, many of the proposed reformed were continuations from the self-strengthening movement, and others were implemented by the Qing a few years later anyway.

An example is the abolishment of the traditional exam system, the problem is that this pissed off the Han gentry who used this system to gain power.

But the late 1890s was really too late, by this point Han nationalism is a real thing and the Qing had already pissed off too many people and the reform process was bound to piss off more. The fall of the Qing or at very least being relegated to the background by Han military men was inevitable at this point.

 

['Ezana]

This is so incredibly dumb part of the narrative I honestly have no idea how it got so ingrained in everyone's minds.

Literally before the Opium war ended the Chinese were building copies of British frigates, after the war the Qing tried to outright buy a fleet from Britain. During the 1870s-90s western technology were mported en masse, telegraph lines were built, as were railroads, arms factories etc etc. Students were sent abroad to study and an army on European lines was eventually built and ended up overthrowing the dynasty.

The Qing dynasty adapted to western diplomacy on the westphalian model as well, the idea that they were irrationally rejecting western advances was never true.

This.

The Qing were definitely trying to modernize. I would say that one of the reasons modernization wasn't going that well was that the Qing tried to import industrial technologies without the institutions needed to sustain them. For instance, they put traditional Confucian scholar-officials in charge of a textile factory instead of appointing more knowledgeable administrators. They also tried to buy a lot of tech from abroad instead of building it themselves, which is unsustainable and expensive, not to mention that they were usually sold the second-rate model weapons by Western countries. The Qing were trying to modernize the best they could without alienating the conservative branches of government, but in the long run I think that that approach won't get China very far.

 

[RousseauX]

I'm sure the question has come up before, but the search function failed me.

Could Imperial China after the first Opium War successfully modernize to become a regional power? I know there were many attempts hampered by various disasters and bureaucratic inefficiency, yet with the resources at their disposal and the relatively high level of centralization it has always been a wonder to me how China didn't become a more successful state than what it was in the 19th to mid-20th century.

How could China, keeping the Imperial government as at least a constitutional monarchy, become a regional whole- or semi-industrialized power after the 1st Opium War (1839-42) and before the outbreak of OTL 2nd Sino-Japanese war (1937)? I'm looking for a few pointers and the grand picture rather than a finished timeline.

The problem is that people confuse a centralized state with a strong state, China had a centralized but weak state, whereas Tokugawa/Meiji Japan had both a centralized and strong state.

In reality the Qing state was incredibly weak by the early 1800s, the country had seen a quadrupling of the population between 1644 and 1820 or so without a corresponding increase in the size of the government nor increase in tax revenue. This was a conscious decision on the part of 18th century Qing emperors who wanted to relieve the burden on the peasantry. But what this meant was that when the need to modernize roled around the government seriously lacked revenues to do so. If the Qing wanted to build a national schooling system for example, they didn't have the money to do it because the resources needed for this single policy implementation probably exceeded their entire annual budget for everything.

The breakdown of administration was also responsible partially for rebellions like Taiping or the Nian in the first place.

If you want a surviving, industrialized Qing it's actually pretty easy to get, just get Yuan Shikai to side with the Qing instead of the rebels in 1911, that would probably have averted the era of the warlords and China is much much stronger and industrialized by 1937.

 

['Ezana]

In reality the Qing state was incredibly weak by the early 1800s, the country had seen a quadrupling of the population between 1644 and 1820 or so without a corresponding increase in the size of the government nor increase in tax revenue.

If I may ask, why didn't the government's tax revenue increase along with the population?

 

[RousseauX]

This.

The Qing were definitely trying to modernize. I would say that one of the reasons modernization wasn't going that well was that the Qing tried to import industrial technologies without the institutions needed to sustain them. For instance, they put traditional Confucian scholar-officials in charge of a textile factory instead of appointing more knowledgeable administrators. They also tried to buy a lot of tech from abroad instead of building it themselves, which is unsustainable and expensive, not to mention that they were usually sold the second-rate model weapons by Western countries. The Qing were trying to modernize the best they could without alienating the conservative branches of government, but in the long run I think that that approach won't get China very far.

Yes, and what's more interesting is that the same continues to be true of developmental economics in the 20th century and even today. Third world countries does this exact same thing where they import the hardware but then fail to develop the software (the institutions) to effectively use them. Egypt could have imported technology and built factories just as easily as South Korea but the lack of effective institutions means that Egypt is an economic basketcase even pre-2011 relative to Korea.

The other thing that people ignore is that the conservatives do have a point sometimes: because modernization is genuinely a destabilization process.

 

[RousseauX]

If I may ask, why didn't the government's tax revenue increase along with the population?

Because IIRC it was Kangxi or someone actively made the decision not to (I need to check Search for modern China again), because the idea was that the government collecting too much taxes and that made the peasants suffer, so like a good moralistic emperor he decided to not to collect more taxes even when the population increased.

This was a good thing on the short run, but on the long run it screwed everyone over.

 

[Fredrick II Barbarossa]

Because IIRC it was Kangxi or someone actively made the decision not to (I need to check Search for modern China again), because the idea was that the government collecting too much taxes and that made the peasants suffer, so like a good moralistic emperor he decided to not to collect more taxes even when the population increased.

This was a good thing on the short run, but on the long run it screwed everyone over.

the mainstream economic history view is that china fell into a high level equilibrium trap, coupled with difficulty to access industrial resources, communication across large distances+high labour=low wages, instability, and urbanization level stagnating were the big causes for China falling behind. By the 1840s wih the invention of the railroad and steamships coal and other resources from the north China could be transported cheaply to the south.

Also in this period wages were going up as laborers migrated in large numbers from China into Southeast Asia ad the America's, and the Qing government was relatively stable.

Plus with the invention of telegraphs and other such communication methods long distance communication issues was solved as well. Not to mention CHinese cities were also expeirencing growth.

As for capital inflows, otl the western world's FDI was significant in China.
Plus you did have attempts at entrepreneurs setting up private banks and the creation of central banking systems but once foreign interventions and rebbelions broke out the states finances were depleted and the central bank so t say was focused on paying back its endless cycle of debts than on investing in the economy.

I have looked at the stats and it is interesting to note that Chinse gdp appeared to be on the decline during the 19th century following the Taiping rebbelion. Till 1840s it may not have risen as high as the EUropeans but it was rising slowly. Now I wonder if Taiping or the following instability didnt rack china then perhaps the above mentioned industrializing process that was happening in CHina already would have continued?

Thus my conclusion based on chinese urbanization rates, demographics, gdp per capita, wages, and agricultural productivity is that China following the first Opium war was on the edge of industrialization but then a series of revolts+foreign interventions+collapsing of and exhausting of the resources and finances of the qing state coupled with incompetent leaders was what delayed Chinese industrialization during this period. Thus avert the rebbelions and foreign interventions and put competent people in charge and China can industrialize.

 

[profxyz]

How could China, keeping the Imperial government as at least a constitutional monarchy, become a regional whole- or semi-industrialized power after the 1st Opium War (1839-42) and before the outbreak of OTL 2nd Sino-Japanese war (1937)?

As people have said, the Qing have to walk a very fine line if they are going to industrialize/modernize successfully. Also as people have pointed out, OTL they did get the 'hardware' of modernization pretty spot on, especially during the Tongzhi Restoration (prior to 1894 China had Asia's largest navy), it was the 'software' that screwed them over. During the Boxer Rebellion China had modern enough weapons to at least put up a good fight against the expeditionary forces, but their soldiers could not sight rifles properly and also fled at the first indication of a bayonet charge (admittedly the military is not everything - the Tongzhi Restoration saw the Qing create a pretty good diplomatic service from essentially nothing).

The reason why the Qing has to walk a very fine line is that modernization creates intense social dislocations. At the most basic level, things like railways and telegraph lines destroyed the Chinese non-agricultural peasant economy (porters, barge haulers and suchlike) - the epicentre of the Boxer Rebellion, Shandong, was also one of the Empire's most industrialized. Exposing the Qing to modern concepts also means exposing it to things like nationalism, which is pretty much anathema for multicultural empires like the Qing. So a stronger Qing modernization process could well trigger an even more powerful Taiping Rebellion-esque revolt.

 

['Ezana]

Exposing the Qing to modern concepts also means exposing it to things like nationalism, which is pretty much anathema for multicultural empires like the Qing. So a stronger Qing modernization process could well trigger an even more powerful Taiping Rebellion-esque revolt.

I wonder if we could see the development of civic nationalism within the Qing Empire as opposed to ethnic nationalism. OTL we saw this happen in the Ottoman Empire (Ottomanism), and although it lost out to ethnic nationalism there, many people on the board predict that it would have won without WWI. How strong would "Qingism" be as opposed to Han/Dzunghar/etc. nationalism? Could it be a unifying force during and after modernization?

 

[profxyz]

OTL we saw this happen in the Ottoman Empire (Ottomanism), and although it lost out to ethnic nationalism there, many people on the board predict that it would have won without WWI. How strong would "Qingism" be as opposed to Han/Dzunghar/etc. nationalism? Could it be a unifying force during and after modernization?

Do people really think that Ottomanism had a chance up until WWI? What about the various massacres during Abdulhamid II’s reign?

'Qingism' is difficult, because of one thing - the Han make up the vast majority of the Qing population. In fact, both the ROC and the PRC practiced civic nationalism OTL, calling China a union of '5 races' and '56 nationalities' respectively. It didn't/doesn't work, because nobody believes that ethnic minorities share equal status with the other 95% of Han.

For the better part of three centuries, the Qing Emperors kept a fragile ethnic balance by assuming different roles to different peoples. To the Han they claimed the Mandate of Heaven, to the Mongols they were brothers, Khans, and Lamas, and to the Uighurs they were the representatives of Allah. At the same time, they assiduously kept their Manchu identities apart from all others (to the extent of creating separate Manchu quarters in Chinese cities). The point is that the Qing not only had to keep the Han population happy, they also had to keep the Han population from the other ethnicities and avoid being associated/assimilated into them.

A civic-nationalistic 'Qingism' would entail the removal of ethnic barriers to governance in the Qing Empire. That is a policy that, without some federalization arrangement, will only benefit the Han, who will monopolize all the top spots by virtue of their population weight. In fact, when they did exactly that at the end of the dynasty, that arguably caused the Mongols to revolt away from the Qing.

In any case, it's difficult to promote civic nationalism in an era when the European idea of nationalism - ethnic nationalism - was running rampant.

 

[RousseauX]

I wonder if we could see the development of civic nationalism within the Qing Empire as opposed to ethnic nationalism. OTL we saw this happen in the Ottoman Empire (Ottomanism), and although it lost out to ethnic nationalism there, many people on the board predict that it would have won without WWI. How strong would "Qingism" be as opposed to Han/Dzunghar/etc. nationalism? Could it be a unifying force during and after modernization?

I don't think civic nationalism have worked anywhere besides the very special cases of Canada and the US.

Ethnic nationalism is much "easier" to foment especially when there is an easily available foreign devil to direct people's anger towards.

The closet you are gonna get the Qingism is Onkel Willie's recent TL: a Qing emperor under the control of ethnically Han military men like Yuan Shikai. The monarchy continues to be used as a form of legitimacy while the Manchus are sidelined from all major political decision making powers.

 

[Avrorrange]

I have a feeling that a coup would happen with or without Cixi.A major problem also was the fact that a lot of the modernisation programs were left at the discretion of local viceroys instead of being implemented at a national level.In recall reading about railroads not matching those of a neighbouring province and the military forces of different regions using ammunition and weapons of a different caliber.There's also the problem of massive corruption with officials siphoning off funds meant for modernisation and the employment of wholly unqualified 'foreign experts' who were little more than con-men.