No Dowager Cixi, China westernizes

Guys, guys, I have one more ace in the hole


As taken from the mad monarchist's article: "China and the 1911 Revolution"


"It was at that point that the monarchist Kang Youwei and the monarchist who later turned republican Liang Qiqao formed the “Protect the Emperor Society” while in exile in Vancouver, Canada. After the death of the Emperor and the accession of the little Prince Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi as Emperor Xuantong they became the constitutional monarchy party. The original plan they seized on was based on the Meiji Constitution of Japan, adapted to Chinese traditions and with greater powers reserved for the Emperor"*

Could this plan have worked and China adopted a constitution based on the japanese one?
 
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Guys, guys, I have one more ace in the hole


As taken from the mad monarchist's article: "China and the 1911 Revolution"


"It was at that point that the monarchist Kang Youwei and the monarchist who later turned republican Liang Qiqao formed the “Protect the Emperor Society” while in exile in Vancouver, Canada. After the death of the Emperor and the accession of the little Prince Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi as Emperor Xuantong they became the constitutional monarchy party. The original plan they seized on was based on the Meiji Constitution of Japan, adapted to Chinese traditions and with greater powers reserved for the Emperor"*

Could this plan have worked and China adopted a constitution based on the japanese one?

Kang Youwei's a fully discredited man by then.It was just a plan created by a guy with no support whatsoever.The actual guys in charge of the regency had very little intention to surrender power--they basically created a cabinet consisting almost completely of princes from the imperial family.The 'geniuses' chose the notoriously corrupt Prince Qing of all people to be prime minister.Also,the Qing dynasty's completely discredited by then.The failure of the Hundred days reform(not that it would ever succeed,since it was poorly planned and too drastic in a short space of time) and the Boxer rebellion eliminated the remaining legitimacy of the Qing dynasty.
 
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Except this wasn't the case during the age of imperialism, France for example, happily took over Vietnam despite the fact that it had huge number of Vietnamese in it. And the Japanese took Taiwan despite the large number of Han Chinese on the island, not to mention Korea which were full of Koreans.

"We are not going to take territory with ethnicity of this type" didn't apply to 19th century European colonialism.

Korea is a bit more complex, generally I do not think the Japanese had true designs on directly annexing Korea as an actual part of the Japanese state until relatively late. I think The Abacus and the Sword is the book that talks about the Japanese imperial project in Korea, whereas Tradition, Treaties, and Trade examines the Chinese imperial project in Korea.
 

RousseauX

Donor
China proper was as monolithic as Germany was.There's numerous regional dialects in Germany,not to mention having different religions.It was also a newly created country that used to be consisted of numerous small states.

Were the dialects mutually incomprehensible? I'm a Mandarin speaker and even today I don't understand Cantonese.

Did the government have to create the national language in the 20th century?

Keep in mind that China is a big place and that Sichuan alone has the population that a country like France has, the amount of linguistic difference in China is much more similar to that of the Arabic world than in Germany.
 
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RousseauX

Donor
Korea is a bit more complex, generally I do not think the Japanese had true designs on directly annexing Korea as an actual part of the Japanese state until relatively late. I think The Abacus and the Sword is the book that talks about the Japanese imperial project in Korea, whereas Tradition, Treaties, and Trade examines the Chinese imperial project in Korea.

Right, my point was that colonial powers did not object to taking over densely populated areas of foreign ethnicity in the 19th century.
 
From a linguistic viewpoint darthfanta's claim there is completely nonsensical.

Not completely nonsensical,but according to my German teacher's claim(who is German),she had some difficulty comprehending what the Bavarians were saying(when they spoke in the regional dialect instead of in standard German) when she lived in Bavaria for a while.
Were the dialects mutually incomprehensible? I'm a Mandarin speaker and even today I don't understand Cantonese.

Did the government have to create the national language in the 20th century?

Keep in mind that China is a big place and that Sichuan alone has the population that a country like France has, the amount of linguistic difference in China is much more similar to that of the Arabic world than in Germany.
On the other hand,I am a Cantonese speaker that's never really learned Mandarin,but I can recognize what a Mandarin speaker's saying.
 
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Not completely nonsensical,but according to my German teacher's claim(who is German),she had some difficulty comprehending what the Bavarians were saying(when they spoke in the regional dialect instead of in standard German) when she lived in Bavaria for a while.

Indeed, but Standard German as a project goes back to the 16c and Martin Luther's translation of the Bible. People started actually speaking it in 1800, and by then, it was sufficiently pan-German that the dominant pronunciation is northern, even though Luther based the standard register on Upper German. So High German soundshifts like t -> ss/z and p -> pf (Apfel vs. apple, Pfennig vs. penny, zehn vs. ten, besser vs. better) are reflected in writing, and get reproduced even in areas where Low German is native, but northern soundshifts like voicing initial s aren't.

Of course, written Chinese has been standardized for a lot longer than the 16c, but it doesn't really reflect pronunciation, whereas German does.
 

RousseauX

Donor
On the other hand,I am a Cantonese spealet that's never really learned Mandarin,but I can recognize what a Mandarin speaker's saying.

That's at least partially because Mandarin is a major dialect spoken in all parts of China, including in Guangzhou and has being for decades.

OTOH can you understand any of the non-Mandarin dialects? Like this one international student I had a fling with in univ from Beijing would switch to her "laojia" dialect and I couldn't understand any of it. And it sounds to different from Mandarin even compare to Cantonese. OTOH my hometown's dialect is pretty similar to Mandarin.

Now imagine China 150 years ago being like this all over, except for instead of being able to speak Mandarin first and local dialects second you have lots of areas whose language are mutually incomprehensible and don't have mandarin to bridge the gap.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Originally Posted by darthfanta

Massive difference between Tang and Qing. The Tang rulers readily identified themselves as Han(despite their ancestry) while the Qing rulers prided themselves as being Manchu as opposed to being Han.There were laws against Manchu-Han intermarriage(more specifically barring Han men from marrying Manchu women)and the Manchu had separate living areas(the inner city of Beijing for example was specifically reserved for Manchus).In the Tang Dynasty,the aristocracy wasn't as institutionalised as the Manchu was as a ruling class.The don't have legal privileges for example. The Manchus on the other had were legally exempt from multiple punishments for crimes(for the same crime,a Han could be exiled while the Manchu would be sentenced to wearing a large collar for sixty days only).
If brought to court,a Manchu's word worth more than a Han's.The Manchus dominated the government posts.All Manchus were accorded monthly stipends from the government using taxes gained from the Han while in the Tang Dynasty,an aristocrat only gained revenue from the land they personally owned.Besides,Wu Zetian's rule essentially broke the aristocracy.By her time,the aristocracy no longer dominated government posts.

disagree with that. Tang nobility do have legal privileges. the most important is they can send their sons to imperial court at higher grade from the start. And higher ranking official is treated way better in the court and in the law.

Also Tang hereditary military population also treated separately from civilian populace. They have different rights and duties.

the identification of "Manchu" and "Han" is 18/19th century phenomena brought because influence of Europe. if Manchu have no contact with Europe, historian would think of noble class and hereditary soldier class (eight banners).

i think the 'alien-ness' of Manchu is product of european nationalism, and used as propaganda. Qing distance from its people is not that different from other "native" dynasty. Other dynasty also practiced "apartheid" to their noble and hereditary soldier.

Originally Posted by RousseauX

China in the 19th century was a multicultural state.

Back then, there was no nationally spoken language: Mandarin as spoken today is a creation of the KMT and the CCP out of the Beijing dialect in the mid-20th century to foster national unity. The Han national identity wasn't all that strong mid-19th century relative to today.

The success of the Chinese nation building project in the 20th century really made people forgot how fragmented China was in pre-modern times, and that the Han Chinese identity could have easily gone the way of the Arab identity. Had the Qing done worse China today could have fractured into a dozen independent states: with some vague pan-Chinese reunification movement in the same way there was/is a vague pan-Arabic reunification movement.

Agree with this. Its historical incident that German/Huaxia/Han/Turkey/India/Indonesia become recognized as "nation". while Bavarian/Hessian/Hunan/Sichuanese/Islamic Ottomanism etc failed.

Qing could very well due to butterfly in history ended like modern India, with Manchu noble and soldier absorbed into Huaxia. or they could splinter into several independent state, like Arabs (unlikely, but can happen).

"Nation" is build in 17-18-19 century. It is not fixed concept, it imagined community, who principle of "clap your hand if you believe" apply. If enough people believe themselves some nation : YugoSlavs, Serbs,Han, Germany, Bavarian etc then that nation sprout into existence.

the Eight Banner and Qing nobility is not that different from Hakka or other Han subgroups, in different history they could very well included in Han/Huaxia nation.
 
The problem might not have been difference in terms of culture, but rather, difference in terms of perception.

The Han perceived the Manchus to be foreigners.

The Manchus perceived that they were separate.
 
disagree with that. Tang nobility do have legal privileges. the most important is they can send their sons to imperial court at higher grade from the start. And higher ranking official is treated way better in the court and in the law.

Also Tang hereditary military population also treated separately from civilian populace. They have different rights and duties.

the identification of "Manchu" and "Han" is 18/19th century phenomena brought because influence of Europe. if Manchu have no contact with Europe, historian would think of noble class and hereditary soldier class (eight banners).

i think the 'alien-ness' of Manchu is product of european nationalism, and used as propaganda. Qing distance from its people is not that different from other "native" dynasty. Other dynasty also practiced "apartheid" to their noble and hereditary soldier.
The Tang nobility monopolised positions in the government during the early period through nepotism as opposed to institutional discrimination against non-aristocrats like laws against their employment.This got completely axed when Wu Zetian crushed the nobility and promoted admission into the government through results in the imperial examinations.This continued for the rest of Tang's history and was even expanded.Employment of aristocrats as officials steadily declined afterwards.As for hereditary soldiery in Tang,they were simply just assigned land for them to farm themselves in return fo military service.By no means we're they as privileged as the Manchus,who receive monthly stipends for doing nothing.Nor were they exempt from punishment if they commited crimes against civilians like the Manchus.As for identification of Han and Manchu as separate people,it wasn't a byproduct of Europeans.The Manchu emperors had to launch all out purges(the literary inquisitions) against anti-Manchu writings and their writers during their reign.People clearly know there was a difference between Manchus and Hans.If that doesn't convince you,explain how is it that members of the Han Green standard army which was more or less a hereditary force as well doesn't receive half the privilege as the Manchus?There was a clear difference between Manchus and Hans.Like most colonial regimes,they enforced their dress on the people--look no further than the queues and dresses they enforced upon the Han majority on the pain of death!I wonder why the Taiping rebels cut their queues when they rebelled?If all of that doesn't classify the Qing Dynasty as an apartheid regime,then I guess pre-1994 South Africa was never apartheid either,as all white South African males are legally conscripted into the South African Army unlike the black South Africans,I guess pre-1994 South Africa was just another aristocratic feudal regime!
 
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