Ok, so I know that Japan of all the Asiatic countries except perhaps Thailand is known for their ability to have been able to rapidly modernize their country due many factors such as
- A very dense population
- Kyoto was one of the (if not the) largest cities in the world
- There was a high literacy rate (70%?)
These factors made it much easier for them to industrialize certain sectors of their economy, and thus industrialize in general, correct me if I'm wrong. They also had
- Dutch learning
- A history of dealing with western nations
- An Idea of the happenings and advances being made in other countries
Which allowed them to effectively make the social changes they needed to, and hire experts carefully where they did not have the expertise themselves.
Even with this the Japanese had to deal with the Boshin War, and the Short lived Republic of Ezo. I remember someone once said on this blog " Often it was not reform or die, it was reform and die." I think it was said in defense of Empress dowager Cixi, which I thought was a bit sad.
My question to anyone who is interested in answering is quite simple. Lets assume you're a son of a Qing Emperor, and somehow by some miracle you are made the Emperor after your father dies. What changes do you make to make China more able to resist western interference? I imagine Literacy, any more advanced agricultural Technics should be introduced, maybe try your best to make the court more Han, and give earlier trade access to western powers? Mutual defense/trade treaty with USA (Is this possible or laughable?) How early do you think this needs to be done to be possible?
I'm under the impression that the reason there's not a lot of China wanks or Meiji's is because its quite the insurmountable mountain, yet we also have quite a bit of Byzantine TL's.