In the 11th–13th centuries, east of the Tien Shan, the Khitan people lived and the word “China” came from the word Khitan. Europeans sought to turn China into their colony in the 19th century.
Trade
For many years, British merchants brought porcelain, silk, and tea from China, and paid for these goods in silver. But this was not profitable for Great Britain; they wanted to exchange Chinese goods for their own goods. But China did not want to establish diplomatic relations with these countries and develop trade ties.
Western countries needed to import tea and silk. And the British began to import opium into China in large quantities. The Chinese government restricted the import of opium, allowing import only for medical purposes. But up to forty thousand boxes of opium were smuggled in every year. The income of opium traders exceeded the income from the silk and tea trade.
China in the 19th century: mid-19th century
Opium smoking in China in the mid-19th century affected all segments of the population, including women. Everyone started smoking opium in broad daylight. The Chinese government began to confiscate the drug, destroying it, and the British suffered serious losses.
This was the reason for the Anglo-Chinese “Opium” War. The British Parliament, without declaring war, sent a naval squadron to the shores of China. A demand was put forward to compensate losses for confiscated opium, compensation for losses for organizing a military expedition, and to provide the British with islands near China that would become a trading base.
In the mid-19th century, the Chinese began to emigrate in large numbers to Singapore and Southeast Asian countries. The main route of emigrants passed through the city of Shantou.
Late 19th century
Immediately after China was defeated in the Second Opium War, the Chinese government began to pursue a policy of modernizing the country (“yang wu”). An enterprise appeared in China that began to produce modern weapons.
The first steamship was built in Shanghai in 1868. Many enterprises for processing raw materials were built. The ongoing reforms did not affect public education, the credit and financial sector, or land relations.
Although the conflict with Japan ended peacefully, the Chinese Luqu Islands went to Japan under a peace treaty. China was weakened after the war with Japan, and the Western powers took advantage of this.
They divided China into spheres of influence. The German squadron captured the seaport of Jiaozhou. Russian squadron - Port Arthur. The English squadron occupied Weihaiwei. The French got Guangzhouwan. Later, these territories were formalized as lease agreements.
By the end of the 19th century, China was a semi-colonial country, where the power of the national government of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which had ruled China since the 17th century, was only formally maintained. In reality, the country was entangled in enslaving treaties imposed by the Western powers and Japan. The semi-colonial enslavement of China began with the first “opium” war with England in 1840-1842. The participation of capitalist powers in the suppression of the Taipik peasant uprising (1850-1864) created favorable conditions for increasing European penetration into China.
By the end of the 19th century, the regions of northern, southwestern, northeastern China, as well as the Yangtze River basin, were territories influenced by England, France, Germany, Tsarist Russia, and then Japan.
The strengthening of the position of foreign capital in China was manifested in the accelerated growth of trade on an unequal basis for China (low import duties), the construction of railways, the opening of banks, insurance companies, the strengthening of the powers’ control over the customs apparatus, and, as a consequence, over the country’s finances.
The brake on the development of capitalism was feudal relations in the Chinese countryside. Peasant farming was extremely backward; natural and semi-natural forms of farming predominated.
The peasant was subjected to monstrous exploitation not only by the landowner, but also by the kulak, moneylender, merchant, and merchant. 70% of peasants were landless or land-poor. They were forced to rent land from the landowner and the kulak, giving them more than half of their harvest for this. In addition, the peasants were enmeshed in taxes and levies. The massive ruin of the peasants led to the creation of a huge army of cheap labor, which China’s weak industry could not absorb. Ruined peasants replenished the army of the unemployed, the destitute and the poor.
Kai Yuwei believed that in order to improve the situation in his country, it was necessary to borrow some reforms from the West. However, even the moderate proposals of the reformers, who called for improving, but not destroying, the existing system, met with sharp rebuff from monarchist groups. Reformers were subjected to repression and persecution.
The defeat of the reformers showed that the Qing monarchy would not voluntarily limit its undivided dominance. The revolutionary democrats led by Sun Yat-sen, who expressed the interests of the petty and middle national bourgeoisie, also understood this. They sympathized with the common people and wanted to alleviate their plight. - a doctor of the profession, studying the program of the reformers, came to the conclusion that China needed not constitutional, but revolutionary methods of struggle. In 1895, he created a secret revolutionary organization, the Society for the Revival of China, whose goal was to expel the Manchu dynasty. However, the revolutionary democrats were still weak and inexperienced, and therefore their actions did not go beyond an armed anti-government conspiracy.
The struggle of the masses for national liberation. Rebellion of 1900
At the end of the 90s, the situation in China became increasingly tense. Following the predatory treaty imposed on China by Japan in 1895, Germany's aggressiveness increased, new enslaving loans appeared, taxes increased, and rents increased even more. The situation of the peasants became unbearable.
The activities of traditional Chinese peasant “secret societies”, which appeared in the Middle Ages, have intensified. In 1898, in the province of Shandong, where the Germans ruled, the secret society “Yihetuan” arose, which meant “detachments of justice and peace.” The slogans of this society were clearly anti-imperialist in nature - “expulsion of foreign invaders.” In 1899, the Yihetuan created an armed force and expanded their activities to almost the entire Shandong province. Foreign powers demanded that the Qing immediately curb the masses, otherwise they threatened to launch an armed intervention. Even the Qing government was outraged by the impudent ultimatum of the imperialists.
The Manchu court and the Chinese nobility, dissatisfied with this behavior of foreigners, were ready to some extent to use the Yihetuan movement in order to intimidate the imperialists. But they themselves were most afraid of the rebels, the mass manifestation of popular anger, so they maintained secret communications with the Western powers and sought to control the movement.
In response to the ultimatum, the Manchu court, not wanting complications, replaced the liberal governor of Shandong with a reactionary warlord, who, using German troops, began a crackdown on the rebels. But the uprising continued to grow. The repression only increased popular anger. The detachments began to be replenished with thousands of peasants and townspeople. Armed detachments of the Yihetuan occupied Beijing and Tianjing. They blocked foreign embassies in Beijing. This went down in history as the 56-day “Beijing seat” of foreign diplomats. The Chinese authorities used this fact to make slanderous statements against the Yihetuan, who allegedly tried to destroy all Europeans.
The uprising was suppressed by the joint efforts of foreign powers and the Manchu monarchy. A predatory treaty was imposed on China. In September 1901, the government and representatives of 8 states signed the “Final Protocol”, according to which China was obliged to pay a huge indemnity for 39 years. According to the agreement, foreign states received the right to base a fleet, and all actions against them were to be punishable by death.
The Yihetuan uprising was the first major anti-imperialist uprising of the Chinese people. It was spontaneous in nature. The rebels did not have a clear command structure. The Chinese proletariat was still in its infancy; it could not lead the movement. The ideology of the rebels was of a religious nature, typical of Chinese “secret societies”. This determined the ideological and organizational weakness of the Yihetuan.
After the suppression of the uprising, the exploitation of semi-colonial China by Western powers intensified even more. Foreign investment grew rapidly, and foreign banks almost completely controlled the country's finances. Opposition to the Qings from the bourgeois-landlord circles of China intensified. The Qing monarchy was forced to carry out some reforms and even adopt a draft constitution. But this could no longer change the situation. The revolutionary situation was growing in the country.
At the end of the 19th century, China was a backward semi-feudal state. The bulk of the land was in the hands of wealthy landowners. Most peasants rented land from landowners and paid rent in money or part of the harvest. There were very few peasants who owned land.
Peasants came to the city in search of work. But work was not always available, because in China industry developed very slowly.
From the last quarter of the 19th century, capitalist relations began to develop in the country. The first railways were built, economic relations developed, and large cities were built. The number of workers has increased. With the advent of industry, a national bourgeoisie began to form. But most of the representatives of the national bourgeoisie were compradors, who in reality were agents of foreign firms and grew rich by trading in foreign goods and buying up cheap raw materials.
The Qing Dynasty, in need of money, entered into unequal treaties with foreign countries that were contrary to national interests. Already in the 70s, foreigners received unlimited rights in 26 ports of China, where they ruled as if at home.
The construction of railways was the responsibility of foreigners. Most of the coal mines were also in their possession. China has become a raw material base for foreign countries. Foreigners organized their own districts in large cities and, disregarding the Chinese administration, conducted their own affairs.
China's defeat in the war with Japan in 1894-1895 caused further plunder and enslavement of China by foreign monopolists. In 1897-1898, Germany captured the port (bay) of Jiaozhouwan and included Shandong Prefecture in its circle of influence. France took possession of Guamjuwan Bay and began to dominate Yunnan Province. Russia receives Lushun, where it builds the naval base of Port Arthur, and England asserts its dominance in the port of Wei-Haiwei. The richest area along the Yangtze River came under English influence. The Japanese invaders began to dominate Fujian province. Any construction or change in China was controlled by the occupiers. Thus, China became a semi-colony.
Industrial development and foreign domination
At the end of the 19th century, the first industrial enterprises began to appear in China; in 1881, the first railway was launched in Northern China. In 1897 there were about 600 foreign firms here, but the growth and increase in the number of industrial enterprises was very slow.
Imports far exceeded exports. A convention drawn up in 1876 between China and England further enslaved China. The convention gave England the right to free entry into more than 10 ports and preferential trade in a number of prefectures.
In 1884, due to the French occupation of Vietnam, relations between France and China became strained. That same year, China renounced its official dominance over Central Vietnam and recognized a French protectorate there. The Chinese government entered into an emergency agreement with France and “conceded” to France on a number of controversial issues.
Social movement
The plunder of China by foreign states, when it had just embarked on the path of industrial development, had a serious impact on the condition of the population. Various social movements were formed for the further development of the country, which were generally called the reformist movement. In the social movement of this period, a special place belongs to Sun Yat Sen. He was the "leader" leading China to revolution. Sun Yat Sen's organization, the Society for Awakening China, fought to overthrow the Qing Dynasty of the Manchus and create a democratic nation-state in China.
An underground organization called “Yihetuan” (Fist Raised for Peace and Justice) also played a major role in the social life of this period in China. The Yihetuans acted under the motto “Let's disperse the Manchu Qings, destroy the foreigners!”
In 1899, the Yihetuan movement grew into a rebellion. The Yihetuans put forward demands such as the suspension of payment of indemnities to Japan, the unification of Taiwan with China, etc. The Qing dynasty was frightened by the uprising because the Yihetuans held almost half of the capital and province in their hands. In 1900, troops sent by the government against the rebels were defeated.
Well-organized rebel detachments began a campaign in Beijing and established their power there.
Intervention against China
This event became a pretext for foreign intervention in Beijing. Eight states participated in the intervention: Germany, Japan, Italy, England, USA, France, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Each of them expected a larger share in China.
In September 1899, US Secretary of State Hay's policy of "open doors and equal opportunity" was announced, called the "Hay Doctrine".
In July 1900, foreign invaders went on the offensive. Beijing was captured in August. The interventionists plundered the city and the imperial palace. Eight states forced China to sign an enslaving agreement. The treaty required the execution or expulsion of officials involved in the uprising, and also allowed foreign countries to keep troops in China to protect the roads between Beijing and the sea coast. In addition, China was forced to pay an indemnity to foreign interventionists in the amount of $33 million. The import of weapons into China was prohibited. Privileges for foreigners in China have increased. As a result, China was left even more exposed.
At the same time, the Yihetuan uprising forced the colonialists to act cautiously.
Intervention (Latin interventio - intervention) - violent intervention in order to conquer territory in the internal affairs of another state, establishing one’s power.
Comprador (Spanish comprador - buyer, purchaser) is a representative of the layer of the local bourgeoisie of backward and dependent states, engaged in mediation between foreign capital and the domestic market.
Convention (Latin conventio - agreement) is one of the types of multilateral international treaty or agreement.
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China is a state in East and Central Asia, one of the oldest in the world.
The Manchu invasion in the mid-17th century led to the liquidation of the medieval Chinese (Han) Ming dynasty and the establishment of a new Qing dynasty with its capital in Beijing. Key posts in the state ended up in the hands of the Manchu feudal nobility and those Chinese who agreed to support the invaders. By the end of the 18th century, the Qing Empire remained a fairly developed agricultural country with very productive crafts and thriving trade.
Its vast territory included: Manchuria - the domain of the conquerors, 18 Chinese (Han) provinces proper, as well as dependent territories - Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet. In addition, most of the neighboring states of the Middle Empire (or the Celestial Empire, as the inhabitants themselves called the country) were in vassal-tribute relations with it.
In the 1st half of the 19th century, China's tributaries included Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Siam, Nepal, Sikkim and Ryukyu. Some provinces were united into viceroys headed by viceroys. Since 1756, the country was closed to foreign traders with the exception of the port of Macau, where the Portuguese settled. The countries of Europe and North America, which were experiencing the Industrial Revolution, were still perceived by the Manchu rulers as Western barbarians."
Throughout almost the entire 19th century, Chinese society remained traditional, resembling a pyramid. At the very top sat the emperor (bogdykhan), who had unlimited power. Numerous relatives of the ruler of China, dignitaries and servants made up the imperial court. Under Bogdykhan there was a state chancellery, a state council, and a military council. Executive functions were carried out by employees of six departments: ranks, taxes, rituals, works, military and judicial.
The Confucian empire was built on a Sinocentric model of government in the eye of the Son of Heaven (as the emperor was called), to whom the divine Heaven granted a special mandate (permission) to rule the country. According to this concept, all its inhabitants were “children of the emperor,” and the “barbarians” were obliged to “tremble and obey” the ruler of the Celestial Empire.
The dominant position in the state apparatus was occupied by the descendants of the Manchu conquerors. Below were the so-called. Banner Mongols and Chinese (Han). At the next stage were the so-called. internal barbarians, i.e. non-Han peoples who inhabited large territories - Uighurs, Kazakhs, Tibetans, Dungans. At the very bottom of the “pyramid” were the Miao, Yi, Zhuang and others tribes, considered “wild”. Finally, the inhabitants of the Qing Empire's vassal countries were traditionally viewed as "external barbarians."
The armed forces of Qing China consisted of regular cavalry, infantry, artillery, sapper units, and a navy. A privileged position was occupied by the so-called. eight-banner troops stationed in the capital and major provincial cities. They consisted of Manchus and partly Mongols. Actually, the Chinese (Han) units were consolidated into the so-called corps of troops. green banner.
The medieval examination system continued to operate in the empire, which ensured the existence of a layer of educated officials - shenyni. The ideology of the ruling classes was based on the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (Kun Fuzi), updated by his followers in the 11th-12th centuries. At the same time, Buddhism (in the western regions - Islam) and local belief - Taoism - became widespread.
The socio-economic system of China, which developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, seemed unshakable. The country had a system of mutual responsibility and mutual surveillance. The Qing authorities issued a code of laws that contained a detailed list of crimes and punishments. All attempts by Europeans, primarily the British, to establish official diplomatic relations with Beijing, “opening” China to the products of the first British factories, ended in failure (missions of McCartney in 1793, Amherst in 1816, Napier in 1834). However, contradictions grew within the country due to the uneven economic development of the provinces, the inequality of nationalities, and the inequality of social groups (large landowners, officials, peasants, urban proletarians). The first symptoms of the internal weakening of the empire were popular movements led by the White Lotus secret societies in 1796-1804. and "Heavenly Mind" in 1813-1814. A serious factor in the internal life of China, despite the formal ban, since the 1820s. there was a sharp increase in the scale of trade in the narcotic substance opium. If in 1815-1819. its illegal import from British India and the Ottoman Empire amounted to more than 20 thousand boxes (60 kg each), then in 1835-1838. it exceeded 140 thousand boxes.
The word China comes from the Khitan (Chinese) people, who lived in the 11th-13th centuries east of the Tien Shan. If the population of China at the beginning of the 19th century was about 300 million people, then by the end of the century it reached 400 million. Europeans pursued an active colonial policy, Western countries sought to “open” the Chinese market and turn China into their colonial appendage. For many years, British merchants exported from China silk, tea, porcelain, paying for these goods in silver. This did not suit Great Britain, which found it more profitable to pay for imports with its own goods. But China considered all states and their rulers outside its borders to be “external vassals,” and refused to establish diplomatic relations at the embassy level or develop trade relations. In addition, trade suffered greatly from arbitrariness and bribery on the part of officials.
The West had no mechanisms to pressure China, which was self-sufficient and protected its domestic market by restricting trade. Western countries had a need to import tea (which was not produced anywhere else at that time) and raw silk. After capturing opium-producing Bengal, the British sharply increased the import of opium into China, evening out the balance of trade in their favor. The Chinese government legally restricted the import of opium, allowing it to be imported only for medical purposes. But the smuggling of this product was constantly growing, and by the forties of the 19th century it had grown to 40 thousand boxes of opium per year. The income of English merchants from the opium trade significantly exceeded the income from the tea and silk trade.
In China, opium smoking has spread to large sections of the population. One of the Chinese officials testified in 1838: “Starting from the bureaucratic class down to the owners of workshops and shops, actors and servants, as well as women, Buddhist monks and Taoist preachers - all of them smoke opium in broad daylight, buy pipes and all the accessories for smoking opium." The Chinese government began to confiscate the drug and then destroy it, which led to serious losses for English merchants. This was the reason for the first Anglo-Chinese “Opium” War. In the spring of 1840, the British Parliament decided, without formally declaring war, to send a naval squadron to the shores of China. In June 1840, 20 warships with a total crew of 4,000 people approached the southern coast of China. Demands were put forward: compensation for losses for confiscated opium, compensation for losses in organizing a military expedition, elimination of obstacles to trade, and providing the British with an island near China that could become a trading base. Moving north, British troops captured the Zhuoshuan Islands, near Ningbo. In this situation, the Chinese government began to pursue a capitulatory policy. It agreed to all demands except one, to transfer the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain.
In January 1841, the British continued hostilities, and on January 20, Chinese representatives signed the Chuanbei Convention, agreeing to all demands; on February 1, the British authorities declared all residents of Hong Kong to be subjects of the Queen of Great Britain. The Emperor did not want to admit defeat, and, having declared war on Great Britain, decided to continue military operations. The British captured Zhujiang, capturing 380 guns, and soon raised their flag over Guangzhou. From August 1841 to May 1842, military operations took place in the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. In July, British troops under Pottinger began the siege of Nanjing, the second most important city in China after Beijing. Steam ships, more modern artillery and rifled guns, against Chinese flints, ensured victory for the British. On August 29, 1842, the Treaty of Nanjing was signed on board the English warship Cornwall. According to the agreement, China opened five ports for English trade: Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai and Guangzhou, established low customs duties on English goods, and paid England a large indemnity. The Emperor of China yielded to Fr. Hong Kong to the Queen of Great Britain.
In accordance with the treaties that followed Nanjing, first England, then the USA, France, and some other Western countries received the rights of extraterritoriality and the creation of foreign settlements in “open” ports. In 1850, the Taiping Uprising broke out in China (translated as “Taiping” - “great prosperity”) - a peasant war directed against feudal oppression and the power of the foreign Manchu dynasty. In January 1851, the creation of the Taiping state was announced, and a war against the ruling regime was launched. In January 1853, the rebels took the large administrative center of Wuchang. Their army reached a million people. They did not engage in robbery, but destroyed tax registers, killed or expelled officials, and took away property from the rich. On March 19, 1853, they captured Nanjing. The internal structure of the Taiping state corresponded to the norms of “war communism.” So, for example, all land was not transferred to private ownership, but was divided in proportion to the number of eaters. After the harvest, all surpluses were withdrawn to the state storage, and families were left with food only to feed them until the next harvest. In the cities, all industry was nationalized. All workers and artisans were united into professional workshops-battalions.
The Taipings proclaimed Christianity as the state religion, and church attendance was strictly obligatory. In 1856, an internecine war for power began in the Taiping state, in which up to 100 thousand people died. As a result of the socio-economic crisis and civil strife, the Taiping state lost Jiangsu in 1857, and Nanjing in 1859. Then a series of victories were won, so in 1861 they took Hangzhou and Ningbo and then besieged Shanghai. In their fight against the Qing government, the Taiping people hoped for help from Western countries, keeping in mind the religious factor. Indeed, Protestant missionaries sympathized with the rebels and visited their leaders. However, Western politicians and businessmen believed that it was more profitable for them to support the Qing government rather than the Taiping government. If at the beginning of the uprising the West adhered to neutrality, then it later leaned toward supporting Beijing. Thus, the Qing government received a loan, modern weapons and three ships. Anglo-French troops carried out armed raids against the Taipings, and the Qing army had European instructors and detachments of mercenaries recruited in Europe. After this, a turning point in the war occurred; in July 1864, the capital of the Taiping state, the city of Nanjing, was taken. The main forces of the rebels were defeated, although resistance continued until 1868. In addition to the Taiping uprising, in the third quarter of the 19th century, the Chinese Empire was rocked by a number of other uprisings. During these turbulent years, Chinese emigration to Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries increased sharply. The main flow of emigration passed through the city of Shantou, a Chinese seaport on the South China Sea.
Immediately after the defeat in the Second Opium War, the Qing government began to pursue a policy of modernizing China, “yang wu” (assimilation of foreign experience). Enterprises producing modern weapons appeared. In 1868, the first steamship was built in Shanghai. But for the most part, raw material processing enterprises were built. However, the reforms almost did not affect the credit and financial sphere, public education, and land relations. In 1864, the conflict between Japan and China ended without war with the signing of a peace treaty in Beijing on October 31, according to which the Luqu Islands were ceded to Japan. In 1894, due to disputes over influence in Korea, the Sino-Japanese War began. Having defeated the Chinese troops in Korea, the Japanese transferred military operations to Manchuria and a month later they took Port Arthur; on February 12, 1895, the Chinese naval base of Weihaiwei capitulated, and already in early March Yingkou was taken. As a result of the Shimonoseki Peace Treaty, signed on April 17, 1895, Japan received Taiwan, the southern part of Manchuria, and monetary indemnity. However, Russia, France and Germany presented Japan with a diplomatic note recommending that it give up the Liaodong Peninsula in exchange for additional indemnity. Japan was forced to accept these conditions. China, after the war with Japan, was weakened, and the Western powers took advantage of this to divide it into spheres of influence. Thus, the German squadron captured the seaport of Jiaozhou (Qingdao), then the Russian squadron entered Port Arthur, the British occupied Weihaiwei, and the French acquired Guangzhouwan. Later, these acquisitions were formalized as lease agreements. All this led to the growth of anti-foreign sentiment in China and the rise to power of conservative-patriotic forces. In 1900, the Yihetuan Rebellion (Boxer Rebellion) began, which was accompanied by massacres and executions of missionaries, Chinese Christians and foreigners. By the end of the 19th century, China remained a weak and backward empire, politically dependent on Western countries.