Adam Brand, In the Presence of the Qing Emperor in Beijing, 1706

Problems of foreign encroachment…

• By the seventeenth century, European traders trying to increase contact with East Asia and China

• Can Chinese leaders find a way to deal with foreigners outside tributary system?

First Opium War, 1839-1942

Treaty of Nanjing leads to unequal treaties and compromises Qing sovereignty

China in the age of imperialism

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Taiping Rebellion (1850-1865)

How would China modernize?

• Goal of a wealthy nation, strong military

• Chinese officials trying to find a way to modernize within tradition – preserve Confucianism, but adopt technology

Chinese POWs in Japanese captivity after the war

Late-Qing cartoon: temperatures rising, constitutionalism gaining

Fall of the Qing & Republic (1912-1949)

• Sun Yat-sen emerges as national leader

• Drive to repair China’s international stature, reclaim lost territory

• Nationalism• Socialism• Democracy—after a

period of military tutelage

Which revolutionary path to follow?

• Chiang Kai-shek & Mao Zedong: both favor state-led development

• Skeptical of democracy

• Significant western & Soviet support

• Different views of top-down or bottom-up development

Nationalist Government (1928-1949)

• Warlord Period (1916-1928): semi-independent territorial leaders

• Chiang Kai-shek leads Nationalist Party to military victory, reunifies country

• Focuses on state-led modernization; attacks Communists

Rapid economic, social, cultural modernity

• Rise of print media, film, music leads to tremendous cultural change

• Changing values place the individual at heart of political and social activity

• Rights of women & impoverished become focus of national concern

Pages of Ling Long magazine, early 1930’s

Japanese troops enter Shenyang, Manchuria, 1931

Battle of Shanghai and Rape of Nanking, 1937-1938

War with Japan, 1937-1945

The establishment of the PRC and Maoism (1949-1978)

Development based on government control of economic growth; high resource control, low taxation

Post-Mao: Deng Xiaoping reforms

• Light industry gains renewed focus

• Private control over agriculture and service-industry sectors

• Low taxation leads to low social services and loss of government control

Ongoing political and social issues

• As China modernizes, how will longstanding problems be resolved

• Change and growth versus stability

• Domestic integrity versus foreign contact & relations with East Asian / Pacific neighbors

• The problem of “virtuous rule” – does the PRC government still have legitimacy?