Reform and Western Influence

The Self-Strengthening Movement

• Aim was military strength• Manufacture weapons• Officials set up the first modern industrial

enterprises

The Treaty Ports

• Reasons for their growth– Low tariffs– Extraterritoriality

• British commercial law

Refugees in a Shanghai shantytown

Shanghai British merchants

Shanghai British family c 1900

Sassoon family properties

St John’s University, Shanghai

Shanghai, Indian army band c. 1900

A class at French school that took mainly Russian refugee children

Shanghai Japanese Shinto shrine

The growth of a social class with an interest in modernisation

• Government employees– Yan Fu

• Overseas Chinese

• Merchants who work with foreign traders (compradores)– Tang Jingxing– Sir Boshan Wei Yuk

(compradore of forerunner of HSBC Bank)

• Feel excluded from the government

Rise of oppositional public opinion

• Newspapers

• Writers

• Political parties

The Qing dynasty’s problems in the 1890s

• Dependence on the treaty system• Decentralisation

– The rise of regional governors• Zeng Guofan• Li Hongzhang

• Foreign imperialism– Vietnam 1884– Korea 1895– Taiwan 1895

The 100 Days Reforms of 1898

• Kang Youwei petitions the young Guangxu emperor– Abolition of the “eight-legged” essay– Stimulate agriculture, industry and commerce– Western-style drills in the army

• Coup by Dowager Empress Cixi

• Kang creates China’s first political party– The Protect the Emperor Society