7.1 East Asia at the Dawn of the Nineteenth Century

East Asia at the beginning of the nineteenth century was dominated by China. The Qing dynasty (1644–1911), which had ruled the country for nearly two centuries, appeared secure in its power. China was a vast continental country spanning many climatic zones. Its core was watered by three great river systems — the Yellow River (Huang He), the Yangtse (Chang Jiang — the third longest river in the world) and the Pearl River. The dominant ethnic group were the Han, and the major language was Putonghua (Mandarin), although nationalities such as the Uighur, Hui, Manchu and Tibetan also lived within the empire.

Japan, by contrast, was a small island country that seemed locked in isolation. Yet, within a few decades, China was thrown into turmoil and proved unable to face the colonial challenge. Japan, on the other hand, succeeded in building a modern nation-state, an industrial economy and even a colonial empire — defeating China in 1894 and Russia in 1905. The Chinese reacted slowly to the Western challenge. They sought to redefine their traditions, rebuild their national strength and free themselves from Western and Japanese control. Eventually the Chinese Communist Party (CCP^?) emerged victorious from the civil war in 1949 and began the construction of a new China.

Geography of East Asia

The map below shows the contrast between China's vast continental land mass and Japan's island-chain. Korea sits between them, on a peninsula that connected — and was sometimes contested by — both powers. The map also marks the major Chinese cities and the Long March route that the Communists would take in 1934–35.

7.2 The Confucian Tradition and the Examination System

The thinking of imperial China was anchored in Confucianism. Confucius (551–479 BCE) and his disciples taught a philosophy of good conduct, practical wisdom and proper social relationships. It influenced the Chinese attitude toward life, provided social standards and laid the basis for political theories and institutions. By the late nineteenth century, however, many reformers came to believe that Confucianism was a major barrier to new ideas and institutions.

Entry to the elite ruling class — about 1.1 million people up to 1850 — was largely through an examination. Candidates had to write an eight-legged essay (pa-ku wen) in classical Chinese in a prescribed form. The examination was held twice every three years at different levels; only 1–2 per cent of those who appeared at the first level passed (usually by the age of 24) to become what was called a 'beautiful talent'. At any time before 1850 there were about 526,869 civil and 212,330 military provincial (sheng-yuan) degree holders in the country, but only some 27,000 official positions. The examination tested only literary skills and acted as a barrier to the development of science and technology. It was abolished in 1905 as it was felt to have no relevance for the modern world.

7.3 The Opium Wars and the Unequal Treaties (1839–1860)

The beginning of modern China can be traced to its first encounter with the West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Jesuit missionaries introduced Western sciences such as astronomy and mathematics. Limited though its immediate impact was, it set in motion events that gathered momentum in the nineteenth century, when Britain used force to expand its lucrative trade in opium.

The demand for Chinese goods such as tea, silk and porcelain had created a serious balance-of-trade problem for Britain — Western goods did not find a market in China, so payment had to be made in silver. The East India Company found a new option: opium^?, which grew in India. They sold the opium in China and gave the silver they earned to Company agents in Canton in return for letters of credit. The Company then used the silver to buy tea, silk and porcelain to sell in Britain. This was the famous 'triangular trade' between Britain, India and China.

7.4 Internal Crisis — The Taiping Rebellion (1850–64)

While the Qing court reeled from the Opium Wars, an even greater shock came from within. The Taiping Rebellion, led by Hong Xiuquan, a village schoolteacher who believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, swept across south and central China between 1850 and 1864. The Taiping (literally 'Great Peace') promised land redistribution, equality between men and women, the abolition of opium, foot-binding, slavery and idolatry, and the building of a new Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace with its capital at Nanjing.

Although eventually suppressed by Qing armies (with foreign help), the Taiping War devastated central China; estimates of those who died run to 20–30 million people — the most destructive civil war in human history before the twentieth century. The rebellion exposed how thin the Qing's grip on the countryside had become. It also encouraged Han Chinese provincial governors to raise their own armies, which weakened central authority for decades to come.

7.5 Self-Strengthening, the Hundred Days' Reform and the Boxers

After the Taiping shock, sections of the Qing elite tried to reform from within. The 'Self-Strengthening' Movement (1860s–1890s) imported Western arsenals, shipyards, telegraphs and translation bureaus, while still hoping to preserve the Confucian core. Defeat by Japan in 1894–95 — and Japan's seizure of Taiwan — exposed how shallow these reforms were.

In 1898, with the support of the young Emperor Guangxu, the reformers Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao launched the 'Hundred Days' Reform' — a sweeping plan to set up modern schools, abolish the eight-legged essay, build railways and overhaul the army. The conservative Empress-Dowager Cixi staged a coup, executed six reformers and forced Kang and Liang into exile in Japan.

Two years later, the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) erupted. The 'Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists' — peasants and martial-arts practitioners — attacked foreign missionaries, railways and Christian converts, then besieged the foreign legations at Beijing in 1900. An Eight-Nation alliance of foreign troops crushed the Boxers, looted Beijing and imposed a heavy indemnity. The Qing's prestige sank to its lowest ebb. Above all, many felt that traditional ways of thinking had to be changed — and that included Confucianism itself, now seen as a major obstacle to new ideas.

7.6 The 1911 Revolution and Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles

The Manchu empire was finally overthrown and a republic established in 1911. The figure unanimously regarded as the founder of modern China is Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925). He came from a poor peasant family, studied in missionary schools (where he was introduced to democracy and Christianity) and trained as a doctor. His political programme was the Three Principles of the People (San Min Chu I) — usually translated as:

Sun became the first president of the new republic, but real power soon slipped to military strongmen. On 4 May 1919, an angry demonstration at Beijing protested against the post-war peace conference: even though China had been an ally of the victors, it had not got back the territories seized from it. The 'May Fourth Movement' galvanised a whole generation to attack tradition and to call for saving China through modern science, democracy and nationalism. The reformers urged the use of simple language in writing, the abolition of foot-binding, equality in marriage and economic development to end poverty.

7.7 The Warlord Era and the Rise of Chiang Kai-shek

After 1916, China splintered into the warlord^? period (roughly 1916–27): regional military commanders carved out fiefdoms, taxed the peasantry and fought one another. The two parties striving to unite the country were the Guomindang (GMD — the National People's Party), founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), founded in 1921 soon after the Russian Revolution.

After Sun's death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) emerged as leader of the GMD. He launched the Northern Expedition to break the warlords and to eliminate the Communists. He preached a 'this-worldly' Confucianism and wanted to militarise the nation: the people, he said, must develop a 'habit and instinct for unified behaviour'. He encouraged women to cultivate the four virtues of chastity, appearance, speech and work and confined their role to the household — even prescribing the length of hemlines.

The GMD's social base was urban. Industrial growth was slow and limited. By 1919, Shanghai's industrial working class numbered 500,000, but only a small percentage worked in modern industries; most were 'petty urbanites' (xiao shimin) — traders and shopkeepers. Working hours were long, conditions bad and women's wages very low. A major plank in Sun's programme — regulating capital and equalising land — was never carried out, because the GMD ignored the peasantry.

7.8 Mao Zedong, the Long March and the New Democracy

The CCP had been founded in 1921. The Soviet Communist International (Comintern) had assumed, in classic Marxist fashion, that revolution would be made by the industrial working class in cities. Mao Zedong (1893–1976), who emerged as a major CCP leader, took a different path. He based his revolutionary programme on the peasantry — China's vast rural majority. His success ultimately made the CCP a powerful political force.

Mao's radical approach can be seen in Jiangxi, in the mountains, where the CCP camped from 1928 to 1934, secure from GMD attacks. A strong peasants' council (soviet) was organised, united through the confiscation and redistribution of land. Unlike other communist leaders, Mao stressed the need for an independent government and an independent army. He was attentive to women's problems: he supported the emergence of rural women's associations, promulgated a new marriage law that forbade arranged marriages, stopped the purchase or sale of marriage contracts, and simplified divorce.

The Long March (1934–35)

The GMD's military blockade of the Communist Soviet at Jiangxi forced the CCP to abandon its base. This led to what came to be called the Long March (1934–35) — a gruelling and difficult 6,000-mile (about 9,600 km) trek to Shanxi in north-western China. Of perhaps 86,000 Communists who set out, only some 8,000 reached the new base at Yanan. There the CCP further developed its programme — to end warlordism, carry out land reforms and fight foreign imperialism. This won them a strong social base. During the difficult years of the Japanese war (1937–45), the Communists and the GMD worked together; but after 1945 the Communists established themselves in power and the GMD was defeated.

7.9 Sino-Japanese War, Civil War and the Founding of the PRC (1937–49)

When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the GMD retreated. The long and exhausting war weakened China terribly. Prices rose 30 per cent per month between 1945 and 1949, utterly destroying the lives of ordinary people. Rural China faced two crises at once: an ecological crisis (soil exhaustion, deforestation, floods) and a socio-economic crisis (exploitative land-tenure systems, indebtedness, primitive technology, poor communications).

After Japan's defeat in 1945, the Civil War between the GMD and the CCP resumed. The GMD's bases collapsed under inflation, corruption and peasant disaffection; the CCP's land reforms in the countryside and discipline in the cities won them mass support. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong stood on the Tiananmen rostrum in Beijing and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Chiang Kai-shek and his army withdrew to Taiwan, taking US$300 million in gold reserves and crates of priceless art treasures — and re-established the 'Republic of China' there in 1949.

'New Democracy', 1949–65

The PRC government was based on the principles of 'New Democracy' — an alliance of all social classes, not the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' the Soviet Union claimed to have established. Critical areas of the economy were placed under state control, and private enterprise and private ownership of land were gradually ended. This programme lasted until 1953, when the government declared a programme of socialist transformation.

The Great Leap Forward, launched in 1958, was a policy to galvanise the country to industrialise rapidly. People were encouraged to set up backyard steel furnaces; in the rural areas, people's communes (where land would be collectively owned and cultivated) were started. By 1958 there were 26,000 communes covering 98 per cent of the farm population. Mao mobilised the masses to attain Party goals; he wanted to create a 'socialist man' who would have five loves — fatherland, people, labour, science and public property. Mass organisations were created: the All-China Democratic Women's Federation had 76 million members, the All-China Students Federation 3.29 million.

But these methods did not appeal to everyone in the Party. Liu Shaochi (1896–1969) and Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) tried to modify the commune system as it was not working efficiently. The steel produced in the backyard furnaces was of poor quality and unusable industrially.

7.10 The Cultural Revolution and Reforms After 1978

The conflict between the Maoists, who wanted to create a 'socialist man', and those who emphasised technical expertise over ideology came to a head when Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1965–66 to counter his critics. The Red Guards — mainly students and the army — were used for a campaign against the 'Four Olds': old culture, old customs, old habits and old ideas. Students and professionals were sent to the countryside to 'learn from the masses'. Ideology (being Communist) became more important than professional knowledge. Denunciations and slogans replaced rational debate.

The Cultural Revolution began a period of turmoil that weakened the Party and severely disrupted the economy and the educational system. From the late 1960s the tide began to turn. In 1975 the Party once again laid emphasis on greater social discipline and on building an industrial economy so that China could become a power before the end of the century. Mao Zedong died in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping and the 'Four Modernisations'

The Cultural Revolution was followed by political manoeuvring. Deng Xiaoping kept Party control strong while introducing a socialist market economy. In 1978, the Party declared its goal as the Four Modernisations — to develop science, industry, agriculture and defence. Debate was allowed, as long as the Party was not questioned. On 5 December 1978 a wall-poster, 'The Fifth Modernisation', proclaimed that without democracy the other modernisations would come to nothing; it criticised the CCP for not solving the problem of poverty or ending sexual exploitation. These demands were suppressed.

In 1989, on the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, many intellectuals called for greater openness and an end to 'ossified dogmas'. Student demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing were brutally repressed. This was strongly condemned around the world. The post-reform period has seen debates on China's path: the Party defends strong political control, economic liberalisation and integration into the world market; critics point to widening inequalities between social groups, between regions and between men and women. There is also a growing revival of so-called 'traditional' ideas — a new Confucianism that argues China can build a modern society following its own traditions rather than simply copying the West.