Self Strengthening a Failure

Yet Hope Remains

by Todd Yecies

As clearly shown by our horrendous loss to the Japanese foreign devils, our attempt to modernize ourselves with western technology has not come far enough. Since 1861 we have attempted to modernize ourselves to restore China’s power and rebuild our internal strength . Since the Opium Wars China has been exploited by Western Countries and now Japan, as shown by the map which shows parts of China controlled by foreign countries.

And yet through all these times we have maintained a superior view of ourselves. “The intelligence and Wisdom of the Chinese are necessarily superior to those of the various barbarians, only formerly we have not made use of them. ” We attempted to follow in Japan’s footsteps by quickly reorganizing and industrializing, yet we have only succeeding in “preserving a dynasty that operated on outdated principles inherited from the ancient Han Empire. ” We are constrained by our conservative system that is innately in opposition of anything Western or simply change in general. Those who believe that we can maintain Chinese ideals while adopting western technology are mistaken simply due to the fact that western tools are the result of western society, and the two are intertwined.

However despite all this, the Self-Strengthening Movement might have met with more success had it not been for two incidents. The first was when Chinese resentment to French Christian missionaries led to the murder of the French consul and ten nuns in the year 1870. This led to the Sino-French war, in which the French attacked Taiwan and Fu-chou and seized Vietnam, a humiliation to China and its Self-Strengthening movement. The second incident and final blow to the Self-Strengthening movement was the Sino-Japanese war, in which China occurred a disastrous defeat.

Our attempts to gain western technology have gained some success, but on the whole, we simply have not come far enough to be a match for the west or even the foreign devils of Japan. However, there is still hope. We have started on the right path that will allow us to become a dominant power. It is this desire for modernization that will allow us to obtain technology in the future and let China become the dominant world power it once was. So while this movement to immediately modernize China and turn it into a world power as Japan had done failed, it will lay the path for a newer, more powerful China in the Future.

 

a steamship, one of the many western technologies we are trying to assimilate

back to assignment

Sources

1."Imperial China in the Nineteenth Century, 1644-1912." Reproduced in Student Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
<http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC>

2. Ssu- Yu Teng and John K. Fairbank, "China's Resonse to the West: A Documentary survay 1839-1923" (New York: Atheneum,1968), pp. 53-54

3."Imperial China in the nineteenth Century, 1644-1912

4. "Hung-chang Li." From David D. Buck, "Li Hung-chang." Great Lives from History, Frank N. Magill, ed. Renaissance to 1900 Series, Vol. 3. Salem Press, 1989. Reproduced in Student Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
<http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC>

5. “China.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved December 16, 2003 from Encyclopedia Britannica Online. <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=127722>

images

1."Sheres of Influence in China to1914"

<http://www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/brief_review/global_history/essay_questions/dbq6.cfm>

2. Erik Heyl. "U.S.S. Banshee, formerly the blockade runner Banshee" <http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-civil/civsh-b/banshee.htm>