Scholar Wei Yuan once said that China should 'learn the superior barbarian techniques to control the barbarians' (1). This brilliant man was entirely right. We have just been defeated and humiliated by the British (2), but they will not have the last word. Our beloved China must rise up and westernize ourselves in order to defeat the Westerners with their own weapons. Many are speaking of a huge movement in the making. Not a movement against European soldiers trading in our ports, but a movement to self-strengthen our country.

There are two main parts of the most popular version of this effort. First, we want to learn everything that we can about western technology, language and military. Our factories will copy their weapons and our military will learn how to fight as they do. We will build new boats and ports. Adviser Fen Kuei-Fen said, "we have only one thing to learn from the barbarians and that is strong ships and effective guns." We will learn their language and immerse ourselves in their culture by wearing their same clothes and learning their language. The second part of this movement is to uphold our government and our age-old traditions. We believe that the Chinese government is the most just of all nations . In all of our efforts to copy western ways, we must stand firm in our beliefs that have made us proud and fair through the centuries.

Some people, like journalist Wang T'ao, believe that just copying western technology will not suffice. He thinks that China might save itself if they take on all western ideas and morals as well (3). Most Chinese agree that we will loose our chinese identity if we totally assimilate into European culture. Wang T'ao's opinion is a very extreme version of self-strengthening. Although this is not the most common belief for self-strengthening, there are a few who believe in this strongly.

There are those who don't think this system will work at all (4). Scholar Leung Minying, who studied in the University of Paris for 2 years, thinks we will never beat the barbarians at their own game. "I am not saying that self-strengthening is impossible, I just think that we will never catch up to western technology if we keep copying Europe. All the time that we spend trying to figure out the west, they are advancing their existing technology. By the time we develop weapons like theirs, they will have developed weapons that are ten times more powerful."

Although there are those who disagree, those who believe that we can do this far out-number them. As long as we dig in and devote all of our energy to this, there is no doubt that we will succeed.

Our empress Cixi has very little knowledge of the west (5), so we must take it into our hands to advance ourselves. Many scholars have studied in the west and will be able to teach craftsmen how to build the necessary equipment. Our factories must start making guns and ammunition while a few hired Barbarians will help us get organized. Our country will be transformed into a modernizing machine. More and more farmers will be needed to work in cities and leave their farms. Rich businessmen will be asked to give money to the cause. While devoting our energy to this new project and holding our morals at the same time, China will get the chance to really come together and prove the western world wrong.

This movement will change the way we live, but it is crucial to our survival as a powerful nation. We can't afford to let ourselves slip into the realm of subordinate countries, enslaved by the western barbarians. China must prove that we are strong and we will not let ourselves get pushed around. We are the largest country in the world, so if everybody goes to work on this effort, we will be in the lead again in no time.

sources:

1. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 1991 ed., s.v. "The Self-strengthening Movement."

2."Proposals for Self-strengthening" [Http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob32.html]

3. "Ch'ing China Self-Strengthening" [Http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHIN/SELF.HTM], January 2002

4. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 1991 ed., s.v. "The Self-strengthening Movement."

5. Conrad Schirokauer, A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1978

images:

1. "China's Problems in the late 19th century" [http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/images/It19cmap.gif], January 2002

2. "Empress Dowager Ci Xi" [http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4016/contents.html], January 2002