China's Path to Modernization
China's Transformation: Confucianism to Communism For two thousand years, China was dominated by a traditional dynastic system. Living with a confuciast ideology, the people of China rarely questioned the authority of the emperor. It seemed that this system of government would never end until it reached the mid-19th century and was forcefully exposed to western thought and politics. Chinese intellectuals, both confused and curious, searched for an ideology that would unite China and bring the nation to the same level as the West. The end result of their work was the communist People's Republic of China. During the period of Chinese Dynastic Rule, Confucianism was the dominating ideology of the people. The ruling system was a multi-tiered patriarchy and everyone was loyal to the emperor. To the Chinese, the outside world was barbaric and should be kept out of their
The focus of this movement was to strengthen the dynasty. His movement was defeated due to in-fighting and lack of foreign support. In response to the growing unbalanced trade relationship with the barbarians, particularly the British, the Emperor selected Lin Zexu to write a letter addressed to the Royal Family of England. The Manchu had control of Parliament, and had reorganized the army under their command. Kang Youwei, a reformer who was in favor of turning the emperor into a constitutional monarch, said that confucians are reformers, ready to make change,According to Youwei, if China did not change its political system, it would perish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**Sources of Chinese Tradition. However, the trade with the outside world soon became unbalanced when China began trading goods for opium and started to lose its resources. Once again, however, this revolution failed to unite China because the combination of Western and Confucian ideals did not work together. Following the Taiping Rebellion, China went through what is called the Self-Strengthening Movement (1840-1890). In his letter, Lin demands that England stop the trade of opium immediately:This demand led to the British-Qing Dynasty war (Opium War), which China eventually lost. After suffering such a great defeat to a barbaric nation, the entire Chinese nation was in shock. Due to the anger that grew from Manchu political reforms, more ideologies formed in China. Also, many citizens were angry about the nationalization of Chinese railroads (Railroad Rights Recovery Issue). After failing several Confuciast civil service exams, a citizen by the name of Hong Xiu-Quan became so furious with Confucianism that he formed his own rival capital of followers.
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