How accurate is it to say that the spread of revolutionary beliefs was the main reason for the fall of the Qing dynasty 1911-12?
This essay will be looking at how much of a contribution the spread of revolutionary beliefs in China had in the fall of the Qing Dynasty. In order to determine the importance of this I will therefore also be looking at other factors such as, foreign interference, double tenth and the inability to change.
I believe it is partially accurate to say that the spread of revolutionary beliefs was important in the downfall of the Qing Dynasty; however it wasn’t necessarily the most important factor. This can be determined from the effects of Sun Yatsen’s anti-government movement in China. Initially, the extreme need for revolution and reform stemmed from Cixi’s need and desire for conservatism. Her oblivious attitude towards the failure of the government angered many people and essentially gave reformers the ammunition to spread their own beliefs. As previously mentioned, Sun Yatsen was one of the people who felt strongly about changing the way things worked in China. He was particularly open minded and due to his education abroad had adopted a Westernized style of thinking. Thus, Yatsen attempted to modernise and regenerate China by removing foreign control and reasserting their unique character and greatness by forming the revolutionary alliance in 1905. Within this, his greatest belief was that the only way in which China would be able to modernise was if they became a republic, so his party formalised this concept as the “Three Principles of the People”. Although, the reason why Sun isn’t regarded as being the most important person who contributed to fall of the Qing dynasty is because he didn’t ever actually have great power as he was in exile, he just formed ideas which other people could base their revolutionary concepts on. However, without his new Westernised way of thinking a lot of people wouldn’t have become broad minded and willing to accept that China wasn’t as supreme as it liked to believe. Hence, making the statement only moderately accurate.
Another important factor to consider which contributed towards to the collapse of the Qing dynasty; is foreign interference. The hatred towards foreigners derived from both the Opium wars and the unequal treaties. The Opium wars were initiated by Britain in 1839; they unfairly demanded that China increased its purchases of opium as it was one of their greatest incomes. China made the mistake of retaliating by closing the ports, so in response Britain dispatched their gun boats and essentially annihilated the Chinese’s defences. The Chinese civilians were shocked and angry that their status had been questioned by people regarded as “inferiors”, this anger was then further provoked by the unequal treaties. All the western powers collaborated and forced China into signing the agreements which gave the other nations the right to form concessions and open new treaty ports. Naturally, this caused great resentment towards the foreigners and their hatred continued to grow even more from the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. The empress, Cixi, made the naïve mistake of trying to overthrow the foreign powers and had clearly not learnt her lesson from the results of the Opium wars and much to her dismay, once again, China was defeated. All actions have consequences, and this was no exception, the Western nations imposed several severe penalties on China such as $450 million in reparation fees. Any power which China thought they had left was truly diminished, they were a laughing stock, not even Chinese citizens had sympathy towards the Qing dynasty and the majority of people still wanted freedom from the foreign nations. This proves that the national resentment of foreign interference was a large factor in the downfall of the Qing dynasty and can perhaps be viewed as more important than the spread of revolutionary beliefs. This is due to the fact that foreign interference was the starting point in a series of chain reactions, without it nobody would have questioned China’s ability and would have even begun to consider the need for reformation.
The next factor which I’m going to look at is China’s complete inability to reform. A key example of this is the ‘100 Days’ reform which was initiated in 1898 by the Emperor, Guangxu. He decided, along with the progressive elements, that the reformation of China was vital and began to introduce measures which were all based on Western models such as: new innovations in education. Guangxu was the first Emperor that thought modernising China was the way forward, he wanted to try and win back all of the critics of the government who were appalled by China’s lack of ability to prevent foreign interference. But on the other hand, the Empress Cixi absolutely detested the concept of “reformation” due to her conservative nature. Cixi found that the reforms were all far too sudden and brash for her liking, so she cleverly put a stop to the reforms by outmanoeuvring Guangxu with her array of supporters and gaining control of the government. This highlighted how weak the government really was, the people realised how careless some of their actions were. It also identified the major lack of cohesion between those in power due to the fact that conservatism was still prominent as well as the concept of modernising. It is exceedingly obvious why this would irritate Chinese citizens; the government were proving themselves to be dire and unorganised which caused the start of a series of rebellions and spread revolutionary beliefs. Yet again, this is an important factor; if the government had been able to see their mistakes then there wouldn’t have been any need to rebel. China was stuck in a time warp and it is definitely a main contributor to the fall of the Qing dynasty.
Furthermore, the 1911 Revolution or the ‘Double Tenth’ is another thing to take into consideration when thinking about the Qing dynasty’s collapse. The Double Tenth can primarily be compared to a bomb exploding at the end of chain reaction; it was the explosion of anguish that had built up over the period of three years towards the Manchu government. On 10 October 1911 in a city in Hubei, troops ultimately refused to supress a group of unruly dissidents which within itself caused a miniature domino effect in the sense that the first rebellion then sparked a series of similar mutinies in neighbouring provinces. The significance of this event shows us that not only were the people fed up of abiding by the old-fashioned principles which China clung haphazardly to, but so were the people who were actually employees of the government. This factor ties in with the importance of the spreading of revolutionary beliefs, this is proof that as time was progressing, more and more people were succumbing to a more westernised approach to thinking. This shows there is a direct link between new ideas and the eventual collapse of the Qing dynasty.
To conclude, I don’t believe that it should be stated that the spread of revolutionary beliefs was the most important factor in the fall of the Qing dynasty. However, it cannot be disregarded as important because it got across to people how inferior the Chinese system was in comparison to other Western governments and made them want to do something about it. If people hadn’t realised this then there wouldn’t have been reforms or rebellions and perhaps you could go to the extent of saying that the Qing dynasty may not have even collapsed. Although, it can’t be said that alone the spread of revolutionary beliefs caused the dynasty to fall apart, there are other very important factors such as foreign interference. This was essentially the starting point which made individuals begin to question why China had succumbed so easily to external pressure.