Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping

737 Pages·2019·18.8 MB·English

by  Klaus Mühlhahn

Making China Modern

Making China Modern
From the G reat Qing
to Xi Jinping
Klaus Mühlhahn
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
cambridge, mas sa chu setts
london, england · 2019
Copyright © 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First printing
Jacket artwork by Qiu Zhijie
Jacket design by Jill Breitbarth
9780674916074 (EPUB)
9780674916081 (MOBI)
9780674916067 (PDF)
Book design by Dean Bornstein
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Mühlhahn, Klaus, author.
Title: Making China modern : from the Great Qing to Xi Jinping / Klaus Mühlhahn.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018008769 | ISBN 9780674737358 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: China— History— Qing dynasty, 1644–1912. | China— History—
Republic, 1912–1949. | China— History—1949–
Classification: LCC DS754 .M84 2018 | DDC 951— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018008769
For Sophia, Clara, and Julius
Our nation is new, but at the same time very ancient; it is modern
and prosperous, but at the same time feudal and autocratic; it is west-
ernized, but also intrinsically Asian. The world is transforming the
nation, even as the nation is si mul ta neously transforming the world,
and through this pro cess the nation’s innovation lies in its use of an un-
fathomable reali ty to challenge the limits of human imagination. As a
result, the nation has come to acquire a sort of unrealistic reali ty, a non-
existent existence, an impossible possibility—in short, it has come to
possess an invisible and intangible set of rules and regulations.
— Yan Lianke, The Explosion Chronicles
Contents
Timeline: China, 1644–2017 ix
List of Maps xiii
Introduction 1
Part 1 The Rise and Fall of Qing China 21
1 Age of Glory: 1644–1800 25
2 Reordering the Chinese World: 1800–1870 85
3 Late Qing Predicaments: 1870–1900 153
Part 2 Chinese Revolutions 203
4 Upending the Empire: 1900–1919 209
5 Rebuilding during the Republican Era: 1920–1937 248
6 China at War: 1937–1948 298
Part 3 Remaking China 353
7 Socialist Transformation: 1949–1955 359
8 Leaping Ahead: 1955–1960 408
9 Overthrowing Every thing: 1961–1976 448
Part 4 China Rising 487
10 Reform and Opening: 1977–1989 491
11 Overall Advance: 1990–2012 527
12 Ambitions and Anx i eties: Con temporary China 560
Abbreviations 617
Notes 619
Acknowl edgments 695
Index 701

Timeline: China, 1644–2017
1644–1911 Qing dynasty
1683 Qing troops defeat Ming- loyalist Zheng Chenggong (Konxinga) in
Taiwan
1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk between Qing China and Tsarist Rus sia
1712 Mission of Manchu official to Rus sia
1715 East India Com pany opens trading station in Guangzhou
c. 1700–1800 “High Qing,” an age of prosperity and growth
1755–59 Conquest of central Asian lands (Xinjiang)
1757–1842 Foreign trade limited to the port of Guangzhou (“Canton system”)
1780s Literary inquisitions by the Qianlong emperor
1793 British Macartney mission to China fails to accelerate trade
1796–1804 White Lotus Rebellion
1799 Ban on import and cultivation of opium
1820–50 Economic depression under the Daoguang emperor
1840–42 First Opium War; Treaty of Nanjing opens Chinese ports to foreign
trade; Hong Kong ceded to Great Britain; reparation payments; end
of “Canton system”
1851–64 Taiping Rebellion
1856–60 Second Opium War; more ports opened; further rights granted to
foreigners
1861 Founding of the Zongli Yamen, China’s foreign office
1865–66 Opening of the first arsenals, producing battleships and armor
1873 Founding of China Merchant Steamship Com pany
1879 Japan seizes Ryukyu Islands, former tributary of the Qing
1883–85 Sino- French War
1890s Beiyang Army formed by Li Hongzhang
1894 Hanyang Ironworks begin production
1894–95 Sino- Japanese War; Taiwan becomes Japa nese colony
1895 “Self- Strengthening Army” created by Zhang Zhidong
1895–1911 Railway construction booms
1897 Qingdao occupied by Germany; Imperial Bank of China founded
in Shanghai
1898 Hundred Days Reform, violently ended by empress dowager Cixi;
Zhang Zhidong coins slogan “Chinese learning as substance,
Western learning as function”
( ix )