51 replies to this topic

[navyblue]

perhaps the previliged people are always happy to keep the status quo as long as it is sustainable.
but the turn of 19 to 20th century saw the young genty-elites defection to their own class - this was after the defeat by the foreign imperial powers and their education in the West which brought them the huge contrast of economic and technological status between China and the West. They became iconoclastic towards the Confucian value system, which was right in a way, only the economic status of China needed to be addressed, it was, but should have been attached with more importance maybe. or maybe other strands of forces hindered it. it was a time of chaos.
yes the Qing didnt expand its maritime power to protect the merchant ships when European countries were doing so, which was also quoted as the negative factor in Chinese culture in Heshang, the documentary in 1988...but they did try to develop industry in the first half of 19th century and built a navy. it might be related to the normadic nature of the ethnic manchu, or their consolidation of Confucian despise to mechandising when adopting the value it is difficult and unwise to attribute the collapse of Dynastic China to any single dynasty or a bunch of factors. it is far more complex...

[ctrlsave]

I think if there are any reasons for the prosperity under Wanli's reign, it's got to be the
Ming bureaucratic system that has been refined over the centuries. Also probably one of the reasons
why Ming could have even lasted that long!

[Mergen]

Regardless of dynasty, China just happened to be caught at the wrong time of rapid Western technological innovation and modernization. And because the Qing Dynasty had always postured itself as "being more Chinese than the Chinese themselves" in order to justify its legitimacy, the Sinicized government inherited the same conservative mindset. But the Confucian classics could not offer the solutions to building a military, economy or technology base which could stand up to the West. The Qing Dynasty just happened to be the scapegoat because it was the government during that period of backwardness vs the West. If it had been the Ming, Song, Tang or Han dynasties in power at the time, they would also be blamed for causing China's backwardness.

The problem with Chinese culture is the inherent inclination to look to an idealized past for solutions. Because the past is always held in superior regard and serves as reference to the present, a progressive mindset is often at odds with the retrospective nature of Chinese culture. This is akin to driving a horse carriage while looking backwards instead of forward to navigate the road ahead. Attempts to innovate or taking risk to do things in a newer way would be seen as insulting to the legacies of forebears, which in the ritualistic mindset of Chinese culture, is a big taboo.

[peger]

China's decline cannot be blamed on any one dynasty; it's main cause was the attitude towards the outside world that has been prevalent throughout Chinese history, which can generally be described as disinterest and sometimes disdain. The Macartney mission is such a pivotal moment because it can generally be seen as the instant in which the Qing leadership failed to pick up on the changes that were about to hit the globe; their belief that European powers had nothing to offer caused China to miss out on the Industrial, Scientific, and Political revolutions which were transforming the world. The Qing just so happened to preside over this; I highly doubt any other dynasty wouldn't make the same exact error.

[mohistManiac]

China's decline cannot be blamed on any one dynasty; it's main cause was the attitude towards the outside world that has been prevalent throughout Chinese history, which can generally be described as disinterest and sometimes disdain. The Macartney mission is such a pivotal moment because it can generally be seen as the instant in which the Qing leadership failed to pick up on the changes that were about to hit the globe; their belief that European powers had nothing to offer caused China to miss out on the Industrial, Scientific, and Political revolutions which were transforming the world. The Qing just so happened to preside over this; I highly doubt any other dynasty wouldn't make the same exact error.

During the Qing I think there were some emperors that were scientifically minded but sadly nobody understood the new institutions that would have been necessary for the full rise of science in China. So the message got lost.

[Corean Chinghiz]

qing dynasty got caught in a bad time. You could say they were unfortunate as Ming was closing the doors as well. The decline contributed to an explosion of anti-Qing sentiment, higher than previous levels.

[mohistManiac]

Qing dynasty was not really unsophisticated even by closing its doors. They just weren't sophisticated enough going forward. Hence how Empress Dowager used a constrained budget ineffectively in weird spending plans like renovating palaces.