How did China's 2,000-year empire collapse?

China.

A cradle of world civilisation.

The land that invented  printing, paper and gunpowder.

And under successive dynasties, the centre  of a vast empire that stretched from the  

Pacific Ocean to the Himalayas... and from the  eastern steppe to the tropical South China Sea.

The Chinese call it Zhōngguó - the  Central State, or Middle Kingdom.

And for more than two thousand years,  

its Emperors claimed a divine mandate to  rule over Tianxia - "all under heaven".

Since 1644, this great empire has  been ruled by the Qing dynasty.

They are ethnic Manchu from the north, though  most of their subjects are Han Chinese.

By the 19th century, the empire  spans 14.5 million square km,  

and receives tribute from many smaller neighbours.

Around 450 million people live within these  borders – one third of the world’s population.

It is also estimated that China accounts  for one third of the world’ wealth.

The imperial capital, Peking,  and major hubs such as Nanking,  

and Canton, are among the  greatest cities in the world.

It is a multi-ethnic empire, whose self-proclaimed  aim is not economic or political expansion, but  

the maintenance of ‘harmony’... a worldview that  derives from Confucius, the 6th century BC sage.

His teachings have governed society, in both  public and private realms, for two thousand years.

Fundamental values - such as reverence  for parents and ancestors, loyalty,  

and benevolence - seek to create  an orderly and harmonious society.

It is also one that is rigidly conservative.

Young men from well-to-do families spend  years studying the Confucian classics,  

in preparation for the imperial civil  service exam. This is the only route  

to the higher levels of the Qing administration.

But – governed by scholarly bureaucrats,  and an emperor who is both revered and  

feared - China is failing to keep  up with a rapidly changing world.

For the time being, foreign merchants are  restricted to the southern port of Canton.

Such splendid isolation will  prove impossible to sustain.

1839 marks the beginning of  China’s ‘Century of Humiliation’.

For years, British merchants had been smuggling  

opium from India into China  – a vastly lucrative trade.

The consequences for China  are an addiction epidemic.

But when Qing officials seize and destroy  large quantities of the drug in Canton,  

the British react with force.

Using superior naval technology, the British  quickly overpower the antiquated Chinese fleet.

The Chinese are forced to sign the  Treaty of Nanking - the first of  

what will later be called ‘the unequal treaties’.

The treaty grants special rights to the British,  

opening five ports to British merchants,  and ceding the territory of Hong Kong.

A second opium war soon extends similar  advantages to France and the USA...

The Russian Empire further exploits Chinese  weakness, to seize territory in the northeast...

While a horrifying civil war - the Taiping  

Rebellion - devastates south  and central China for 14 years.

The death toll is estimated at 40 million, making  it one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.

While China suffers, her enemies grow stronger.

In 1895, a newly modernized Japan,  long seen as inferior to China,  

easily defeats the Qing navy, and wins  territorial concessions of its own.

Westerners mock China as ‘the sick man  of Asia’: a giant fallen prey to the  

imperialism of foreign powers, better  adapted to life in the modern world.

But, by the turn of the twentieth  century, there is a growing sense of  

outrage among the Chinese people...  and a determination to fight back.

In 1899, a movement emerges in  northern China, calling itself  

the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists.  Its members become better known as the Boxers.

They are outraged by the weakness of the  Qing dynasty, the spread of Christianity,  

and China’s repeated humiliations. Their  goal: to expel all foreigners from China,  

and end the shameful concessions made to them.

The Boxers begin by attacking  western-funded railways,  

Christian missionaries, and Chinese converts.

In June 1900, thousands of Boxers enter Peking and  

lay siege to the area in the  city where foreigners live.

They adopt the slogan “Uphold  the Qing, Destroy foreigners!”

For the ruling Empress Dowager Cixi, the  Boxers are a problem – but also an opportunity.

Cixi decides to throw the weight of  the Qing state behind the Boxers,  

and declares war on the foreign powers.

It is a terrible miscalculation.

In response, a 20,000-strong  Allied Expeditionary Force,  

combining troops from eight different  nations, descends on Peking.

Amidst numerous atrocities,  the Boxers are crushed,  

and the city is looted by the allied armies.

The Qing court is forced  to sign the Boxer Protocol.

Under its terms, China must pay  crippling indemnities over four  

decades... almost twice the  government’s annual revenue.

This is China’s greatest humiliation yet.

Under huge pressure to modernise the state,  

Cixi and the Qing Court finally  undertake sweeping reforms:

The archaic civil service exam is abolished,  

to be replaced by modern schools  with a western curriculum.

The first steps are taken  to create a constitution,  

which will impose limits on  the power of the emperor.

The military is reorganised along Western lines,  

with improved officer training,  equipment, and weaponry.

Its most powerful contingent is the Beiyang Army,  

based in northern China,  under general Yuan Shikai.

But many believe the Qing  reforms do not go far enough,  

and that only wholesale revolution can save China.

One such would-be revolutionary... is Sun Yat-sen.

From a humble Cantonese family, Sun  was educated outside China, in Hawaii.

He is very different from China’s old  Confucian elite. A Christian convert,  

Sun speaks fluent English but  struggles with classical Chinese.

Following his involvement in several  failed uprisings against the Qing,  

he lives in exile in Europe.

In 1905, Sun travels to Japan.

In Tokyo, he founds the Tongmenghui,  a revolutionary alliance whose goal is  

to overthrow Manchu rule, and replace the  Qing monarchy with a democratic republic.

He advocates the three principles of nationalism,  democracy, and the people’s livelihood.

To his supporters, Sun Yat-sen  represents hope in a new future.

And that future seems to be drawing closer.

In 1908, after a turbulent 47-year reign,  Empress Dowager Cixi dies at the age of 72.

The imperial throne of China falls  to a two-year-old infant, Pu Yi.

At a time of crisis and mounting opposition,  the Qing dynasty has never been weaker.

9th October 1911. Hankow, Hubei Province.

Members of a secret revolutionary society - with  

links to the Tungmenghui - are making  bombs... when there’s an explosion.

Their cover blown, the authorities arrest and  later execute several of the group’s leaders.

But it only pours fuel on the fire.

An uprising breaks out in the  neighbouring city of Wuchang.

Crucially, soldiers of Hubei Province’s New Army  are persuaded to mutiny, and join the revolt.

After 24 hours of fierce fighting,  

claiming hundreds of lives, Wuchang  falls to the revolutionaries.

On 12th October, a new Military Government  claims authority in the province.

It publicly denounces the  crimes of the Qing dynasty,  

and calls on other provinces to join  it in overthrowing the monarchy.

The revolution spreads like wildfire  - mostly in cities and towns,  

where there is deep-seated  resentment against Qing rule.

Within 6 weeks, 16 of China’s  26 provinces have seceded.

In many areas, such as Shaanxi, the  ruling Manchu are targeted, and massacred.

Panic grips the Qing court in Peking.

General Yuan Shikai of the Beiyang Army  is summoned to crush the revolutionaries.

China is soon in a state of open civil war,  

between Yuan’s forces in the  North, and the rebels in the South.

In the chaos of war and revolution,  

both Tibet and Outer Mongolia declare  their independence from China.

On 1st January 1912, in Nanking, the rebels  

proclaim the establishment  of the Republic of China.

Sun Yat-sen, who has just returned to China from  the USA, is sworn in as its provisional president.

After years of exile, fundraising and plotting,  Sun has finally secured political power.

His government immediately begins  work on a new democratic constitution,  

and passes far-reaching reforms.  

Archaic practices are abolished, such  as growing queues – the long hair that  

symbolises submission to the Manchu –  as well as foot-binding, and kow-towing.

In the new multi-ethnic Chinese  Republic, all will be equal.

Its flag will have five colours,  for ‘Five Races Under One Union’:  

Han, Manchu, Mongol, Muslim, and Tibetan.

But for now the Republic  only occupies the southern  

half of China, and the success of the  revolution remains far from certain.

So to unite China and secure the future of the  republic, Sun Yat-sen makes a shock offer to  

general Yuan Shikai: if he can persuade the Qing  imperial family to abdicate, he can be President.

Yuan accepts, and informs the  imperial family that only by  

giving up the throne can their  lives and comfort be guaranteed.

On 12th February 1912, six-year-old  Emperor Pu Yi abdicates – though for now,  

he and his court continue to live in  Peking’s palace complex, the Forbidden City.

More than 2,000 years of imperial  rule in China are at an end.

In its place, the only major republic in Asia.

Three days later, General Yuan Shikai becomes  provisional president of the Republic of China.

But almost immediately, the revolutionaries fall  

out with the new president, whose  personal ambition is all too clear.

Now in opposition, Sun Yat-sen and  his allies establish the Kuomintang,  

or KMT, an evolution of the Tongmenghui.

Elections are held at the end of the year  – the first nationwide democratic elections  

ever held in China, though only around  5% of the population are allowed to vote.

The Kuomintang win convincingly – taking nearly  half the seats in the new National Assembly.

Kuomintang leader Song Jiaoren,  a close ally of Sun Yat-sen,  

is all but guaranteed to  become the next prime minister.

On 20th March 1913, as he is boarding a train  in Shanghai, he is shot twice at close range.

No conclusive evidence is ever found,  

but it’s widely believed the assassination  was carried out on President Yuan’s orders.

China’s first democratic elections  – will prove to be its last.

The next year, rivalry between the  Kuomintang and President Yuan’s  

government explodes once more into armed conflict.

But Yuan’s Beiyang Army is too strong.

The Kuomintang and its supporters are  

defeated – the party is outlawed - and  Sun Yat-sen returns to exile in Japan.

Yuan Shikai has successfully  grabbed power for himself.

China is now in effect a military dictatorship.

But the President is unable to solve any of the  problems he’s inherited from the Qing Empire.

He dies of natural causes just three years later.

And China… slides back into chaos.

The 1911 revolution failed to  establish a stable republic in China.

But it does open the way for an  avalanche of radical new ideas.

Across China, young intellectuals are increasingly  

convinced that only a total break with  China’s past can secure its future.

Their ideas crystalize in  the ‘New Culture Movement’.

Chen Duxiu is one of its most prominent leaders.

From a wealthy family, Chen had been immersed in classical Chinese teaching  

from a young age, but later turned  his back on Confucian thought.

In 1915, he founded the magazine ‘New Youth’,  

which became home to the most  important radical writers in China.

As a young professor at Peking University,  

Chen gathered like-minded intellectuals  around him... such as Hu Shih, who calls  

for traditional Chinese characters to be replaced  by Baihua, which better represents spoken Chinese.

Among their students - a young man from  rural Hunan province, named Mao Zedong.

Chen Duxiu and the New Culture Movement argue  for a complete rejection of Confucianism.

In its place, they want democracy,  science, Chinese nationalism,  

and radical social change, including female  emancipation and greater gender equality.

They will soon have their chance  to take these ideas to the nation.

In 1919, World War One’s victorious  powers are meeting in Paris,  

to agree the post-war settlement.

During the war, China had sided with the allies,  

and sent 140,000 men to serve as  labourers on the Western Front.

In recognition of this contribution,  

the Chinese expected to regain control  of Germany’s territory in Shandong.

But now news arrives that this colony  has instead been awarded to Japan.

The response in China.. is outrage.

On 4th May, 3,000 angry students take to the  streets of Peking. They gather at Tiananmen,  

the entrance gate to the Forbidden City.

Inspired by the New Culture Movement,  

their placards – in Chinese, English and French  – call for ‘Mr. Democracy’ and ‘Mr. Science’.

Protests spread across the country,  uniting students and workers against  

the government and the Western powers who  are seen to have betrayed China yet again.

The protests achieve little in the  short term.. but will come to be  

seen as a watershed in China’s march  towards a modern, nationalist future.

Many protesters are now disillusioned  with western liberal democracies.

Some turn to Marxism, inspired by the  success of the 1917 Revolution in Russia,  

which seems to offer a model for  total national transformation.

Among these converts, the 25-year-old Mao  Zedong. He writes: “I venture to make a  

singular assertion: one day, the reform of the  Chinese people will be more profound than that  

of any other people, and the society of  the Chinese people will be more radiant  

than any other people... Our golden age, our  age of glory and splendour, lies before us!”

In July 1921, the founding congress of the Chinese  

Communist Party takes place in  the French concession in Shanghai.

There are just 13 members  present, who meet in secret.

Disrupted by French police, the group  moves to a pleasure boat on South Lake.

Mao Zedong is a founding member.

The first General Secretary is Chen Duxiu.

Despite their tiny numbers, they are determined  to seize control of China’s revolution.

Following the death of the dictator Yuan  Shikai, China had slid back into civil war.

Generals compete to control the government in  Peking... while the country is torn apart by rival  

warlords with their own private armies. Some are  little more than organised criminals in uniform.

The most prominent groups are the  Zhili clique, the Anhui clique,  

and the Fengtiang clique, each named  after their provincial powerbase.

By 1921, Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang has established  a military government of its own, in Canton.

Both the Kuomintang and Communists realise  

they can only obtain power if  they first defeat the warlords.

Both believe they can use the  other to reach their goal.

In 1923, with the Soviet Union’s backing,  the Chinese Communist Party allies itself  

with the Kuomintang, in a pact  known as the First United Front.

Chinese Communists are urged  to join the Kuomintang,  

which is itself transformed with the  help of Soviet advisors, funds and arms.

Soviet advisers also help to set up  a military academy on Whampoa Island.

It will be run by Sun’s chief military adviser,  a rising star named Chiang Kai-shek. His aim  

is to mould the Kuomintang army into a  disciplined and effective fighting force.

But just months later... while  visiting the north to negotiate  

with the warlords, Sun Yat-sen falls ill.

On 12th March 1925, he dies  from cancer in Peking, aged 58.

His last words: ‘Peace...  Struggle... Save China.’  

Sun’s death leaves the Kuomintang in disarray,  

and China at a crossroads. The only  certainty seems to be further civil war.

For Sun’s loyal lieutenant,  however, the road ahead is clear.

On hearing news of Sun Yat-sen’s  death, Chiang Kai-shek tells his wife:

‘If I control the army, I will have the power to  control the country… It is my road to leadership’.

In Peking, the Forbidden City lies empty.

The last emperor, Pu Yi, had  been evicted by a local warlord,  

and left to seek Japanese protection.

Whoever is to lead China now,  will face enormous challenges:

Fragile alliances... a fragmented country...

And powerful neighbours, that seek to plunge  China back into an age of humiliation.

Can’t wait for the next episode? Great news – we already made it. 

Episode 2 of The Rise of China covers the rise of  

Chiang Kai-shek, as his Kuomintang  Army takes on the warlords.. and the  

Communists.. forcing Mao and others to  undertake their legendary 'Long March'. 

But once again, foreign predators wait in  the wings, ready to exploit a divided China. 

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