Guo David Guo Mr.

Laird AP Comp Govt 05 October 2010 Xinhai Revolution

The Xinhai Revolution was the overthrow of Chinas ruling Qing Dynasty, also known as the Manchu Dynasty- and the establishment of the Republic of China. This revolution began on 10 October 1911 with the Wuchang Uprising. The revolution was resulted by the anger and resentment towards the corrupted Qing Dynasty. The political minds of China were not satisfied with the progress of the country, because China had one of the largest populations, and yet it was considered poor and weak. People were also frustrated with the governments inability to restrain the interventions of foreign powers, and that the government was dominated by an ethnic minority (the Manchus). The (Hans) Chinese disliked being dominated by the foreigners; the westerners and even the Manchus. During the late Qing times the people blamed the westerners as well as the Manchus- for many problems that China faced political, social, and economic. The emperor during the time was inefficient; the Qing emperor held absolute power, but in the 19th century there were no great Qing emperor. Without an able emperor to supervise the government officials, they became more incompetent. These so call officials in turn chose incompetent low officials, and the problem spirals downward. The Qing government was lacking money to meet their expenses and to put down rebellions, so in order to raise money they started to sell government posts. This way more people acquired government posts, and those officials leeched off of the common

Guo people. Corruption within the government was a huge problem; high officials received bribe from low officials, and the low officials stole governments money. The anti-manchus were inefficient in their rebellions. There was lack of unity since the members of the revolutionary alliance can from different provinces of China, and the organization was divided into smaller provincial branches. These different

factions had serious personal as well as ideological disagreements. Many of the leaders in these branches acted without cooperating with the central leaders. Despite Sun Yat-Sens funding, there were still need for money. Another limitation on the anti-Manchu group was their small size when compared to the size of Chinas territories and population. The revolution alliances membership was only available to the Chinese and the students oversea. When the Manchu was founded after the defeat of Ming last Han dynasty- the Manchus forced the Han Chinese to adapt their custom. They were forced to adapt to the Manchu queue hairstyle and the Manchu clothing. Traditional Hans clothing or Hanfuwas replaced with Manchu-style Qipao. Emperor Kangxi at that time ordered the creation of a complete dictionary of Chinese characters. The Manchus tried to make their dynasty ruling a legitimate one by adopting the Chinese culture. They embrace the ideas of Confucianism, but it came increasingly under attack in the 19th century after the coming of the westerners. The Manchus were stuck between continuing to promote the Confucian belief and giving it up. If they continue to promote it they would be condemned as backward and reactionary by the progressiveminded intellectuals. Whereas if they give up the Confucian political ideas they would lose the ideological foundation on which their legitimacy was built. The result of western

Guo influence was that more and more Chinese people became conscious of their national identity, and this consciousness grew among the Chinese people. The anti-Manchu beliefs spread rapidly; as a matter of fact, modern Chinese nationalism was expressed through an anti-Manchu attitude. An increasing amount of young Chinese intellects believe that a revolution was

necessary to save china, because of western influences they realized that china was going backwards when compared to the western countries. They had also experienced racial discrimination and were thus nationalistic and they can experiment with ideas on the revolution since they experienced freedom provided by foreign environment. Another thing is that the western education had the effect of encouraging radical activities. Sun Yat-sen founded the Revive China Society 1894 to 1995 in Hawaii and Hong Kong. This group consisted mainly of oversea Chinese and Christians. The society planned a rebellion on Canton but failed. After the failed attempt to revolt Sun fled oversea. He then widens the support for the revolutionary movement, so he travelled to foreign countries to gain sympathy from western countries. Sun believed that foreign assistance was essential for a successful revolution in China, so he tried to convince westerners that both missionary activities and trade would be better served by a new republic than by the corrupted by the Manchu dynasty. The result was rather disappointing to Sun. Not even Hong Kong-a British colony- wanted to help Sun organize his revolution.

Guo