What role did internal and external factors play in the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911?

Example 1: First Opium War (1839 1842)

Chinese remained adamant on issues of European access to trade and influence.

Generally tumultuous relationship between Europe and China until the eventual use of force in The Opium Wars (1839 1842).

Example 1: Opium Wars (1839 1842)

British attempt to attract Chinese trade via use of opium. Qing disapproved

The Qing Government issued a decree in 1810 reemphasizing the ban on opium, which read s follows:

Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. - Fu, Lo-Shu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations 1644 - 1820, Volume 1 (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1966), pg. 380.

Opium Wars (1839 1842)

1842: European powers defeat the Chinese, who are forced to sign The Treaty of Nanjing.

Obligates that Canton, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningboo and Shanghai are opened to British trade. The Chinese also lose Hong Kong to the British indefinitely. Payment of indemnity costs of $21 million in total at 5% interest per annum.

- Spence, J.D, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W Norton and Co., 1996), pg. 159

U.S follow suit with The Treaty of Wanghia in 1843.

Example 2: Sino - Japanese War (1894 1895)

Began due to conflict over Korean Peninsula. Both Japan and China considered Korea as within their own spheres of influence. China loses the war.

1895: Treaty of Shiminoseki. Chinese must renounce traditional claim to influence over Korea. Japan obtains influence in place. Chinese also lose Manchuria and Taiwan. 35,000 Chinese troops killed.

- Fenby, Johnathan, Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), pg 54

Example 2: Sino - Japanese War (1894 1895)

Yu Tsan, a Chinese scholar of the period remarked:

At no time in her history has China been so poor and so weak,

- Fenby, Johnathan, Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), pg 54 Successive defeats attract societal scorn towards the Qing authority.

Example 1: The Boxer Rebellion (1898 - 1901)

Displeased with the Qing authority, and the capitulation to foreign demands, colonialism, and also the presence of Christian Missionaries.

Empress Dowager elected to support the movement early on, until the threat of foreign invasion in 1900.

She then signed The 1901 Boxer Protocol, which treated the Boxers like outlaws, subject to imprisonment or death. More Indemnity Costs, amounting to $333 million.

- Schoppa, Keith. R, Twentieth Century China: A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pg. 17

Example 2: Xinhai Rebellion, 1911

Ten attempted coups from 1897 1910. Indicative of mass dissatisfaction with the Qing authority.

Penetration of modern western ideas into, and adapting them to fit the Chinese context. E.G. Chinese Nationalism of Sun Yat-sen, and the Communism of Mao Zedong.

Nationalism was attractive, provided an effective basis upon which the Han majority could bond in order to depose the Manchus.