China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 244

War, a combined British-French force again defeated the Imperial forces
and exacted further privileges. The British and their allies marched
into Beijing, destroying the Emperor's Summer Palace. Europeans and
Americans, and later Russians and Japanese, got the right to trade in many
ports (some a thousand miles inland on rivers), to travel anywhere, to send
missionaries, to receive more indemnities, and to have their own legal
courts and autonomous sections of cities where Chinese law did not apply.
At the same time, 1850 to 1864, a major rebellion devastated the south.
A radical religious reformer, Hong Xiuquan, had a vision of being taken
up to heaven where he met with God, who told him he was the younger
brother of Jesus Christ. Hong returned to earth to preach his version of
Christianity. He raised a big army and defeated the Imperial army for
many years. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with a capital
at Nanjing, and controlling a population of 30 million people. During the
civil war, up to 100 million died, and the countryside was devastated.
The 19th century ended with the Europeans and Japanese scrambling
for concessions in commerce. In 1895 Japan defeated China to gain pos-
session of Taiwan and Korea. In 1900 eight nations joined for a military
expedition to Beijing, known in the West as the Boxer Rebellion. This
was one more embarrassment for the Qing (Ching) Dynasty (in power
since 1644 when its ancestors seized the government with Manchu troops
from Manchuria). Chinese attempts at reform failed. A movement known
as “Self Strengthening” advocated Western education, public schools,
civil service improvements, modernizing the army and navy, and sound
finances. It opposed corruption, nepotism, and inertia. Elected local
assemblies and eventual parliamentary government were goals. In 1898 the
young Emperor Kuang-hsü appointed a reform prime minister and began
to issue modernizing decrees. This lasted only a hundred days, however,
before reactionary elements, led by the Dowager Empress Cixi, carried
out a coup d'etat, and imprisoned Kuang-hsu for the rest of his life. In the
very last years before her death in 1908, however, Cixi reversed course and
implemented some of the reforms she had opposed. In 1909 under the
last emperor, Pu Yi, a boy only three years old, provincial assemblies were
established, and the following year a national assembly was held. This
came too late to save the empire, however.
On October 10, 1911—Double Ten Day—a revolution overthrew the
ancient empire, establishing a republic. The imperial government dis-
solved with little resistance. The civil government was corrupt. Taxes were
increasing. Crime was rampant. The army was weak, and many junior