Was China considered powerful in the Qing Dynasty?

R

Red_Army

Active member
People from around the world considered China a powerful nation in the 17th and 18th century. The French Philosopher Voltaire even praised the Chinese style of government in the 18th century. However during the 19th century, when Britain fought a war against China, it was easy as taking candy from a baby. Then other countries like France, Germany, US, and Japan started to take advantage over China's weakness.
 
The Qing Dynasty was technically a foreign occupation by the ethnic Manchu peoples (similar to the Yuan Dynasty being a foreign occupation by the Mongols). There is no doubt that their dynasty controlled more area than any other (the Yuan/Mongolian exception being obvious of course), but their rule was seen as somewhat tyranical by some of those they ruled.

There is much within the traditions of the Chinese government that is highly commendable, the Civil Service Examination and many Confutian ideals being the most notable. This Civil Service Examination is simple enough to explain: Any Chinese person could take a certain test. Performance on that test determined whether they were fit to be given positions in the Imperial Court, and ruling buerocracy, etc. So we have a form of equal opportunity, though there was a lot more to it than that. Confusism isn't easy to summarize. Both predate the Qing by well over 1000 years.

I believe the Qing was a pretty brutal dynasty and quite foolish in their dealings with Europe. The failings of the Qing Dynasty were foremost in the abandonment of the imperial system as the governing system of China. The Qing Dynasty is quite similar to the Roman Empire in that they held together numerous varied ethnic groups, holding them in line by threat of overwhelming brute force. The penalty for a Han-Chinese marrying a Manchu was death. Apparently, they did not want to suffer the same fate as the Yuan - adsorbed and weakened by the Chinese culture. Tibet and modern-day Mongolia were conquered. Formosa passed from Dutch control to Qing control during their reign. They were given plenty of opportunity to modernize but the Qing stubbornly refused to believe that anything non-Chinese was of any use to them. They violently stamped out several attempts to "Westernize".

I'd say the best analogy for the Manchu/Qing Dynasty (prior to conflict with the West) is this: A version of the Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian) that managed to stick around a lot longer and adapt to Chinese culture more fully.
 
Then what is the definition of Chinese?

Why Chinese must only be the Han-Chinese?

Chinese is a general term for all different peoples living in China and holding Chinese culture, no matter it is Han, Mongol, Manchu, or other ethnics.

Also for many "Han-Chinese" thousands years ago, they were not part of that "Chinese Middle Kingdom" either, like my hometown Hunan, we were treated as barbarian Southerners, but now? We are completely Chinese, and we contributed a lot to Chinese power in military sense.

Well I can understand some foreigners who are eager to distinguish Chinese among Mongol, Manchu, Han, Titetan, Muslims, they try to create trouble almong all the Chinese, hence to weaken China.

We are ALL CHINESE.
 
Well, the duration of the Manchu occupation was longer than any prior to it. The Manchu peoples adopted and absorbed the Chinese culture, but the Han-Chinese viewed them as a foreign occupation. Conversely, the Manchus took great pains to make certain to not "polute" the Manchu blood with by letting themselves intermarry with the Han-Chinese. So the Qing Dynasty sees the greatest geographical control ever seen by a Chinese Dynasty other than the Yuan. They were not accepted as Chinese by the Han-Chinese anymore than the Yuan Dynasty, but somehow or another, they got things right where the Yuan got it wrong. They masterfully inserted themselves into Chinese society and culture. They overtook and subdued lands that no previous dynasty had ever managed.

The Han-Chinese outlook began as "this too shall pass", thinking that the Manchu domination would die in time like the Yuan had. Gradually, over the hundreds of years of Manchu dominance, the Han gradually came to accept that the Qing weren't going away anytime soon. No Flying Frog, if the Manchu and the Han were so melded together, why did the Manchu prohibition of Manchu/Han intermarriage continue to be enforced? The Han-Chinese ultimately gave up on there ever being an end to the Manchus domination. Much like India and the Aryan dominance, time blended the two into a single civilization in spite of the heavy-handed enforcement of separation. The Manchu ended up becoming an enforced aristocracy based on ethnicity, but the blending and melding of the two cultures was otherwise completed in the course of many centuries.

The domination of the Manchu carried on to the end of the Qing Dynasty, and continued thereafter. Today, you have two dialects: Cantonese (the language of the Han-Chinese) and Mandarine. Those speaking Cantonese are required to learn Mandarin or they are unable to function in society. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those speaking Mandarin as their first language are not requried to learn Cantonese, are they? Its pointless to call them Han and Manchu because they are no longer kept under enforced prohibition of intermixture. Its also pointless because the rest of the world hasn't a clue about Chinese history, wouldn't you agree? The ROC and thereafter PRC has managed to turn China into a more complete melting pot of cultures. Still, there is a general acknowledgement of there being a distiction between the two, much like the North and South in the United States today.
 
Well

Mandarin is China's official language. It is a very important thaeveryone speaks a same language. There are so many language, tradition in the U.S. What would be the ideal communication language-English.

You are right that Qing dynasty prohibited marriage between Han and Manchu. However, the Republic of China was formed under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yet Sen. Dr. Sun and Jiang Jie Shi lead the war of unification after defeating Yuen Shi Kai and other warlords.

So, at that time, there was no separation among hans, manchu or any other national within China any longer.

I am not quite sure when Nationalist took control of Taiwan before the retreat to the island.
 
Well, maybe a couple of hundreds years ago there was a huge difference btw Manchu and Han people, but now there is completely no difference more, Han is not dominating the country, we don't treat the Manchu's as slaves either, we are simply all Chinese.
Also, the Manchu's didn't conquer China, it is the Han Chinese generals who invited the Manchu troops to help them in "civial wars" then the Manchu's stayed in China and then ruled with the Han Chinese. But indeed for many Chinese it was treated as a non-Chinese (or actually non-Han) people.

But I don't think it is appropriate to make distinguish among the Han or Mongol or Manchu or Muslim people in China now.

If talking about PAST, he*l, only a very small part of the current China is the real Middle Kingdom :D

Also, I don't even know what language did the Manchu's speak and did they have their own writting scripts, some people say many Manchu's speak simply Chinese at that time, it is anyway so close to each other. Got any info about it?
 
My whole point was that the Qing Dynasty began as a foreign occupation, just like the Yuan Dynasty was. They remained a foreign occupation to some degree until the collapse of the Qing, but the melding of Han and Manchu culturally was inevitably accomplished. I've known a number of Chinese who immigrated to the USA and according to them there is a shadow of memory that the Manchu and Han were once separate. Quite like the North and South in the USA. They're not about to separate again, but the memory of being separate remains.

IMHO, Chinese History gets far less attention on this forum that it merits. We need more topics like this one. Unfortunately, few people know much Chinese History. One excellent example: Where is the largest pyramid in the world? Egypt? Central America? Nope, its in China.
 
I am just curious about Manchu language.
The grandmother of a friend of mine is Manchu, but she cannot speak a word Manchu, the wife of my close friend is Mongol, she cannot speak one word Mongol.

I think the definition of Chinese is about the Chinese culture, everyone who embraces Chinese culture is Chinese, and the Han culture is the Chinese culture, there is simply no culture of Mongol or Manchu left in current China, or we can say the Chinese culture is a mix of all the cultures of all the peoples living in China.
 
FlyingFrog said:
Where is the largest pyramid in the world? Egypt? Central America? Nope, its in China.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that either, where in China? :D
Click to expand...

Not surprising, it was not discovered until the 1930's by a british aerial recon flight, the thing is massive, it was always thought to be a large hill. And the government is quite frankly scared to excavate it, apparently it is the burial tomb of an ancient chinese ruler, it is cursed or something, the terra corra army that is so famous would be dwarfed by the one that is supposedly buried under this pyramid, it has a lake of Mercury meant to represent the East China Sea, a huge, 3-D map, it is incredible, I was amazed when reading about it, to bad their have been no major attempts to excavate it.

I believe their is a comparable pyramid near St. Louis, both are earthen Pyramids, but the St. Louis pyramid is smaller, I do not know how much smaller though.

We are actually learning about China in my World History class, quite interesting, I am a history nut though, someone could hint at something from history and I would make a nice post about it (like this :P). And then of course one of my teachers from Sophomore year, who is not a legal resident of earth and crash landed at Roswell in 1947, believes that the Pyramids of Mesoamerica and the Ziggaruts of Mesopotamia were left by aliens, what a nut.
 
Many people ask the question "How could ancient people have built (Pyramids, Stone-Henge, whatever else). The answer never has been "space aliens". What you notice about these gigantic structures is that the area has a very long history of building the things. Given 1000 years and poor technology, people find lots of tricks to make the same type of structure bigger and better. "How they did it" may not be easy to figure out, but if we had 1000 years to work with, we could do the same things with the same level of technology if we felt it was important.

I cannot fathom why China would be afraid to excavate the Great White Pyramid. Worst case scenario is having more info on something else that they can brag about.
 
Egyptain, Mesoamerican, and Mesopatamian Pyramids are the only real advanced ones, the rest are just building a earthen platform on top of earthen platform, each one getting smaller as they rise up.

China has always been quite powerful, deny it all you want it is true, but they were really only invaded twice in their history, once by the Mongolians and once by the Japanese, the Mongolians were swallowed up by the Chinese culture and the Japanese could not hope to defeat China, China had almost 600 Million people at the time! (Is that right, I am gonna let FF make the final decision on that one, he should be able to better judge their population during WWII than me.)
 
Actually, they were invaded lots of times that you didn't mention. The Manchus were invaders remember. Numerous cases of catastrophic conquest from the Siberian/Mongolia steppes, but the Mongols are better known and arguably more successful than any other invader other than the Manchus.
 
Before I get in to the topic. Let's discuss the defination of Chinese.

Defination of Chinese is more clear in the mandarin. English is more confusing. If u use "Chinese" in mandarin language. That are 2 diferent words and different definations :

1) The Zhong Hua Race or so called Han-Chinese in the westerners view -- Common language is mandarin. Historically leaving in the China mainland and the main activities r agriculture. The western imperialism's strike in 19th-century helps great deal of the Zhong Hua race-people(South China) immigrant to overseas. Commonly those Zhong Hua race-people r as well called Chinese. but in Mandarin, we said "Hua Ren" -- Zhong Hua race-people.

2) The China-man or the citizen of China -- Included Manchurian, Internal Mongolians, Tribes of the Xing Jiang province, and so on. In mandarin, we called Chinese (in China-man defination) as Zhong Guo-ren, as "Zhong Guo" refers to China and "ren" refers to man.

Okay,so the defination of Chinese is clear now.
 
Sometimes, China tries to lay claim to things that are easily disputable. Take Tibet for example. The Qing controlled that area, but Tibet remained extremely distinct culturally and the Manchu occupation was relatively benign. Tibet's culture was barely touched. Yet because the Qing occupied a thing, to modern China that is like a dog pissing on something to mark its territory. We end up with China stating their claim is irrefutable (contrary to reason). Then China invades and does its very best to wipe Tibetan culture off the face of the earth in the name of Communism and China. So some claims, IMHO, are not as valid.
 
Egypt and China are what I like to call "Super Cultures." Look what has happened to almost every group of people that invaded those two civilizations, they won the military battle but in the end they were overwhelmed by the cultures of those two civilizations that they eventually just became part of the Egyptian or Chinese culture themselves.
 
You know, I think your right... all those Brits doing the "Walk like an Egyptian" dance back in the 80's clearly showed Egypt's cultural triump over the English speaking world!

As to China... the same as with Rome. It conquered people and claimed territory it had no right to by both it's own laws and philosophies of the day as well as those of the conquered, but over time the people called themselves Roman... or in a few cases, told the Roman's to go F themselves and threw them out. Same appears to be the case with modern day China. Will it hold onto Tibet and it's western territories? The tibet situtation looks doubtful, once the Dali Lama dies, the PRC wins, cause they'll handpick his successor... at best, India might get the upperhand in the next Indo-Sino war and give it political and religious autonomy. As too the western territories, it all depends on which route India takes in it's offense....no, no just joking.


The Independance of it's western territories depends more on the possible economic revival of central asia, which I have a gut feeling will start kicking in about 30 years or so. THey have the geographical remoteness and the cultural and ethnic diversity to do it, as well as the religious motivation in ome parts.
 
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