End of the Chinese dynasties

by Steve Cunningham< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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RUSSIAN Revolution It's the staple diet of all political history students. The Chinese Revolution That's different.

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��Press Association

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• China, as well as being the most populous country and the world's third-largest, has the oldest continuing civilisation.�
• The country is now Communist and its title since 1949 is the People's Republic of China.
• The imperial dynastic system of government was established as early as 221 BC. China was even ruled at times by foreign invaders, such as the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, and the Manchus during the Ching Dynasty, 1644-1911, but the foreigners were largely absorbed into the culture they governed.
• During the 1800s, the great century of western imperialism, many foreign powers scrambled for influence and territory in China. Britain and other European nations, America, Russia, and Japan all wanted a piece of this rich and strange empire.
• In some cases they seized Chinese territories, but usually they sought only the riches of trade and commercial enterprise.
• Missionaries tried to convert the Chinese to Christianity. These outsiders were resented and feared by the Chinese, who saw Western religion and business practices as a threat to their traditional ways.
• Sun Yat-sen is revered as the father of modern China by Nationalists and Communists. Born into a peasant family near Canton, he became interested in politics and pressed to reform the ancient ways. He gained wide recognition as a revolutionary leader in 1896 and formed the Revolutionary Alliance Society.Its programme comprised the Three People's Principles: nationalism (freeing all China from foreign control); democracy (overthrowing the Manchus and introducing a democratic political system); and people's livelihood.
• By 1900, members of a secret society, who became known as Boxers, were wandering the countryside and attacking missionaries, Chinese converts, Westerners and destroying buildings owned by foreigners.
• An expeditionary force, made up of, British, German, French, Russian, American, and Japanese troops, invaded the country to put down the Boxer Rebellion.
• The Chinese dowager empress Tz'u-hsi ordered in her troops and the death of all foreigners in China. In the vicious conflict that ensued, the Boxers were routed and China humiliated with reparations, loss of defences and punitive trade treaties under the Peace of Peking.
• This shaming by the West generated more support for nationalist revolutionaries. In 1911, the Ch'ing Dynasty collapsed. Revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen then took over the Chinese government, ending more than 2,000 years of monarchy.