Emperor Guang Xu (Kuang Hsu) and the 1898 Reform

A reform was planned but aborted in 1898, led by Emperor Guang Xu, assisted by reform minded Chinese scholars. The reform covered many areas of life, and was chiefly the result of events that took place after the First Opium War (1839-1842).

Wars that China fought up to 1900

The Second Opium War (1856-60):

After the First Opium War (1839-420), despite the Chinese concessions to the British and later other European countries, the British found not sufficient change in China's attitude toward the foreign world, and hoped to expand its forces in northern China (the five treaty ports in the first treaty were all in the south). The murder of a French missionary and the seizure of a British ship were the timely pretexts that saw the launching of a joint Anglo-French military force that attacked and captured the city of Tientsin (also known as Tianjin). Treaty negotiations followed and resulted in an agreement opening numerous new ports for trade, legalising the opium trade and various other provisions as demanded by the westerners. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858) the Chinese opened new ports to trading and allowed foreigners with passports to travel in the interior. Christians gained the right to spread their faith and hold property, thus opening up another means of western penetration. The United States and Russia gained the same privileges in separate treaties. The treaty was agreed locally but the Emperor’s court in Beijing refused to ratify it. This resulted in the British/French joint forces' seizure of Beijing, forcing the emperor Xianfeng (Hsian Feng) to flee the city, together with his queen and favorite concubine, the later empress dowager Cixi (Tzu Hsi). The emperor's summer palace was burnt down by Lord Elgin, commander of the British troops in Beijing.

The Sino-French War (1883-1885)

A war fought over Vietnam, traditionally a Chinese protectorate. It ended in Chinese failure and recognition of a joint protectorate in Vietnam between China and France.

The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)

A war fought with Japan over Korea, traditionally a Chinese protectorate. It ended in Chinese failure and Japanese colonization of Korea and the Chinese province of Taiwan. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed at the end of the war, made China pay an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels (about $200 million) to Japan; and to open the ports of Sha-shih, Ch'ung-ch'ing, Soochow, and K'ang-chow to Japanese trade. The Triple Intervention (1895), secured by Russia, France, and Germany, subsequently required Japan to retrocede the Liaotung Peninsula to China in return for an additional indemnity of 30,000,000 taels.

The Boxer Uprising and the Eight Allied Forces Intervention

In 1900, A Chinese peasant movement called the Boxers started to target foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians. They called themselves I-ho ch'uan, or “Righteous and Harmonious Fists.” They practiced boxing skills that they believed made them impervious to bullets. It was a nativist, xenophobic movement tacitly supported by the Chinese government to leverage the foreign presence in China. For a moment, the Boxers besieged the foreign legations in Beijing, leading to the joint intervention of the troops of six European countries, plus Japan and the U.S. The ultimate Boxer Protocol China signed with these foreign countries allowed the latter to station troops in China at key points. The Chinese government was to pay $330 million in gold to the countries involved to cover their war cost, plus many more fees in hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover other expenses incurred by the war.

The 1895 Chinese scholars' petition for reform

Upon hearing China's defeat by Japan, formerly a country that had looked up to China, many Chinese scholars petitioned the Chinese government for reform. Prior to this, limited reforms had been carried out, primarily in establishing some sporadic schools: naval shipyards, schools specializing in mechanics, and translation and interpretation. The effort was not nation wide because China did not have a nation wide educational system. The traditional form of education was private tutorials, and the Imperial Examination System that selected government officials based on primarily a familiarity with classical Confucian texts on human cultivation.

The Imperial Examination System

Historically, from around 7th century A.D., China started a civil service examination whereby they selected government officials based on a variety of subjects, chiefly Confucian learning texts. By the time of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), only two subjects remained in the examination: a civics part, focusing on Confucian learning, and a military part (consisting of horse riding, archery, etc.), reserved only for Manchu descendents (the Manchus were nomadic tribes that conquered China in 1644 and established their rulership in China, the Manchu, or Qing, Dynasty. The word Qing, meaning pure, sounds eeriely Muslim, suggesting their connections with the Central Asian Muslim tribes, but they quickly Sinicized, converting into Confucianism in China and became exemplary Confucian rulers, although succumbing from time to time to Buddhist influences). Science and technology, although developed earlier in China, were ignored by the state.

After the Western encroachments into China, more and more Chinese reformers advocated a reform of the imperial examination system, adding subjects such as mathematics and astronomy. Also, many petitioned for establishing government sponsored schools in China to teach Western subjects of science and astronomy. It was under such circumstances that emperor Guang Xu, the nephew of Empress Cixi and Emperor Xian Feng, the emperor who was forced to flee Beijing (Peking) during the Second Opium War and who died a year after the war came to an end in 1861, decided to launch a series of reforms in China.

The Hundred Day Reform (1898)

In 1898 Emperor Guang Xu, together with his reform advisers, formulated a series of reform proposals. This planning process, however, only lasted for around 100 days, and the emperor's aunt Empress Dowager Cixi expressed disagreement with some of the drastic measures of reform. Of six chief advisers of the emperor, four of them were beheaded, and two fled to Japan upon the decision of the empress dowager. The reform was aborted. Some of its decisions, however, were eventually carried out, such as establishing an imperial university in Peking (Beijing) to serve as the state's organ for an eventual educational reform and as a means to train government officials with a combination of Chinese and Western learning. Larger scale reform would be put underway after the Boxer Uprising in 1902.