The fall of the Qing dynasty – The Qing dynasty – KS3 History – homework help for year 7, 8 and 9. – BBC Bitesize

By the late 1800s, the Qing dynasty was under threat. Newspapers, both in China and abroad, were talking about whether Britain, Germany, France and the USA would divide China between them and make it part of their empires. Attitudes to the Qing in Europe had changed. Once seen as a desirable, rich land, China was now seen as weak and suffering.

People in China knew the Qing dynasty was under threat too. The Civil War period had done much harm and China’s defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was a further shock. To China, Japan had always been its smaller neighbour. Japan had recently reformed its government and had promoted Western technology and science. Thinkers in China took the defeat as proof that China also needed to change.

Reformers inside the Qing government worked to try to save the Qing by modernising the military and building factories, railways, and telegraphs. Following the disaster of the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing court introduced the New Policies in 1901, designed to bring further change. The old Confucian examinations were abandoned in favour of western-style education. Other reforms tackled tax, law, the police, and the military.

However, there were also people who thought the Qing reformers were not doing enough. Some revolutionaries argued that China could not stand up to the West without getting rid of the emperors entirely, and some felt it was wrong for Han Chinese to be ruled by a Manchu emperor.

The Xinhai Revolution came very suddenly in 1911. Soldiers in Wuchang revolted and other cities quickly joined them. The revolutionaries declared the founding of the Republic of China. Puyi, the last emperor of China, stood down and the Qing was over.