The Self Strengthening Movement: Making the Qing Great Again

In this episode we discuss the Qing Dynasty's 'Self Strengthening Movement' of roughly 1861-1890.

Recognizing the superiority of european weapons, technology, and scientific knowledge, the Qing Dynasty attempted to adopt and integrate them into an otherwise unchanged Confucian bureaucracy.

Ambitious Westerners flocked to the country, lured by Qing silver, and with the support of towering Chinese figures such as Li Hongzhang and Cixi, helped the Qing reach a level of power and prosperity that had not been seen for a century.

However, in resisting deeper, more structural changes, the Qing Dynasty would place itself on the wrong side of history, and eventually fall at the hands of more dynamic revolutionaries and reformers.