Chinese Modernization Essay

In an excerpt from “The Final Awakening,” when he describes “the intense combat between the old and modern current thought,” (Chen, 1), Chen describes the struggle between the old and the new. China’s traditional ideas and customs have been lost due to an overhaul of Western influence. If nationalism were to present itself again, citizens would have to fall back on their traditions. “Why should I reject the desires and influential elders, who are all a part of the people, to build a constitutional republic” (Chen, 1). Rather than Western influences continuing to change the Chinese landscape, he believes they should look to their elders who can begin to teach the youth how to merge the older customs with the advancements from the West.

The Japanese wanted to limit the western influences and maintain their independence which created the rise of nationalism. In 1866, the Tokugawa Shogun was overthrown by the feudal lords and samurai. The new emperor eliminated the government and reestablished the imperial throne, but the emperor did not have any political power and was seen as a political symbol. The Meiji Restoration began in 1868 to 1912 which transformed Japan society with western influence but maintaining their cultures and traditions.

This shows that although the Empress made reforms they were inadequate and were only introduced to “please both the Chinese people and foreign invaders.” (I) The Empress’ reforms were desperate, limited and failed to positively alter the middle and working class majority in China consequently leading to more unrest. The Empress’ intentions were not to develop the dynasty but to maintain power by gaining support from the internal and external community but she failed to do

The leaders of the colonies heard of their reputation as a nation and chose to change it; George Washington was elected president. One of the final straws leading to the collapse of the Articles was Shay’s Rebellion, which showed the public how going on with this form of government would only encourage rebellion. Under the Articles of

When it comes to the research the tax has affected the country in a negative way, simply because the war was fought because of taxes that were seen as not needed as well the fact that the country fought the British to oppose taxes, and then Washington turns around and imposes a tax on the people after what they sacrificed to fight for the right to be free of taxes and to be supportive of their new government was tough because people did not have money to pay taxes at

Because the Americans and other foreigners pushed for the sale of drugs in China, disrespected the local Chinese religion and weakened China as a whole, the Boxers do not deserve criticism. The Boxers do not deserve any criticism because when the British introduced opium to China, it caused a disruption in a somewhat peaceful place. This situation upset many nationals and the Chinese government, causing

The Cultural Revolution is the name given to Mao’s attempt to reassert his beliefs in China, in fact Mao was afraid by the fact that someone else would take his role. He said that the bourgeois and the suppoters of the capitalist system have infiltrated into the government so he encourage the people to find and report these traitors. The Chinese respond by creating the Red Guard groups, militias of volunteers that spread violence across the country by arresting and killing many innocent people resulting in a failure of the Cultural Revolution. To avoid further dissent Mao created a "cult of his personality" by putting his images and famous quotes everywhere and to establish diplomatic relationship with the United States to solve economic problems. The United States of America was interested in the Chinese market and containing the Communist influence.

The artist could have intended to critisise the British of being lazy and useless. The reason for this is probably because the Japanese troops found it way to easy to invade British colonies such as Singapore due to the fact that British forces were too concentrated on the war against Germany and thus provided little support for citizens of British colonies such as Singapore. China is depicted as a figure with a tail of an animal. The tail is a common depiction of the Chinese and is used as an insult by the Japanese. The Japanese despised the Chinese due to complicated historical issues between the two countries.

They used this as an opportunity to gain influential positions within the government. The government worked hard together with the military to gain both economic and military power (source 12). The West was against many of the methods that the Japanese used in order to obtain power, this because these methods were associated with fascism, ultra-nationalism and imperialism. The Japanese in return resented everything to do with the west but when it came to spreading her influence and invading other countries she adopted methods used by both the West and China, particularly in the case of Manchuria (source 3). Japan invaded this country in order to claim its raw materials for the economic benefit of Japan, in that these materials would stimulate production moving Japan ahead in terms of economic

It is incorrect to judge a nation’s culture and its characteristic with little

Due to China’s Warring Period after the Han Dynasty, Buddhism gained popularity because no imperial authority was around to enforce laws. Once an empire rose to power, Buddhism was turned against. Initially the Chinese defended Buddhism and its policies, but after centuries, others increasingly analyzed how Buddhism had not presence in older documents. Buddhism began to be blamed for the political and social problems of Chinese society. An additional document, such as a graph, that demonstrates actual numbers of Buddhist converts of this time period would help determine if the given documents’ author’s statements about Buddhism were accurate.

However, they did not follow the true Confucian philosophies. Instead, the emperor, Emperor Wu, had a very influential Confucian philosopher create a more emperor-centric base of Confucianism. Being forced to study a religion did not drive the Han scholars to work harder, they began to slack and almost

Having a weak central government created a whole new set of problems. After analyzing the Articles of Confederation the weaknesses outnumbered the strengths. Such as states not having to obey the laws and ignore taxations because they had no authority to enforce them. Congress did not have the power to collect taxes from the each of the states, that was one major weakness especially during the Revolutionary War because instead of getting the money they had to ask the states for money and the states said no. At that point the government should have put their foot down and enforced a new law, their troops were fighting for their freedom and these people didn’t care.

As expected, Britain put certain taxes on the colonies to help regulate trade and pay for transport of goods. However, many of the taxes Britain put on colonists were for the sole purpose of creating revenue for the British (Doc 2). The reason the British believed they were justified to do this was the belief that colonists still owed reparations for British support in the French Indian war (Doc 1). The colonists found these taxes so insulting that many of them refused to purchase British goods.

After imperial structure was restored, the Chinese began to disapprove of Buddhism (docs 4, 6). Chinese government authorities increasingly saw Buddhism as a threat to their political power and moved to discredit it. Imperial Tang advisor Han Yu saw Buddhism as evil, anti-Confucian, and illegal (doc 4). Han Yu’s position and livelihood greatly depends on Confucianism remaining dominant, especially due to the civil service system, which provided him with his government job. Due to this, he is not a very reliable source on how the average citizen and even the Chinese emperor felt about Confucianism remaining dominate (doc 4, POV).