Qing Dynasty (17th and 18th Centuries)

Way back in 1387, barely a decade after driving the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty back to Mongolia, the Ming Dynasty were nervous about the possibility of an invasion by Mongols then ruling in Manchuria, to the northeast.  In a preemptive strike, the Ming invaded Manchuria and loosely annexed it into China.  About 200 years later, with the Mongols gone and the Chinese only governing Manchuria casually, native Manchus began to organize and by 1616 declared their own dynasty, eventually named Qing (pronounced “Ching”).  The Manchu rebellion overthrew the declining Ming Dynasty in 1644, with the Qing becoming, ultimately, China’s final imperial dynasty.  Just as the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty weren’t Chinese any more than Koreans or Japanese are, Manchus are a completely different ethnicity from the Han Chinese.  So China’s last dynasty was non-Chinese (ethnically speaking, anyway).

By the 18^th century, the Qing presided over imperial China’s final golden age.  The period, known as High Qing, was begun by the 4^th Qing emperor, who ruled for 61 years, longer than any other emperor in China’s history.  The Qing annexed Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Taiwan into China.  (Xinjiang is the most northwestern region of today’s China, home of the Muslim Uyghur people.)  At this point, China made up one third of the entire population of the world.  Westerners were getting more interested in trading with China, encouraged by Portugal’s foothold in Macau.

Along with increased presence of Western merchants, religious clashes started to rise up with missionaries.  Perhaps the Qing started to read the writing that had been on the wall regarding Western encroachment.  Most missionaries were expelled and foreign trade was restricted to one port city:  Canton (now known as Guangzhou) in South China.  Foreigners were not allowed to enter China or directly contact imperial officials.  Trade practices became heavily skewed in favor of China.  China had leverage because of the insatiable European demand for Chinese tea, porcelain, and silk.  China had such an established, self-contained civilization, it didn’t desire any European goods in return.  All it wanted was payment in silver.  China got very rich off its imports.  By this point, the West had finally entered the industrial age.  Western technology had caught up to and perhaps surpassed China’s.  And the West was starting to get impatient with China and its unfavorable trade practices.

[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]

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