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China's Response to Western Imperialism

 

            By 1898, Western Imperialism in China had gotten out of control. Countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, France, and Japan were all in control of China, and China was left powerless. China wanted their country and its power back. China had to go through many defeats such as the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion before they came back victorious from the Korean War. However, China's response to Western imperialism was successful because they got rid of Western presence with rebellions and wars such as the Opium Wars, Boxer Rebellion, and the Korean War. .
             By 1898 China was completely imperialized. The Qing dynasty was slowly becoming weaker and weaker compared to the power the West had over China. Almost all countries that have been imperialized have rebelled, however China's response was not like all the others, it was a communist rebellion. During this rebellion China's main goals were to get rid of foreigners and Western imperialism as a whole, build a democracy, modernizing the country, and building a strong economy. Western presence was a major threat to every one of those objectives. Westerners were a threat to the Chinese economy because of competition. Missionaries were competing against Chinese scholars, and Western businesses competed with Chinese industries. They kept the country for modernizing because they imposed their own culture and destroyed local traditions by building Christian churches and ignoring the local cultures such as the rules of Feng Shui. Westerners were a threat to China in general, and China felt more powerless than ever especially because they had no military power compared to the sophisticated Western weaponry. .
             The two Opium wars were just the start of Western Imperialism. There were two in total, the first one took place in 1839 and ended in1842, and the second one started in 1856 and ended in 1860. The British along with other Western countries participated in the trade of tea with China.


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