Reform

The traditionalist nations of the Ottomans, Russia, China, and Japan were all forced to confront modernization and the social issues accompanying it during this period. Conservative forces resisted these dramatic reforms to varying degrees of success.

Ottoman Empire

By the 1700s, the once-legendary Ottoman armies had fallen behind those of Europe. As the empire’s military weakened, its political power weakened too. The Ottomans suffered from economic problems, further undermining their position. In addition, nationalist revolts in the Balkans and Greece contributed to the empire’s problems.

The Ottomans also experienced economic decline. Europe circumvented them and began to trade directly with India and China. Also, global trade shifted to the Atlantic Ocean, where the Ottomans had no involvement. European products flowed into the empire, and it began to depend heavily on foreign loans. Europeans were even given capitulations (special rights and privileges), such as being subject to only their own laws, not to those of the Ottomans. All of this was a great blow to the empire’s prestige and sovereignty.

The empire did attempt to reform itself, beginning with the rule of Mahmud II. He organized a more effective army and a system of secondary education. The Ottomans built new roads, laid telegraph lines, and created a postal service. These reforms continued into the Tanzimat ("Reorganization" in Ottoman Turkish) Movement from 1839 to 1879, when the government used the French legal system as a guide to reform its own laws. Public trials were instituted. 

However, these reforms were met with great opposition, particularly from religious conservatives and the Ottoman bureaucracy. Many saw the concept of civil liberties as a foreign one, a kind of soft imperialism in its spread through Ottoman society. The new sultan, Abdul Hamid II, adopted the first Ottoman constitution in 1876 but suspended it in 1879 and reinstituted absolute monarchy. 

The Young Turks, a group of exiled Ottoman subjects, pushed for universal male suffrage, equality before the law, and the emancipation of women and non-Turkish ethnic groups. In 1908, they led a coup that overthrew Abdul Hamid II and set up a “puppet” sultan that they controlled. Though the Ottoman Empire attempted to reform, it was still in a delicate state by 1914. Ultimately, it dissolved in the aftermath of World War I, with large portions colonized by the British and French Empires or ruled by their local allies.

Russia

Much like the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire was autocratic, multiethnic, and multilingual. Russian czars were supported by both the Russian Orthodox Church and the noble class, which owned most of the land. The peasants were the majority of the population, but the feudal institution of serfdom essentially enslaved them. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, the country's literacy rate was below 20 percent, far beneath other European nations. Unlike the Ottomans, who were losing territory, the Russian Empire vastly expanded—east to the Pacific, south into the Caucasus and Central Asia, and southwest to the Mediterranean. Its military power and strength could not compete with that of Europe, however, as demonstrated in its defeat in the Crimean War in 1856.

The loss to the Franco-British-Ottoman alliance in the Crimean War (1853–1856) highlighted the comparative weakness of Russia’s military and economy, pushing the government to modernize. A first step was the emancipation of the serfs by Czar Alexander II in 1861. He also created district assemblies (zemstvos) in 1864, in which all classes had elected representatives. The government also encouraged industrialization. Policies designed to stimulate economic development were issued, such as the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the remodeling of the state bank. 

Anti-government protests increased through the involvement of the university students and intellectuals known as the intelligentsia. The more these groups were repressed by the government, the more radical they became. A member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group, which was organized in 1879 and employed terrorism in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy, assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881, bringing an end to government reform. The new czars used repression—not gradual political reform—to maintain power. 

Fast-paced, government-sponsored industrialization led to many peasant rebellions and industrial worker strikes. As a response, in 1897 the government limited the maximum workday to 11.5 hours, though it also prohibited trade unions and outlawed strikes. Czar Nicholas II, in an attempt to deflect attention from the growing opposition, focused on expansion through the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, but the Russians suffered an embarrassing defeat. This loss also sparked an uprising. 

In January 1905, a group of workers marched to the Czar’s Winter Palace to petition. They were killed by government troops. The Bloody Sunday massacre set off anger and rebellion across the empire, which as a whole was known as the Revolution of 1905. The government made concessions by creating a legislative body called the Duma, but, in reality, not much changed in Russia until the upheavals of World War I.

China

The Chinese, like the Ottomans and Russians, were forced to confront their own issues of reform and reaction in the nineteenth century. The Qing dynasty had grown increasingly ineffective as rulers. New World crops, like sweet potatoes and corn, brought about a rapid population increase. During the Qing dynasty, it is estimated that the Chinese population quadrupled to 420,000,000. This increase created great strains on the nation. Famines were increasingly common, provoking a series of rebellions which further weakened the Qing dynasty. 

The Chinese military also stagnated from the mid-seventeenth century onward, as the evolution of gunpowder weapons finally ended the threat of horse-riding steppe nomads that had troubled China for millennia. The last nomadic confederation to threaten China, the Dzungar Khanate in what is the modern-day Chinese region of Xinjiang, lost a series of conflicts with the Qing dynasty. These conflicts culminated in organized genocide, as approximately eighty percent of the Dzungar people were killed under the orders of the Qing emperor and ethnic Chinese people were settled on their former lands. Without neighboring threats, China had no reason to keep pace with the military technology of the European empires, and its army lacked battlefield experience. 

With its vast population and resources, China was self-sufficient and, along with its rejection of foreign influence, felt it required nothing that the outsiders produced. However, Europeans, Britain in particular, sought trade with China to acquire silks, lacquerware, and tea, the latter of which was increasing in popularity in their homelands. British merchants paid in silver bullion for Chinese goods. The amount of bullion a nation or company owned determined its wealth and its strength (mercantilism). This silver drain from Britain inspired its merchants to find something the Chinese wanted other than bullion. They found it in opium, an addictive narcotic made from the poppy plant. Despite the emperor declaring the opium trade illegal, British merchants smuggled it into the country. Chinese merchants agreed to pay for opium in silver, which the British merchants used to buy Chinese goods, making a profit on both ends of this drug trafficking. This reversed the silver drain from Britain to China but also created a large number of Chinese opium addicts. 

The First Opium War (1839–1842) broke out over a customs dispute, but resentment over British drug trafficking played a major role as well. China suffered a major defeat, and a series of unequal treaties gave Britain and other European nations commercial entry into China. For example, Hong Kong was ceded to the British in 1841, and control over it was only transferred back to China in 1997. This began a period of Chinese history referred to as the Century of Humiliation.

The Second Opium War (1856–1860) resulted from the Western European desire to further weaken Chinese sovereignty over trade, to legalize the opium trade, and to expand the export of indentured workers whose situations closely resembled slavery. In October 1860, a Franco-British expeditionary force looted and burned Beijing's Old Summer Palace. British and French museums still feature its stolen art, and the palace ruins are an important landmark for China. Shock over the defeat led to the Qing's Self-Strengthening Movement. Drug use also became even more rampant thanks to opium flooding the country. 

Uprisings such as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) placed further stress on China. An obscure scholar named Hong Xiuquan, who believed he was the brother of Jesus Christ, founded an offshoot of Christianity. A social reform movement grew from this in the 1850s, which the government suppressed. Hong established the Taiping Tianguo (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), and his followers created an army that, within two years of fighting, controlled a large territory in central China. Nationalism influenced this rebellion, as the majority Han ethnic group resented rule by the minority Manchus, who had conquered the native Ming dynasty but now seemed powerless against European imperialism.  

Internal disputes within the Taipings finally allowed the Qing dynasty to defeat them, but it was a long struggle that exhausted the imperial treasury. Between twenty and thirty million people died in the Taiping Rebellion, making it the bloodiest civil war in history. It did, however, lead to greater inclusion of Han Chinese in the Qing dynasty's government. Both Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong viewed Hong Xiuquan as a spiritual predecessor, for both his anti-Manchu and his anti-imperialist stances.

The Qing did implement limited reforms. With government-sponsored grants in the 1860s and 1870s, local leaders promoted military and economic reform in China using the slogan: “Chinese learning at the base, Western learning for use.” These leaders built modern shipyards, railroads, and weapon industries, and they founded academies for the study of science. It was a solid foundation, but the Self-Strengthening Movement brought only minimal change. It also experienced resistance from the imperial government. 

The Qing’s last major reform effort took place in 1898. It was known as the Hundred Days’ Reform. This ambitious movement reinterpreted Confucian thought to justify radical changes to the system, with the intent to remake China into a powerful modern industrial society. The Emperor Guangzu instituted a program to change China into a constitutional monarchy, guarantee civil liberties, and build a modern education system. These proposed changes were strongly resisted by conservative officials. Particularly upset was the Empress Dowager Cixi, who cancelled the reforms and imprisoned the emperor in a coup. With that, Qing China’s chance for a reformed society ended. 

Another rebellion further complicated issues in China. The anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) sought to rid China of foreigners and foreign influence. Empress Cixi supported the movement, hoping to eliminate all foreign influence. A multinational force from countries such as the United States, Russia, and Japan, however, handily defeated the Boxers and forced China to pay a large indemnity in silver for the damages. Now, Cixi belatedly supported modest reforms: the New Policies, also known as the Late Qing Reforms. In Qing China’s weakened state, some provinces adopted them, others did not. 

Amid all of these rebellions and attempts at reform, a revolutionary movement was slowly emerging. It was composed of young men and women who had traveled outside China—who had seen the new liberalism and modernization of both the West and Japan. They hoped to import those ideas. Cells were organized in Guangzhou and overseas in Tokyo and Honolulu, where plots to overthrow the Qing were developed. 

Under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhong-shan), after many attempted unsuccessful uprisings, the Qing were forced to abdicate in 1911 and the Republic of China was proclaimed. Sun dreamed of a progressive and democratic China based on his Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and socialism. His goal would never be achieved due to civil war and the Warlord Era.

Japan—The Meiji Restoration

In its radical response to the challenges of reform and reaction, Japan emerged from this period as a world power. Even as it continued to selectively isolate itself from the rest of world, it was changing from a feudal to a commercial economy.

The Japanese knew of China’s humiliation at the hands of the British in the mid-1800s. After the California Gold Rush of 1849, the United States became more interested in Pacific commerce, sending a mission to conclude a trade agreement with Japan. Commodore Matthew Perry, in an example of gunboat diplomacy, arrived in Edo (Tokyo) Bay in 1853 with a modern fleet of armed steamships. For the Japanese, who had restricted its trade from much of the world for over two centuries, this was a troubling sight. Contact with Americans caused tense debate within the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate and the samurai class.

Two clans in the south—Satsuma and Choshu—supported a new policy to “revere the emperor and repel the barbarians.” This was a veiled critique of the shogun in Edo, as they perceived his inability to ward off the Western “barbarians” as embarrassing. A younger generation of reform-minded samurai far from Edo made bold plans to undermine the bakufu (the military government led by the shogun). These “men of spirit” banded together to overthrow the shogun, restore the emperor, and advance the idea of Japanese modernization. 

The rebels armed themselves with guns from the West, and a civil war broke out in 1866. When the anti-government forces demonstrated their military superiority, the momentum began to shift in favor of the rebels. The overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate was complete in 1868, when the victorious reformers pronounced that they had restored the emperor to his throne. His title was Meiji, or Enlightened One. The nation rallied around the 16-year-old emperor, and plans were made to move the imperial “presence” to the renamed capital of Tokyo (Eastern Capital). 

This transition in Japanese history can be seen as both a restoration and a revolution. While the emperor was nominally restored to authority, real power was held in the hands of nobles. A national legislature called the Diet was established, but the aristocratic upper house was in primary control. They reformed Japan in radical ways. Compulsory public schools were introduced. The feudal system was abolished, and the ownership of weapons was no longer restricted to the samurai class. 

Some samurai were displeased not just with the loss of their privileges, but with the mass adoption of "barbarian" ways by Japan. The resulting Satsuma Rebellion (1877) saw traditionalist samurai launch a brief civil war. Both sides fought with modern weapons, however. In the end, the government's army of peasant conscripts defeated the rebels.

The rapidity of the industrialization and modernization of Japan impressed the rest of the world. This development was driven, in part, by the zaibatsu ("financial cliques"), which were family-owned business conglomerates that dominated the economy. Within the first generation of the Meiji period, Japan had built a modern infrastructure and military, had defeated the Chinese and Russians in war, and had begun building an empire in the Pacific. The rise of Japan as an imperial power altered the global balance of power as the twentieth century began.

COMPARATIVE CLOSE-UP: REFORM AND REACTION                                                          IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
	Political	Economic	Social
Ottoman Empire	Institutes French legal code (equality before the law, public trials) but reforms see major opposition. Empire collapses after World War I.	As trade shifts to the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes heavily reliant on loans from Europe.	Young Turks push for greater centralization, universal male suffrage, emancipation of women.
Russia	Zemstvos (local assemblies) are created. Duma established after Revolution of 1905, but is subject to whim of czar. Monarchy overthrown in 1917.	Government sponsors industrialization projects such as the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Unions and strikes banned by law.	Emancipates the serfs in 1861. Students and intelligentsia spread ideas of change in the countryside.
China	Hundred Days of Reform attempts to create constitutional monarchy, but is halted by Empress Cixi. Rebellions like the Taiping and Boxer weaken the empire. Qing dynasty overthrown in 1911.	After the Opium Wars, European powers gain economic and territorial concessions under the Unequal Treaties and divide China into spheres of influence.	Peasant-led Taiping Rebellion attempts to create a more egalitarian society, but is eventually defeated.
Japan	Tokugawa Shogunate is overthrown by samurai and other elites. The emperor is restored to power. A legislative body, the Diet, is formed.	Government sponsors massive industrialization and trade. Japan rises to economic prominence.	Samurai class loses power, but some transition to roles in industrial leadership. New industrial working class develops.