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The Self-Strengthening Movement (Chinese: 洋務運動 or 自強運動; 1861 AD - 1895 AD) was a reform organised during the late Qing. With the defeat in the Opium Wars and the outbreak of Taiping Rebellion, the emperor and the imperial officials realised that it was necessary to improve the country's statement with a series of reforms. Therefore, the Self-Strengthening Movement was started.




The movement could be divided into three phases: the first phase (1861 AD - 1872 AD), the second phase (1872 AD - 1885 AD) and the third phase (1885 AD - 1895 AD). The Major Leaders are Yixin, Prince Gong (Chinese: 恭親王), Wenxiang (Chinese: 文祥), Zeng Guofan (Chinese: 曾國藩), Li Hongzhang (Chinese: 李鴻章), Zuo Zongtang (Chinese: 左宗棠), Shen Baozhen (Chinese: 沈葆禎) and Zhang Zhidong (Chinese: 張之洞). However, owing to the conservatives opposition and the problems of modernization, it failed finally.




[change] The Reforms



• National Defence
  
  • Arsenals were built in Shanghai and Xiamen.
  • Shipyards were built in Fuzhou and Tianjin.
  • The Beiyang Fleet was organized by Li Hongzhang.
  • Industry and Trade
    
    • Modern banks were built.
    • Many idustries were built in the South of China.
    • Diplomatic Modernization
      
      • The Zongli Yamen, a foreign office of the Qing Dynasty, was set up in 1861 AD.
      • In 1868 AD, the Qing government sent its first official diplomatic mission aboard.
      • Policial Reforms
        
        • Useless government posts were to be abolished.
        • Economic Reforms
          
          • Modern banks would be built.
          • Railways were to be built.
          • Military Reform
            
            • The army and navy were to be equipped with modern weapons.
            • A national militia would be organised.
            
            
          
          

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Because their knowledge about these 'outer barbarians' was so limited and outdated, China's ruling class had no idea of the power or extent of the new forces which were threatening the empire. The prevailing view was limited and simplistic: since the European did not understand the Chinese values and norms, it was proof that they were not civilised but only motivated by crude instinctive desires.

The forceful intrusion of the West into the Chinese world at the time of the opium wars challenged this notion. It now emerged that the foreigners were also found to be cunning, intelligent and 'unpredictable' in their negotiations. Yet only a few enlightened men, such as the much maligned Lin Zexu, began to consider the West more seriously. Lin's subordinate, Wei Yuan, observed in his famous 'Illustrated gazetteer of Maritime Countries' (1844):

Do we honestly know that among the visitors from afar there are people who understand propriety and practice righteousness, who possess knowledge of astronomy and geography, who are well versed in things material and events of past and present? They are extraordinarily talented and should be considered as our good friends. How can they be called 'barbarians'?

But even this grudging concession that China was not the only civilisation had to be explained in traditional terms. Thus Wei Yuan, a reformist spirit with some admiration for Western technology, asserted that European power derived from the translation of the Confucian classics into Latin, which he claimed had helped Jesus to found the Christian religion. This seems to have been the beginning of a school of thought which believed that Chinese civilisation was the origin of all other civilisations.

After 1860, when China was weakened by massive internal rebellions as well as further Western aggression, a relatively small group of influential officials - the so-called 'Western Affairs group'- began to advocate policies to discover the secrets of Western wealth and power. They wanted to adopt superior technology in order to defend and preserve the traditional Confucian values. As part of this 'self strengthening' policy, the West became more accessible to literate Chinese through a variety of translation projects. But more importantly, official missions and resident ministers were sent abroad to assemble first-hand knowledge of the West. The first envoys to the outer fringes of the known world were required to keep diaries while abroad. When these were published, they provided vivid images of alien societies to a larger literate audience.

The official travellers made observations on many strange aspects of European life. For mandarins accustomed to travelling in sedan chairs or cramped and slow houseboats, the voyage in a luxury ocean liner must have been a novel experience in itself. Jerome Ch'en summarises Binchun's first impressions in 1866:

'Exceedingly clean, the Westerner spat only into a spittoon and flushed the water closet each time he used it. At dinner, ladies took their seats before men; no one overate; and everyone talked right through the meal. Soup was never sucked in audibly; nor was food chewed noisily. Everyone treasured his privacy to such an extent that his door was always closed and no one could enter without knocking on it and obtaining his permission first.'

His youthful companion, Zhang Deyi, provides much detail on a busy schedule all over Europe, with a frivolous interest in trivia. Everything delighted and astonished him, from the railway at Suez to the lifts and hot-and-cold plumbing systems in hotels. Although garbled and only half-understood, these two journals must nevertheless have been of considerable importance as the first authentic accounts of a civilisation comparable to that of China.