1. Capitalist countries build a strategic encirclement of aggression against China.
In the whole16th century and17th century, China won a great victory in the struggle against western colonial aggression, and even some remnants of the Ming Dynasty, including Zheng Chenggong, defeated the Netherlands, a powerful country known as the "sea coachman". There are two main reasons for China's victory: first, China has a unified government, which can concentrate its national strength against foreign aggression; Second, the western colonists are still in the stage of factory handicraft industry, and their productivity is not absolutely superior to that of the eastern feudal countries. The failure of the invasion of China made the western colonialists realize that China was too big and too strong. If China was to yield, it was necessary to prepare for the invasion. For this reason, throughout the18th century and the middle of19th century, the western invaders were doing this work-building the frontier position of aggression against China.
2. Capitalist countries use force to interrupt China's road to self-improvement.
During the Westernization Movement, the Qing government was not in the war. There are two main ways for imperialist countries to interrupt China's road to self-improvement by means of war of aggression. One is to start a war in China and then encourage other countries to interfere in China's internal affairs. A typical incident was to support Agubo's invasion of Xinjiang, and finally forced the Qing government to send a left expedition, which lasted for several years and cost a huge sum of 52.3 million yuan. The joint aggression of western countries against China and the endless war in China caused the financial and economic bankruptcy of the Qing government, which was one of the important external reasons for the failure of the Westernization Movement. It greatly consumed the national strength of the Qing Dynasty, and eventually led to the failure of the Westernization Movement aimed at "self-improvement" and "seeking wealth".
Second, the internal cause of the failure of the Westernization Movement-* * unable to control the place
1.* * * centralization of authority's important role in the development of Westernization Movement.
Since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement in the Qing Dynasty, the centralized * * * system has been greatly weakened, and this great change has had a great impact on the later Westernization Movement, so that Shi Quan said at the beginning of his book "The Political Situation in the Late Qing Dynasty before and after the Sino-Japanese War": "The reason why China failed in the Sino-Japanese War was that it failed to carry out the self-improvement movement on a large scale in the first 30 years ... After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom incident, the emerging forces of the Han people rose, which led to the rise of the Manchu Empire. Due to the weakening of centralized system, it is impossible to concentrate social manpower, material resources and financial resources to realize the national will to the maximum extent.
2. The confusion of decision-making in Qing Dynasty delayed the proposal of Westernization.
Regrettably, the Qing government in the Westernization Movement era was a government with increasingly weak centralized system. As can be seen from the decision of * * *, centralization of authority of the Qing government has developed to a very perfect level. In addition, due to the invasion of foreign capitalist countries, China's sovereignty was further lost. After the Second * * * War, the decision-making of the Qing Dynasty was also influenced by foreign invaders. * * * * The institutions of the Qing Dynasty were gradually semi-colonized. From the decision-making of * * *, we can see the weakness of centralization in the Qing Dynasty. This kind of decision-making confusion often leads to disputes in the Westernization Movement. A westernized proposal has to be debated for several years before it can be implemented at a discount, which wastes many development opportunities.
3. The weakening of local control by the Qing government made the Westernization Movement have little effect.
As far as the relationship between locality and * * * during the Westernization Movement is concerned, the rule of the Qing Dynasty was extremely weakened because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement rose in Guangxi during the Xianfeng period, which lasted for 14 years, moved to 18 provinces, and conquered more than 600 towns successively. At that time, both Zuo and Li Hongzhang felt that the biggest difficulty in developing the Westernization Movement was "how to improve the salary, how to train soldiers, how to open an ordnance bureau, how to open a bank, and how to cast iron coins to listen to provincial governors and not listen to them". The Westernization Movement lacked unified leadership. It can be seen that the Westernization Movement in the Qing Dynasty was not so much presided over by the Qing Dynasty as the cause of provincial governors. In the Qing Dynasty, the government of * * * handed over the management right, personnel appointment right and financing right of Westernization enterprises to the competent governor, which further weakened the ability of * * * to control and control local governments, further expanded local financial power, and caused a rare situation that "non-Xinjiang officials could not run the army and handle affairs in modern times", which led to the chaotic development of the whole Westernization Movement and no unified professional planning. It can be said that the rise of the Westernization Movement benefited from the expansion of local forces, which restricted the Westernization Movement and eventually led to its failure.
The Westernization Movement contains a wide range of contents, covering politics, economy, military affairs, diplomacy, education and other aspects. Most westernization undertakings are beyond the power of a province. However, the Manchu nobles deliberately created contradictions between provinces and between Hunan, Huai and other ministries. Because of this, compared with Japanese, China, which also promoted modernization with national strength, has never been rich and strong. In China, since
From: Free Graduation Thesis Website
Adhering to the Westernization Movement with the slogan of wealth has turned into a sharp expansion of local forces. All these disadvantages make the development of Westernization Movement only on the basis of initial success, but it is difficult to further develop, or to make a greater breakthrough. Because there is only one way to further develop the Westernization Movement and make the country rich and strong-that is to strengthen the * * * * centralization of authority in the Qing Dynasty, and put the important rights of the provinces under the control of * * * *, and all departments of * * * will make unified arrangements and plans for self-improvement. To sum up, the Westernization Movement in the Qing Dynasty collapsed around the world, centralization of authority in the Qing Dynasty was greatly weakened, and the state power could not play an active role in the process of promoting national modernization. In addition, foreign invaders invaded China, and China and China fell into economic bankruptcy and territorial division. Therefore, the Westernization Movement can only decline rapidly after small achievements.
Third, the conclusion
To sum up, the Westernization Movement has passed more than a hundred years, and later generations have different opinions on its evaluation. Generally speaking, there are too many critics and too few sympathizers. But I personally think that from the historical background of the Westernization Movement, there is no prerequisite for its success. It is unrealistic to think that if China also embarks on the road of constitutional reform and changes its social system as Japan did in the middle and late 9th century, China will become rich and strong rapidly. Because, at that time, there were not two preconditions for the success of China's westernization: First, the imperialist camp was greatly split, which was conducive to the emergence of China's international environment and China's hope of complete independence. Secondly, the centralized system in China was restored, thus giving full play to the positive role of state power in promoting the modernization of the country. To some extent, War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the birth of new China after the liberation war are vivid manifestations of these two preconditions. It can be said that the failure of the Westernization Movement is doomed to be a historical tragedy, because there is no prerequisite for success.