China

The intellectual responses to China’s external challenges in the 20th century mainly revolved around how foreign nations would excel in almost everything, from technology to currency, while China remains in turmoil—trying to regain it’s standing with foreign nations. Liang Qichao journeyed to America to seek out ways China can improve. Liang Qichao discovered that it isn’t about the technology America was using but more of how united the American citizens were as a nation; even though they discriminate different colored races. The same goes with Sun Yat-sen, whom developed principles for China to live by to improve its stand with foreign nations. Those principles were based upon Chinese traditions with foreign methods as a basis to improve currency, productions, and nationalism. These responses differ from the late Qing self-strengtheners because the self-strengtheners relied everything on the technology rather than nationalism. The self-strengtheners, however, didn’t want railroads because of the effect it had on the land of villages and graves. So the self-strengtheners had shown a similar respect as a nation as Liang Qichao & Sun Yat-sen’s observations. Since the self-strengtheners were using Western methods to build and construct technology, they tried to avoid—as much as possible—dependence on foreign loans. As the Westerners encouraged their own methods, many Chinese didn’t agree with how the Westerners were changing the Chinese public. Many Chinese didn’t want to be modernized and be sucked into the Western ways of nationalism—which caused the Boxer Rebellion to arise with their slogan, “Support the Qing! Destroy the Foreigners!” The Boxers hostility towards the Western influences and self-strengthening was because of China emphasizing economic innovation as the key to China’s problems precisely in order to avoid the consequences of broad-based politics and nationalism. The Boxers believed that China’s superiority over foreign nations can be achieved by the minds of the people rather than reliance on equipment. The self-strengthener’s challenge to maintain its Western production was more of their desire to borrow from the West rather than seeking internal change and national unity—this desire is what the basis of the Boxer Uprising of 1900 was.