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History of Modern Chinese Series I – A General Overview of Modern Chinese History, from the 18th Century to 1949
Topical Talk I
History of Modern Chinese Series I:
A General Overview of Modern Chinese History, from the 18th Century to 1949
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Prof. CHEUNG Hok Ming Fredrick delivered a talk entitled “A General Overview of Modern Chinese History, from the 18th Century to 1949” on 1 November 2022.
Prof. CHEUNG received his PhD degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, U.S.A. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “From Military Aristocracy to Royal Bureaucracy: Patterns of Consolidation in Medieval Empires.” He is fluent in ancient Greek, Latin, French, English, and Chinese. He has been studying history, translation (as his undergraduate minor), and etymology. He translated two history books into Chinese, namely, Hajo Holborn’s The Political Collapse of Europe, and C. Warren Hollister’s Medieval Europe. He has also published books such as Mythology: Chinese and Western, Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong, 1926-2000, Learning English through Etymology, Learning English through Idioms, Historical Figures in Western History, and Explaining Medical Terms through Etymology. He has also been teaching various courses, namely, Western Civilization, Tradition and Transformation in Western History, Characteristics in Western Culture, Early English Constitutional History, General Chinese History, Spirits of New Asia College, Comparative Mythology, and History of Traditional Chinese Thought.
In this talk, Prof. CHEUNG started with introducing the general background of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which witnessed both the great as well as the weak sides of Imperial Chinese history: in the 18th century, the population and territory of the Qing Empire were the largest they had ever been; yet the Qing Empire also experienced internal disasters, and external defeats and humiliation in the 19th century, especially the Opium Wars and the Sino-Japanese War.
The talk then discussed the internal population issues, the deterioration of the Manchu military, rebellions, corruption, and the external dominance of Western imperialism. The imbalance of trade caused the British East Indian Company to sell opium to Qing Dynasty, which weakened China further.
The different views of the Westerners and people of the Qing Dynasty were also discussed, followed by a brief introduction on the responses of the Qing Dynasty to Western imperialistic aggression, including the Self-Strengthening Movement and the May-Fourth Movement.
The talk also elaborated on the overall historical background of the West since the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, which caused the rise of capitalism and eventually imperialism.
After the Revolution of 1911, China continued to be troubled by warlordism, civil war, Western imperialism, and Japanese militarism. The Sian Incident in 1936 was a turning point in modern Chinese history, as the Kuomintang (KMT) finally cooperated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to fight against the Japanese invasion. Nevertheless, the civil war between the two Parties renewed after the end of the Second World War in 1945, and it was brought to an end in 1949 with the founding of the People’s Republic of China.