Comparing and contrasting the modernisation efforts of Essay

Comparing and contrasting the modernisation efforts of nineteenthcentury China and Japan - Essay Example The Japanese reform-minded Samurai, analyzed the situation and decided that the best way to beat the Western powers at their own game was to adapt to Western systems. This was done by launching a reform movement under the guise of restoring the emperor to power. In the process, they eliminated the power of the shogun, who was the military ruler of the Tokugawa period. This effort, carried out in 1868, is referred to as the "Meiji Restoration", since the emperor's reign name at the time was Meiji. At around the same time, china was suffering a political crisis in the form of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) which was directed against the Manchu Dynasty. Though China's imperial system had flourished under the same dynasty in the 1700's, the Qinq dynasty of the Manchu's came to be regarded as 'foreign'. Another rebellion (1898-1900), known as the 'Boxer Rebellion', which was also initially an anti-Qing uprising, was played on by the Qing Dowager Empress to her advantage by re-directing the people's anger towards the Westerners. So, unlike the Japanese, the Chinese did not have the advantage of dynastic authority to serve as a focal point for national mobilization against the West.