On this date in 1912, Yuan Shikai produced an official edict proclaiming the abdication of the boy emperor Puyi, marking the official end of the Qing Dynasty. The crafty Yuan had been playing the revolutionaries off against the court and biding his time to maximize his personal power, so when the revolutionaries agreed to let Yuan be president of the new republic, he then turned around and persuaded the regents at court that now was the best time to let it go. The revolutionaries offered Puyi a pretty sweet deal: a huge stipend, run of the palace, and a promise that the Qing tombs would go undisturbed, so as to preserve the dignity of the Manchu rulers. (All of which pretty much fell by the wayside by the 1920s, but by then Yuan was dead, Puyi was living it up in Tianjin, and nobody really cared.) Thus, on February 1, 1912, Yuan went to the palace and convinced the mother of Puyi to give her final assent to abdication, ending 268 years of Manchu rule.
One side note, it’s been 96 years since that day. Just doing some quick bad* math, but in the 96th year after American revolutionaries threw off their own monarchical masters, the United States was embroiled in a just finished a bloody war to hold the nation together, a war which followed 96 eight-plus decades of African slavery, westward expansion at the expense of the Native Americans, and some pretty heated skirmishes with our neighbors to the north and to the south.
This is not an apologia for CCP policies of the 20th century and it’s certainly not to play the game of “who first did what to whom worst” as a way of excusing or minimizing human rights abuses; the differences between the two situations are vast and certainly make any attempts at direct comparison a fool’s exercise. I’m just throwing it out there as a random musing about historical perspective and the pangs of state building in two post-revolutionary nations, both of whom remain uneasy heirs to an imperial tradition bequeathed to them by their former rulers.
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* Thanks to commenter CW for pointing out that my math was off. Not surprising given how bad I am at figures, but a bit embarrassing in that I forgot the most commonly way of counting the time prior to the Civil War: “Four score and seven years ago…” Thus “US History” joins “Remedial Arithmetic” in old textbooks that I should review at once.
by skirmish with neighbors, you mean kicking mexico’s ass, getting a nice chunk of its territory and wrestling most of oregon territory from canada/UK?
the united states were very imperialistic in the 19th century without wanting to be an empire, certainly no politicians would proffer ” manifest destiny” today. but it was the 19th century.
when you look at relationships between the U.S. government and China up until 1949. U.S. government had intentionally or inadvertently helped China on many occasions. from “open door policy” to Roosevelt’s insistence that China be included as a permanent member of UN security council.
its a little off topic. but just a muse.
And the Battle of Talas is a really great reminder of what kind of nation China has been historically. Expand, Expand, Expand.
The US was in a civil war 96 years after the founding or 86 years? Maybe the math was a bit too quick.
Agh! Math bug bites again. (This is after I noticed that the grading breakdown in my syllabus actually added up to 110%.)
The lesson as always…well, you know.
Eric,
It’s probably fair to say that the US in China was among the best of the worst, but that’s really not saying too much and it’s worth noting that one of the first nationwide organized boycotts directed at a particular country was that against American products in 1905. (Athough it did have more to do with happenings in the US rather than specifically in China)
Ching Ping,
No argument here. The Tang, Han, and especially the Qing were all expansionist empires.