What caused the collapse of the last Chinese empire in 1912?

By the late 1800s, the Qing was under threat. Newspapers, both in China and abroad, were talking about whether Britain, Germany, France and the USA would divide China between them and make it part of their empires. Attitudes to the Qing in Europe had changed. Once seen as a desirable, rich land, China was now seen as weak and suffering.

People in China knew the Qing dynasty was under threat too. The Civil War period had done much harm and China’s defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was a further shock. To China, Japan had always been its smaller neighbour. Japan had recently reformed its government and had promoted Western technology and science. Thinkers in China took the defeat as proof that China also needed to change.

inside the Qing government worked to try to save the Qing by modernising the military and building factories, railways, and . Following the disaster of the , the Qing court introduced the in 1901, designed to bring further change. The old examinations were abandoned in favour of western-style education. Other reforms tackled tax, law, the police, and the military.

However, there were also people who thought the Qing reformers were not doing enough. Some revolutionaries argued that China could not stand up to the West without getting rid of the emperors entirely, and some felt it was wrong for Han Chinese to be ruled by a Manchu emperor.

The Xinhai Revolution came very suddenly in 1911. Soldiers in Wuchang revolted and other cities quickly joined them. The revolutionaries declared the founding of the Republic of China. Puyi, the last emperor of China, stood down and the Qing was over.

In October of 1911, a group of revolutionaries in southern China led a successful revolt against the Qing Dynasty, establishing in its place the Republic of China and ending the imperial system.

In the Nineteenth Century, the Qing Empire faced a number of challenges to its rule, including a number of foreign incursions into Chinese territory. The two Opium Wars against Western powers led by Great Britain resulted in the loss of Hong Kong, forced opening of “treaty ports” for international trade, and large foreign “concessions” in major cities privileged with extraterritorial rule. After its loss in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), Imperial China was forced to relinquish control over still more of its territory, losing Taiwan and parts of Manchuria and ending its suzerainty over Korea. The Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) firmly established Japanese claims to the Northeast and further weakened Qing rule. The combination of increasing imperialist demands (from both Japan and the West), frustration with the foreign Manchu Government embodied by the Qing court, and the desire to see a unified China less parochial in outlook fed a growing nationalism that spurred on revolutionary ideas.

As Qing rule fell into decline, it made a few last-ditch efforts at constitutional reform. In 1905, the court abolished the examination system, which had limited political power to elites who passed elaborate exams on Chinese classics. Faced with increasing foreign challenges, it worked to modernize its military. With its central power weakening, the court also attempted a limited decentralization of power, creating elected assemblies and increasing provincial self-government.

Although the Qing court maintained a degree of control within China in these years, millions of Chinese living overseas, especially in Southeast Asia and the Americas, began pressing for either widespread reform or outright revolution. Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao emerged as leaders of those proposing the creation of a constitutional monarchy. Sun Yat-sen led the amalgam of groups that together formed the Revolutionary Alliance or Tongmenghui. The Revolutionary Alliance advocated replacing Qing rule with a republican government; Sun himself was a nationalist with some socialist tendencies.

Both the revolutionary leaders and the overseas Chinese bankrolling their efforts had their roots in southern China. The Revolutionary Alliance attempted seven or more different revolts against the Qing in the years leading up to the revolution, most of which originated in south China and all of which were ultimately stopped by the Qing army.

Finally, in the autumn of 1911, the right set of conditions turned an uprising in Wuchang into a nationalist revolt. As its losses mounted, the Qing court responded positively to a set of demands intended to transform authoritarian imperial rule into a Constitutional monarchy. They named Yuan Shikai the new premier of China, but before he was able to retake the captured areas from the revolutionaries, the provinces started to declare their allegiance to the Revolutionary Alliance. Dr. Sun was in the United States on a fundraising tour at the time of the initial revolt; he hastened first to London and Paris to ensure that neither country would give financial or military support to the Qing government in its struggle. By the time he returned to China, the revolutionaries had taken Nanjing, a former capital under the Ming Dynasty, and representatives from the provinces began to arrive for the first national assembly. Together, they elected Dr. Sun the provisional president of the newly declared Republic of China.

Sun Yat-sen telegrammed Yuan Shikai to promise that, should Yuan agree to the formation of a republic, the position of president would be his. With the military position of the Qing weakening and provisions made for the maintenance of the royal family at court, the emperor and the royal family abdicated the throne in February of 1912.

The 1911 revolution was only the first steps in a process that would require the 1949 revolution to complete. Though the new government created the Republic of China and established the seat of government in Nanjing, it failed to unify the country under its control. The Qing withdrawal led to a power vacuum in certain regions, resulting in the rise of warlords. These warlords often controlled their territories without acknowledging the nationalist government. Additionally, the reforms set in place by the new government were not nearly as sweeping as the revolutionary rhetoric had intended; unifying the country took precedent over fundamental changes.

International reaction to the revolution was guarded. Foreign nations with investments in China remained neutral throughout the upheaval, though they were anxious to protect the treaty rights they gained from the Qing through the first and second opium wars. Still, the United States was largely supportive of the republican project, and in 1913, the United States was among the first countries to establish full diplomatic relations with the new Republic. Britain, Japan, and Russia soon followed.

The last seventy-some years of the Qing dynasty, simply put, is a story of decline. But a closer examination reveals a much more complex and nuanced picture. The reasons for decline are fairly straightforward, though scholars might dispute the relative weighting among them. The period opened with the First Opium War (1839–1842), a milestone in the dynastic decline. Viewed more broadly, however, the sources of this decline—if seen as a function of ailing institutions such as the examination system or an increasingly inefficient revenue system out of sync with population growth—can be traced back to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and before. As such, this perspective focuses on large sociopolitical forces that beg the question of whether the decline was not just of the Qing political order but of China’s civilization itself. Symptomatic of this decline, reforms came slowly and with limited and sporadic government support. Known as the Qing Restoration, which began around 1860, the aim was to reinvigorate the Confucian state through administrative and tax reforms, as well as a practical application of Confucian principles in governance. To tackle the thorny problem of foreign threats, the reformers’ initial response was the adoption of Western military technology and diplomatic practices, conveniently encapsulated as “self-strengthening” (ziqiang自強), in 1861. But reforms soon acquired a life of their own. It became apparent early on that the adoption of one Western technological or diplomatic innovation would inevitably lead to the adoption of another. Modern guns and boats would require new military training, just as their manufacture would require machinists and engineers, and they in turn would demand support industries such as coal mining and a modern transportation infrastructure. To finance these projects, the self-strengtheners branched out into money-making enterprises. A steamship company and textile mills followed, first under government purview, but eventually, under further pressure to combat cheap foreign manufactured goods, import-substitution industries were promoted, now completely in private hands, who were touted as patriotic entrepreneurs. To meet demands, modern education was introduced. In the meantime, the foreigners—their enterprises, missionaries, and military might—continued to threaten the Qing Empire, extracting greater concessions each time there was an altercation or war, which the Chinese inevitably lost. By the end of the 19th century, some Chinese began to realize that, if they were to become a modern nation, their political system had to be seriously reformed and, should that fail, changed. The combined effect of modern commerce, industry, and education had led to major diversification and enrichment of the Chinese elites. They were now poised for greater say in the polity. When their demands were not satisfied, they deserted the Qing Court, and the dynasty collapsed in 1912. Seen in its immediate aftermath, all the efforts at reform or self-strengthening had failed. Over the long haul, the late Qing had laid the foundation for modern China. There was no turning back.

Given the nature of this topic, general overviews come largely in the forms of textbooks, of which several are notable. Hsü 2000 is a systematic, insightful account: it first appeared in 1970, and the relevant section has not been updated for some time. There is a slight emphasis on political leadership, particularly the imperial. Spence 1999 is written in smooth-flowing prose. Though shorter than Hsü 2000, it does not give up much in terms of essentials. Fairbank 1978 and Fairbank and Liu 1980, though somewhat dated, contain excellent essays on late Qing, some of which will be discussed in relevant sections below. In Chinese, a number of works on the history of the Qing dynasty also provide extensive treatment of the period in question. A notable example is Qingdai quanshi (especially Vol. 8, edited by Mi Rucheng, and Vol. 9, edited by Xu Che and Dong Shouyi), which adopts a Marxist perspective. Xiao 1962–1963, though dated, probably provides the most thorough treatment of the period, in nearly 3,000 pages. Among these works, only Hsü 2000 provides a convenient, though brief, evaluation of the Qing period. Both the Qing dynasty and the 1840–1912 periods are often viewed as the beginning of modern China. Either way, the implication is that modern China is a continuing process, giving rise to numerous studies of 20th-century China that devote substantial treatment of the pre-1912 era.

Fairbank, John K., ed. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

The bulk of this work, from chapter 4 to the end (chapter 11), analyzes major political topics of this period. Authored by major scholars of China’s modern history, this is an authoritative work. The treatment is topical and, therefore, as a whole does not provide a flowing narrative.
Fairbank, John K., and Kwang-ching Liu, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 11, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Similar to Vol. 10 in organization, this volume deals with the economy, foreign relations, military, and intellectual and social developments as well as the reform and revolution of the last decade of the Qing.
Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. The Rise of Modern China. 6th ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
By far the most thorough text on the period (chapters 7–20). Balanced, methodical, and often insightful. Originally published in 1970.
Qingdai quanshi (清代全史). 10 vols. Shenyang, China: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1991–1993.
See especially Vol. 8, edited by Mi Rucheng 宓汝成; Vol. 9, edited by Xu Che 徐彻 and Dong Shouyi 董守义; and Vol. 10, edited by Liu Kexiang 刘克祥. Reflecting a Marxist influence, this “complete history of the Qing” provides ample coverage on social economic issues, highlighting the exploitation of the poor (peasants and workers). In international relations, the maltreatment of China and the Chinese by the foreign powers and foreigners—imperialism—is stressed.
Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 2d ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Chapters 6–11 pertain to the period in question. Though less detailed than Hsü 2000, this extremely well-written text provides good coverage and is especially strong on weaving social history into the main narrative. Third edition published in 2013.
Xiao Yishan 蕭一山. Qingdai tongshi (清代通史). 5 vols. Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yin shuguan, 1962–1963.
Despite its title, claiming to be a “comprehensive” history of the Qing, by far the greater part of this work—parts of Vol. 2, Vols. 3–4, and parts of Vol. 5 (tables)—relate to the history of the Qing from c. 1840. The approach is traditional, with an overconcentration on scholars and schools of thought, but the book is nonetheless a mine of information.