Current Events:
According to the AP (Associated Press): "Quietly and Carefully, Obama Welcomes Dalai Lama"
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (L) walks out the doors of the Palm Room of the White House past the trash bags, February 18, 2010, after meeting with Obama. The visit drew angry protests from China. Graphic credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Obama privately visited with the Dalai Lama but the get-together was kept low-key, the AP's Mark Smith says, to avoid inflaming tensions with China. (Feb. 18)
Chapter 15 East Asia Under Challenge 1800-1914
Section 1 The Decline of the Qing Dynasty
Causes of Decline
By the 1800s, the Qing dynasty was in decline. Irrigation systems and canals were poorly maintained, leading to massive flooding of the Huang valley. The population explosion that had begun a century earlier created hardship for China’s peasants. An extravagant imperial court, tax evasion by the rich, and widespread official corruption added to the peasants’ burden. As poverty and misery increased, peasants rebelled. The Taiping Rebellion (ty ping), which lasted from 1850 to 1864, was probably the most devastating peasant revolt in history. The leader, Hong Xiuquan (hong shyoo chwahn), called for an end to the hated Qing dynasty. The Taiping rebels won control of large parts of China and held out for 14 years. However, with the help of loyal regional governors and generals, the government crushed the rebellion.
Reading Check
Examining
What factors led to the decline of the Qing dynasty?
The Opium War
Reading Check
Summarizing
What did the British do to adjust their trade imbalance with China?
The Tai Ping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion almost toppled the Qing dynasty. It is estimated to have caused the deaths of between 20 million and 30 million Chinese. The Qing government survived, but it had to share power with regional commanders. During the rebellion, Europeans kept up pressure on China, and Russia seized lands in the north.
Reading Check
Summarizing
What social reforms did the Tai Ping Rebellion demand?
Imperialism in China
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Efforts at ReformFor: Audio Guided Tour
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By the mid-1800s, educated Chinese were divided over the need to adopt Western ways. Most saw no reason for new industries because China’s wealth and taxes came from land. Although Chinese merchants were allowed to do business, they were not seen as a source of prosperity.
Scholar-officials also disapproved of the ideas of Western missionaries, whose emphasis on individual choice challenged the Confucian order. They saw Western technology as dangerous, too, because it threatened Confucian ways that had served China successfully for so long.
By the late 1800s, the empress Ci Xi (tsih shih) had gained power. A strong-willed ruler, she surrounded herself with advisors who were deeply committed to Confucian traditions.
Reading Check
Explaining
What was China's policy of "self-strengthening?"?
In the 1860s, reformers launched the “self-strengthening movement.” They imported Western technology, setting up factories to make modern weapons. They developed shipyards, railroads, mining, and light industry. The Chinese translated Western works on science, government, and the economy. However, the movement made limited progress because the government did not rally behind it.
The Advance of Imperialism
Mounting Pressures
Internal Crisis
Reading Check
Identifying
What countries claimed Chinese lands between 1880 and 1900?1880 and 1900? Cf. Browse a photo archive of China during the 1890s.
Opening the Door to China
Meanwhile, the Western powers and nearby Japan moved rapidly ahead. Japan began to modernize after 1868. It then joined the Western imperialists in the competition for a global empire.
In 1894, Japanese pressure on China led to the Sino-Japanese War. It ended in disaster for China, with Japan gaining the island of Taiwan.
Carving Spheres of Influence
The crushing defeat revealed China’s weakness. Western powers moved swiftly to carve out spheres of influence along the Chinese coast. The British took the Chang River valley. The French acquired the territory near their colony of Indochina. Germany and Russia gained territory in northern China.
The United States, a longtime trader with the Chinese, did not take part in the carving up of China. It feared that European powers might shut out American merchants. A few years later, in 1899, it called for a policy to keep Chinese trade open to everyone on an equal basis. The imperial powers accepted the idea of an Open Door Policy, as it came to be called. No one, however, consulted the Chinese.
Reading Check
Analyzing
Why did the United States want an Open Door policy in China?
The Boxer Rebellion
Anti-foreign feeling finally exploded in the Boxer Uprising. In 1899, a group of Chinese had formed a secret society, the Righteous Harmonious Fists. Westerners watching them train in the martial arts dubbed them Boxers. Their goal was to drive out the “foreign devils” who were polluting the land with their un-Chinese ways, strange buildings, machines, and telegraph lines.
In 1900, the Boxers attacked foreigners across China. In response, the Western powers and Japan organized a multinational force. This force crushed the Boxers and rescued foreigners besieged in Beijing. The empress Ci Xi (tsih shih) had at first supported the Boxers but reversed her policy as they retreated.
Explaining
How did the Boxers get their name?
The Fall of the Qing
The Rise of Sun Yat-sen
Although the Boxer Uprising failed, the flames of Chinese nationalism spread. Reformers wanted to strengthen China’s government. By the early 1900s, they had introduced a constitutional monarchy. Some reformers called for a republic.
A passionate spokesman for a Chinese republic was Sun Yixian (soon yee shyahn), also known as Sun Yat-sen. In the early 1900s, he organized the Revolutionary Alliance to rebuild China on “Three Principles of the People.” The first principle was nationalism, or freeing China from foreign domination. The second was democracy, or representative government. The third was livelihood, or economic security for all Chinese.
The Revolution of 1911
When Ci Xi (tsih shih) died in 1908 and a two-year-old boy inherited the throne, China slipped into chaos.
The Last Emperor - Trailer
In 1911, uprisings in the provinces swiftly spread. Peasants, students, local warlords, and even court politicians helped topple the Qing dynasty.
In December 1911, Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) was named president of the new Chinese republic. The republic faced overwhelming problems and was almost constantly at war with itself or foreign invaders.
Reading Check
Evaluating
What changes did the Revolution of 1911 actually produce in China?
An Era of Civil War
Reading Check
Explaining
Why were there rebellions in China after General Yuan Shigai became president?
Chinese Society in Transition
Reading Check
Evaluating
How did the arrival of Westerners affect China?
China's Changing Culture
Reading Check
Describing
What effects did Western culture have on China?
Section 3 Rise of Modern Japan
Brady, Mathew
Portrait of Perry (detail)
ca. 1854 Graphic source: Library of Congress
Very common views of Perry were prints and paintings that rendered Perry and his fellow Americans conspicuously hirsute. In several such portraits, we find him paired with Commander Henry A. Adams, his second-in-command.
Adams (left) and Perry
Graphic source: Ryosenji Treasure Museum
Black Ships and Samurai. Comodore Perry and the Opening of Japan
Take a tour of the Japanese city of Edo
Interactive tour of Osaka Castle
Zoom in on a painting of the siege of the castle
Find out more about Hideyoshi.
Timeline of Japanese history
This is the trailer for what is acclaimed as one of the greatest films ever made, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Warning: Language, do not view if you are offended by a bit more than PG-13 language.
Kurosawa's film was the inspiration for a classic Western: "The Magnificent 7" (1960), 3:10.
Film trailer for this classic Western starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Brad Dexter and Eli Wallach.
These scenes from a History Channel documentary provides basic information on Japanese history and culture, particularly the importance of bushido, 7:21.
An End to IsolationReading Check
Identifying
What benefits did the Treaty of Kanagawa grant the United States?
Resistance to the New Order
Reading Check
Identifying
What events led to the collapse of the shogunate system in Japan?
The Meiji Restoration
Transformation of Japanese Politics
Meiji Economics
Building a Modern Social Structure
Daily Life and Women's Rights
Reading Check
Explaining
How was Japan's government structured under the Meiji constitution?
Joining the Imperialist Nations
Beginnings of Expansion
War with Russia
U.S. Relations
Reading Check
Explaining
Why did Japan turn itself into an imperialist power?
Culture in an Era of Transition
Reading Check
Describing
What effect did Japanese culture have on other nations?
Ch. 14 Resources
Black Ships and Samurai. Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan
Take a virtual tour of the Forbidden City.
Fascinating facts about the Forbidden City.
Timeline of China's dynasties.
Timeline of Chinese dynasties.
Interactive time line of 20th century China
Examine samurai objects
Take a tour of the Japanese city of Edo
Interactive tour of Osaka Castle
Zoom in on a painting of the siege of the castle
Find out more about Hideyoshi.
Timeline of Japanese history
The Clash, performing their song, "The Magnificent Seven," live on the Tom Synder Show 1981; this is the first public performance of the song, 5:00.
"The Magnificent Seven" is a song and single by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was the third single from their fourth album Sandinista!. It reached number 34 on the UK singles chart.
The song was inspired by raps by old school hip hop acts from New York City, like the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. Rap was still a new and emerging music genre at the time and the band, especially Mick Jones, was very impressed with it, so much so that Jones took to carrying a boombox around and got the nickname 'Whack Attack'. The song was recorded in April 1980 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, built around a bass loop played by Norman Watt-Roy of the Blockheads. Joe Strummer wrote the words on the spot, a technique that was also used to create Sandinista!'s other rap track, "Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)". "The Magnificent Seven" represents the first attempt by a rock band to write and perform original rap music, and one of the earliest examples of hip hop records with political and social content. It is the first major white rap record, predating the recording of Blondie's "Rapture" by six months.
The song is viewed as a critique of excessive consumption which includes a nod to the inexpensive goods produced in Asia.
Thematically, "The Magnificent Seven" is somewhat similar to the punkier "Career Opportunities", in that it takes the drudgery of the working life as its starting point. Unlike "Career Opportunities", however, in stream of consciousness fashion it also deals with consumerism, popular media, historical figures, and addresses these subjects with great exuberance and humor. The first verses of "The Magnificent Seven" follow a nameless worker (narrated in the second person) as he wakes up and goes to work, not for personal advancement but to buy his girlfriend consumer goods:
Working for a rise to better my station / Take my baby to sophistication / She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice / Better work hard, I seen the price
The nameless worker then goes off for a cheeseburger lunch-break, and the lyrics devolve into a blur of fleeting images from television, movies and advertising:
Italian mobster shoots a lobster / Seafood restaurant gets out of hand / A car in the fridge or a fridge in the car? / Like cowboys do in TV land!
Finally, the song takes historical figures, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Nixon and Socrates, and places them in modern America, before asking sarcastically whether "Plato the Greek" or Rin Tin Tin is more famous to the masses.
An exclaimed "newsflash" near the end of the song, "Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie!", was in fact a headline in the News of the World newspaper at the time of the song's mixing in England, according to Joe Strummer.
Take a tour of the Japanese city of Edo
Interactive tour of Osaka Castle
Zoom in on a painting of the siege of the castle
Find out more about Hideyoshi.
Timeline of Japanese history
The Clash, performing their song, "The Magnificent Seven," live on the Tom Synder Show 1981; this is the first public performance of the song, 5:00.
"The Magnificent Seven" is a song and single by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was the third single from their fourth album Sandinista!. It reached number 34 on the UK singles chart.
The song was inspired by raps by old school hip hop acts from New York City, like the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. Rap was still a new and emerging music genre at the time and the band, especially Mick Jones, was very impressed with it, so much so that Jones took to carrying a boombox around and got the nickname 'Whack Attack'. The song was recorded in April 1980 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, built around a bass loop played by Norman Watt-Roy of the Blockheads. Joe Strummer wrote the words on the spot, a technique that was also used to create Sandinista!'s other rap track, "Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)". "The Magnificent Seven" represents the first attempt by a rock band to write and perform original rap music, and one of the earliest examples of hip hop records with political and social content. It is the first major white rap record, predating the recording of Blondie's "Rapture" by six months.
The song is viewed as a critique of excessive consumption which includes a nod to the inexpensive goods produced in Asia.
Thematically, "The Magnificent Seven" is somewhat similar to the punkier "Career Opportunities", in that it takes the drudgery of the working life as its starting point. Unlike "Career Opportunities", however, in stream of consciousness fashion it also deals with consumerism, popular media, historical figures, and addresses these subjects with great exuberance and humor. The first verses of "The Magnificent Seven" follow a nameless worker (narrated in the second person) as he wakes up and goes to work, not for personal advancement but to buy his girlfriend consumer goods:
Working for a rise to better my station / Take my baby to sophistication / She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice / Better work hard, I seen the price
The nameless worker then goes off for a cheeseburger lunch-break, and the lyrics devolve into a blur of fleeting images from television, movies and advertising:
Italian mobster shoots a lobster / Seafood restaurant gets out of hand / A car in the fridge or a fridge in the car? / Like cowboys do in TV land!
Finally, the song takes historical figures, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Nixon and Socrates, and places them in modern America, before asking sarcastically whether "Plato the Greek" or Rin Tin Tin is more famous to the masses.
An exclaimed "newsflash" near the end of the song, "Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie!", was in fact a headline in the News of the World newspaper at the time of the song's mixing in England, according to Joe Strummer.
Gimme Honda, Gimme SonyLyrics reproduced here for educational purposes only; copyright remains in the hands of the copyright holder.
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence. . . .
Karlo Marx and Friedrich Engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence
What have we got? Yeh-o, magnificence!!
Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who's more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
HW email to gmsmith@shanahan.org
1. p. 452, Questions, #4-6, 8.
