12. China’s Rough Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
China had a rough nineteenth century, and the twentieth century was no better. From a pinnacle of global wealth and power, the country declined during the 1800s into a powerless giant and a plaything for foreigners to push around and exploit at their pleasure. The 1900s, if anything, were worse. The twentieth century began with a revolution that was promising at first, but eventually produced chaos and widespread – or wider spread – misery.
The imperial dynastic system that had governed China for over 2000 years was overthrown, to be replaced by a modern republic. However, the republic quickly fractured into regions ruled by exploitative warlords, whose abuses were only slightly alleviated by a notoriously corrupt nationalist government that nominally unified much of the country. Then came a foreign war with Japan in which Chinese perished by the tens of millions, and a civil war between the communists and nationalists. The communists won, and finally asserted powerful centralized control that seemed to end the chaos. Until they imposed their own chaos with ambitious but poorly thought-out plans that produced disaster.
