Economy of Qing Empire

Meanwhile, Hong Taiji set up a rudimentary bureaucratic system based on the Ming model. He established six boards or executive level ministries in 1631 to oversee finance, personnel, rites, military, punishments, and public works. However, these administrative organs had very little role initially, and it was not until the eve of completing the conquest some ten years later that they filled out their government roles.

Hong Taiji's bureaucracy was staffed with many Han Chinese, including many newly surrendered Ming officials. The Manchus' continued dominance was ensured by an ethnic quota for top bureaucratic appointments. Hong Taiji's reign also saw a fundamental change of policy towards his Han Chinese subjects. Whereas under Nurhachi all captured Han Chinese were seen as potential fifth columnists for the Ming and treated as chattel – including those who eventually held important government posts – Hong Taiji instead incorporated them into the Jurchen "nation" as full (if not first-class) citizens, obligated to provide military service. By 1648, less than one-sixth of the bannermen were of Manchu ancestry.

This change of policy not only increased Hong Taiji's manpower and reduced his military dependence on banners not under his personal control, it also greatly encouraged other Han Chinese subjects of the Ming Dynasty to surrender and accept Jurchen rule when they were defeated militarily. Through these and other measures Hong Taiji was able to centralize power unto the office of the Khan, which in the long run prevented the Jurchen federation from fragmenting after his death.

One of the defining events of Hong Taiji's reign was the official adoption of the name "Manchu" for the united Jurchen people in November, 1635. The next year, when he is said to be presented with the imperial seal of the Yuan Dynasty after the defeat of the last Khagan of the Mongols, Hong Taiji renamed his state from "Great Jin" to "Great Qing" and elevated his position from Khan to Emperor, suggesting imperial ambitions beyond unifying the Manchu territories.

Before the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, there was a regime called 'Latter Jin' that had been set up by Nurhachu, leader of the Man Ethnic Minority. Actually, Man people were the offspring of the Nuzhen people who had always been living in Northeast China. After reunifying all the Nuzhen tribes, Nurhachu proclaimed himself emperor in 1616. Thus a new regime called Latter Jin was founded in Hetu Ala (in current Liaoning Province) during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644).

In 1636, Huang Taiji, son of Nurhachu moved the capital to Shenyang (currently the capital city of Liaoning Province) and changed the regime title into 'Qing'. He thus established the Qing Dynasty. In 1644 when peasant's uprising leader Li Zicheng ended the Ming Dynasty and set up a new regime in Beijing, the Qing army seduced a general named Wu Sangui to rebel against Li Zicheng.  With Wu's help, the Qing army successfully captured Beijing and rooted their regime there.

At the beginning, the Qing court carried out a series of policies to revive the social economy and alleviate the class contradiction. In politics, following the ruling pattern of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial rulers continued to strengthen the centralized system. Meanwhile, the Qing court resumed the 'Sheng' administrative system that originated in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368). Especially, in the frontiers like Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongol and Taiwan Island, the Qing court set out to enhance the power of the imperial ruling.

By the middle of the 18th century, the feudal economy of the Qing Dynasty reached a zenith, spanning the reign of Emperor Kangxi, Emperor Yongzheng and Emperor Qianlong. So that period was usually called 'the golden age of three emperors'. In that period, both culture and science were much more prosperous than any other periods. The notable book, The Imperial Collection of Four, was edited in that period. Also, a group of scholars and artists such as Cao Xueqin (writer of A Dream of Red Mansions), Wu Jingzi (writer of The Scholars) and Kong Shangren (writer of The Peach Blossom Fan) gradually appeared. In the field of science, the achievements in architecture were outstanding.

After the middle period, all kinds of social contradictions increasingly surfaced and the Qing Dynasty began to decline. Under the corrupt ruling of the later rulers, various rebellions and uprisings broke out. In 1840 when the Opium War broke out, the Qing court was faced with troubles at home and aggression from abroad. During that period, measures were adopted by imperial rulers and some radical peasants to bolster their power. The Westernization Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898 and the Taiping Rebellion were the most influential ones, but none of them had ever succeeded in saving the dying Qing Dynasty. Finally, the Revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen broke out and overthrew the Qing Dynasty, bringing two thousand years of Chinese feudal monarchy to an end.

• Isolationist trade policy

Free trade and peace go together; protectionism is the handmaiden of war. These were key teachings of the early classical economists, as well as the Austrians. Consistent libertarians have never doubted it. But recently the theory has come under fire from all sides and led to dangerous coalitions pushing for the worst of all worlds, autarky and military belligerence.

The lies usually begin with the word "isolationism." It was FDR's smear term for the mass movement trying to prevent the U.S. from intervening in another horrific European war. Isolationism meant the desire to keep the troops out of harm's way. But this position by no means precluded trading relations. Sweden, Portugal, and Switzerland, for example, spared themselves disaster by adopting the American framers' policy of military neutrality and trade with all sides.

Fast forward to the end of the war, when Harry Truman and his cronies had the bright idea of blowing billions in foreign aid. The "isolationists," said Truman, opposed it in favor of letting free markets rebuild Europe. Fast forward again, to George Bush and his Gulf War. The people who opposed risking American lives to preserve Saudi domination of oil markets were also denounced as isolationists. Also 'isolationist" were those people who, four years later, opposed the preferential, tax-funded, regulated trade cartel of Nafta. So far, then, it appears that holding an isolationist position is an unmitigated good: against war, against foreign aid, against preferential trade agreements, but for free trade. Should the term be worn as a badge of honor? Not quite yet, for the great China debate has hugely complicated matters. On one side, there are people who want to treat China as part of the community of nations, by encouraging its 15-year experiment in capitalist economic policies. This has resulted in a historic economic boom of double-digit annual growth, unprecedented freedom and prosperity for huge elements of the population, and a dramatic decline in government power. Within the lifetimes of every middle-aged person, the country has moved from mass starvation and terror to accommodating huge commercial centers that rival Houston and Montreal. The Chinese authorities can call it communism if they want to, but the system rising there is more Mises than Marx.

On the other side of the China debate is a motley coalition of activists – invariably called isolationists – who know and care nothing about economics, and, in fact, show disdain for it. This coalition includes old-time warmongers hoping to use China as the preferred enemy in a renewed Cold War. It includes labor unions who want to stiff-arm American consumers into not buying Chinese products. It includes the managers of protectionist industries who want to keep products out. It includes the munitions manufacturers who need another excuse for a government contract. And, of course, it includes clueless national socialists who oppose all forms of international trade. They delude themselves into viewing economic exchange as a form of warfare that compels retaliation. They use phrases like "China's aggressive trade and military policies" as if a boatload of party hats is the equivalent of a bomb. They attribute the very existence of trade to entities like the "China Lobby," as if there weren't millions of people here and there who benefit.

They go so far as to compare China to the old Soviet Union, as if our only option is a nuclear showdown, or, in the case of William Hawkins, adviser to Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, Hitler's Germany, as if the only option is world war. Every uptick in Chinese prosperity, far from being a cause for celebration is a disaster. Hawkins, whose salary is paid by the taxpayers, sees a security threat in the fact that "trade and investment is helping that country's infrastructure and industrial base." Precisely: that's what it is supposed to do, and that's why trade and free enterprise is a great thing. Why is it necessary to point this out?

What makes this menacing anti-China coalition unusual is the addition of certain elements of the religious right. They say the Chinese government violates human rights, suppresses religious liberty, and uses slave labor, and therefore "we" (meaning the U.S. government) ought to shut down its booming trade relations with the U.S.

At one time, these same people cared intensely about violations of religious liberty here at home. They had seen the Waco massacre, seen homeschoolers rounded up for educating their children, seen pastors dragged off to jail for refusing to register their church schools, and fought the Supreme Court on a host of issues where it has usurped individual, family, and local rights. They battled the real enemy: their own government, which has subsidized cultural breakdown and suppressed religious freedom at every turn. What's happened? Did they get bored with the fight that really matters? Certainly it's easier, and much more respectable within the beltway, to fight real and alleged infractions halfway around the globe than to face the awful reality of Leviathan here at home. But it's a grave error that can only lead to political and economic disaster. Are there no prisoners of conscience in U.S. jails that merit attention? Is it not slave labor that Americans are forced to work half the year to pay the tax bill before they can begin providing for their families? Are no religious rights being violated when a distant central government prevents a local school choir from singing carols at the school play? Is religious liberty secure when an unconstitutional national police force torches and murders an entire religious community, and then jails the few survivors for 40 years?

The tragedy is this: by focusing on distant crimes we cannot prevent, while ignoring those at home we can stop, we play right into the hands of big government. Punishing China with embargoes and trade restrictions does nothing to improve life in China, even while it strengthens the hand of government here at home. We put the real enemy of liberty in charge of telling American producers and consumers what they can and cannot buy from abroad, and at what prices. Further, the anti-China crowd is proposing to punish the Chinese people for the infractions of the Chinese government. The stakes are huge. U.S. and Chinese corporations are in the process of developing joint ventures to open up new and hugely profitable shipping lanes from California to the northern regions of China that have not yet benefitted from the economic boom. If a trade war breaks out, as the actual isolationists would like, all of this would be lost, and millions of people would be condemned to continued poverty. How can the anti-China protectionists live with this on their consciences?

It's fashionable these days to disparage people's desire for consumer goods obtained through international trade. American consumers who don't want to pay higher prices or join the trade war are said to be greedy and materialistic, putting Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls ahead of human rights. Similarly, we are encouraged to curl our lips at the idea that the Chinese people want to gain access to fast-food hamburgers – which we take for granted but which would be a dream-come-true for people who have lived under the communist yoke for so long. If we believe in liberty, we must understand that economic liberty is the most important kind. It is what touches our lives in the fullest possible way. What is the alleged right to vote compared with the real right to start a business, draw wages according to our productivity, keep the fruits of our labor, feed our family, save for the future, create a civilization? These are all components of capitalism, the only system truly compatible with the first and most important of human rights: the right to own and control what is yours.

The old classical liberals linked trade and peace because people with a commercial interest in good relations are likely to urge their own governments not to pursue the path of destruction and barriers. It's true in the Chinese case too. Disparage international business if you want, but as a lobbying force, we have it to thank for dousing the flames of war that labor unions, domestic bomb makers, and national socialists keep trying to fan.

It's a small step from advocating blockades with a country to urging full-scale military attack. Mr. Hawkins warns that the U.S. needs to "hobble China." How? By using "America's current advantage in economic and military strength to fortify its preeminence in Asia." U.S. "preeminence in Asia"? Can we imagine Washington or Jefferson talking that way? Why don't we just set up a world government and run the entire planet while we're at it? If that's what the U.S. has in mind, it's a recipe for global tyranny. It would bankrupt this country. It would make the U.S. Constitution – already ignored – a permanent dead letter. It would keep Leviathan's grip fastened on the American people until the end of time. It would lead to perpetual war in the name of perpetual human rights.

China bashing and protectionist thinking is not kid's play. Because the U.S. government uses it to its own advantage, it represents a real threat to our liberty and property. We've lived through a hellish century of protectionism, war, socialism, and mass destruction, with governments holding the world's civilian population as hostages in their evil political games. Our choice today is what it has always been: peace and free trade with all, or trade wars, cold wars, and real wars that only government can win. After the Zheng He voyages in the 15th century, the foreign policy of the Ming Dynasty in China became increasingly isolationist. Hongwu Emperor was the first to propose the policy to ban all maritime shipping in 1371. The Qing Dynasty that came after the Ming often continued the latter dynasty's isolationist policies. Wokou or Japanese pirates were one of the key primary concerns, although the maritime ban was not without some control.

At the end of China’s bloody civil war, in the early and mid 1900s, the country quickly closed off its borders to many outside countries and only maintained diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union. For a period of time the Chinese attempted to become self-reliant, but found that in doing so the country could not break even economically, especially when attempting to maintain a communist vision when it came to economics. In the 1970s the People Republic of China began large radical economic reforms, which forced the country from a zero competition nation to one of the most capitalistic in the world. In doing so it quickly began to open its borders to the trade of various other countries thus adding itself to a global trade economy. While the government still regulates many of the country's cultural interactions with others, it is very open to the concept of an open market and competition with other countries, allowing the flow of technological innovations to flow in and out of its borders freely. Mao in 1949 set China in an isolationist, and communist country, along with their Soviet benefactors.

China's last dynasty. The Manchu rulers immediately suppressed the peasant rebellions that had rocked the Ming - but it took them 20 years to consolidate their power. The early Qing period saw an increase in agricultural production, the construction of massive flood control and other public works projects, and a flourishing of the arts and scholarship. Much of the Qing period was one of wealth and expansion. China expanded to its greatest size ever, incorporating Inner and Outer Mongolia and Turkestan. Qing emperor QianLong(1736-1796), regarded as one of China's greatest rulers, presided over a period of wealth and expansion during which China reached the apex of its power. However, China's prosperity was not to last. Increased population, food and land shortages, official corruption and expensive military campaigns threatened Qing prosperity and authority. Increased contact with the militarily superior west in the later half of the 19th century further hastened the fall of the Qing in 1911.

Western nations had been trading with China for centuries, despite the closed-door policy. Under the Qing, trade was restricted to GuangZhou (Canton). This system of trade, known as the Canton System, was regulated to the extreme. Despite the regulations, western nations, Britain in particular, flocked to China.

By 1760, Britain's East India Company had joined the traders in GuangZhou in search of tea, silks and porcelain. Britain's thirst for tea created a balance of trade vastly favoring China. China was a willing exporter, but disdained western goods. Silver flowed into China and remained there. In 1793, Britain tried in vain to establish a trade treaty with China. However, her overtures to the Qing court were rebuffed. Britain's traders took the matter into their own hands and began a clandestine trade in opium to counteract the trade imbalance.

Opium, by no means unknown in China, had previously been a drug only for the very wealthy. Cheap opium, imported from India, had, by 1820, created a vast number of addicts. As the numbers rose, China's trade surplus became a deficit.

In 1836, the emperor strictly prohibited trade in Opium. Dealers and users were to be harshly punished. However, his order went unheeded. In 1840, in another attempt to stem the trade, chests of opium were seized and burned in Canton (GuangZhou). This action served as the impetus for Britain to start the First Opium War, in which China's markets were forcibly opened. The term Gunboat Diplomacy stems from the gunboats used by the British.

After 2 years of fighting, the Treaty of NanJing (1842) ended the First Opium War.China was no longer allowed to isolate herself from trade and diplomacy with the west. The treaty stipulated five Treaty Ports to be opened to trade, provided for the 99 year lease of Hong Kong to the British crown, and ensured the humiliating practice of extraterritoriality.

Extraterritoriality stipulated that foreigners in China were to be subject only to the laws of their homeland, not to the laws of China. The unfair treaty system remained in force until 1943. The Qing's humiliating defeat at the hands of foreigners in the Opium War heralded the collapse of the dynasty. Its defeat, compounded by floods, famine and government corruption irrevocably weakened its mandate to rule. By 1850, China was in chaos, engulfed by internal rebellions. A Chinese Christian evangelist, Hong XiuQuan, led the notorious TaiPing Rebellion, the largest of the rebellions. He preached Christianity, radical economic and political reforms, and anti-foreign rhetoric. His call to arms in 1850 was taken-up by 20,000 chinese angry at Qing rule. The TaiPing Army swept though the YangZi basin swelling in numbers along the way. The rebellion was only suppressed with the help of the European powers, who took action for fear of a China controlled by Hong's anti-foreign government.

Following the suppression of the TaiPing Rebellion, the Qing government made a half-hearted but futile attempt to regain control and institute reform. Ci Xi, the Empress Dowager and dominant political figure in the Qing court, exemplified the court's lack of commitment to reform. The Summer Palace, including the beautiful, though useless, marble boat, was built at this time under Ci Xi's orders using misappropriated navy funds.

In the waning years of the 19th century China was plunged deeper into chaos. The Qing dynasty was further weakened, and its military ineptitude laid bare, when China suffered another humiliating defeat in the Sino-Japanese war. As demands from foreigners for trading, economic and political concessions mounted, so too did anti-foreign sentiment in China. Peasants began to form secret anti-foreign societies.

The Boxers were one such society. They adhered to a mystical faith that included spells and rituals, which, they claimed, made them invincible to the foreigners' bullets. The Boxer's anti-foreign stance won them the semi-official support of the Qing court which gave its blessing to the Boxer Uprising (1900) in which hundreds of foreigners were killed.

An international army defeated the Boxers and Ci Xi fled Beijing. Though the dynasty held on for another 10 years, the Boxer uprising signals the effective end of all but nominal Qing control. After the Boxer rebellion, the Qing government made one last ditch attempt to reform and regain its mandate to rule. However, it had fallen from grace. As power devolved to provincial rulers, rebellion and uprisings became the norm. In 1911, a popular uprising, led by the Tong Meng Hui (that later became the KuoMinTang), Sun YatSen's revolutionary society, finally toppled the Qing, thus ending 2,000 years of imperial rule.

• The  Opium Wars

At the end of the 1800s China's four million square miles held 450 million people, up from 200 million a century earlier. The ruling dynasty was the Ching, established by Manchus from Manchuria, who in 1644 had superseded the Ming. These descendants of the Tatars appreciated Chinese civilization and adopted a conciliatory attitude toward their subjects. They refused, however, to allow intermarriage with the Chinese, for they realized that only their blood difference kept them from being assimilated and conquered. By and large, however, the Manchus gradually became Chinese in their attitudes and habits. The Manchu emperors were remarkably successful. The reign of Chien-lung (1736-1795) was a time of great expansion. The Manchus gained Turkestan, Burma, and Tibet. By the end of the eighteenth century Manchu power extended even into Nepal, and the territory under the Ching control was as extensive as under any previous dynasty.

The foreigners were especially irritated by the high customs duties the Chinese forced them to pay and by the attempts of Chinese authorities to stop the growing import trade in opium. The drug had long been used to stop diarrhea, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth century people in all classes began to use it recreationally. Most opium came from Turkey or India, and in 1800 its import was forbidden by the imperial government. Despite this restriction, the opium trade continued to flourish. Privately owned vessels of many countries, including the United States, made huge profits from the growing number of Chinese addicts. The government in Peking noted that the foreigners seemed intent on dragging down the Chinese through the encouragement of opium addiction.

In the meantime, the empire faced other problems. The army became corrupt and the tax farmers defrauded the people. The central bureaucracy declined in efficiency, and the generally weak emperors were unable to meet the challenges of the time. The balance of trade turned against the Chinese in the 1830s, and the British decided to force the issue of increased trade rights. The point of conflict was the opium trade. By the late 1830s more than 30,000 chests, each of which held about 150 pounds of the extract, were being brought in annually by the various foreign powers. Some authorities assert that the trade in opium alone reversed China's formerly favorable balance of trade. In the spring of 1839 Chinese authorities at Canton confiscated and burned the opium. In response, the British occupied positions around Canton.

In the war that followed, the Chinese could not match the technological and tactical superiority of the British forces. In 1842 China agreed to the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking. Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, and other ports, including Canton, were opened to British residence and trade. It would be a mistake to view the conflict between the two countries simply as a matter of drug control; it was instead the acting out of deep cultural conflicts between east and west.

The French and Americans approached the Chinese after the Nanking Treaty's provisions became known, and in 1844 gained the same trading rights as the British. The advantages granted the three nations by the Chinese set a precedent that would dominate China's relations with the world for the next century. The "most favored nation" treatment came to be extended so far that China's right to rule in its own territory was limited. This began the period referred to by the Chinese as the time of unequal treaties - a time of unprecedented degradation for China. The humiliation the Central Kingdom suffered is still remembered and strongly affects important aspects of its foreign policy. Meanwhile, the opium trade continued to thrive. The British and French again defeated China in a second opium war in 1856. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858) the Chinese opened new ports to trading and allowed foreigners with passports to travel in the interior. Christians gained the right to spread their faith and hold property, thus opening up another means of western penetration. The United States and Russia gained the same privileges in separate treaties.