Qing China — failed reform and the fall of the dynasty
Practice Flashcards
Flip to reveal answersWho was Empress Dowager Cixi?
Track your progress — Sign up free to save your progress and get smart review reminders based on spaced repetition.
All 13 Flashcards — Qing China — failed reform and the fall of the dynasty
Sign up free to track progress and get spaced-repetition review schedules.
Question
Who was Empress Dowager Cixi?
Answer
The regent who dominated Qing politics from 1861 to 1908; she crushed the Hundred Days' Reform and backed the Boxers.
Question
What was the Self-Strengthening Movement?
Answer
An 1860s-90s drive to adopt Western technology (weapons, ships, some industry) while keeping Confucian government and the monarchy unchanged.
Question
What did the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) do?
Answer
Ended the First Sino-Japanese War; China recognised Korean independence and ceded Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, plus a huge indemnity.
Question
Why did defeat in the Sino-Japanese War matter so much?
Answer
It proved the Self-Strengthening Movement had failed, since China lost to a smaller neighbour, Japan, that had modernised more completely.
Question
What was the Hundred Days' Reform (1898)?
Answer
Emperor Guangxu's burst of edicts (June-Sept 1898) attempting government, education, economic and military modernisation, ended by Cixi's coup.
Question
Who were Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao?
Answer
Scholar-reformers who drafted the Hundred Days' Reform; they fled abroad after Cixi's 1898 coup.
Question
What happened in the Boxer Rebellion (1900)?
Answer
An anti-foreign militia society rose against missionaries and foreigners; Cixi backed them and declared war, but an Eight-Nation Alliance crushed the revolt.
Question
What did the Boxer Protocol (1901) impose?
Answer
A huge indemnity on China, the right for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and execution of officials who backed the uprising.
Question
What were Sun Yixian's Three Principles of the People?
Answer
Nationalism (end foreign/Manchu domination), democracy (representative government), and people's livelihood (economic/land reform).
Question
What was the Tongmenghui?
Answer
The revolutionary alliance Sun Yixian formed in 1905 by merging earlier anti-Qing groups, mostly organised among students and Chinese abroad.
Question
What sparked the Xinhai Revolution of 1911?
Answer
An accidental bomb explosion at a revolutionary cell in Wuchang exposed a planned uprising, so the plotters revolted immediately; provinces then rapidly declared independence.
Question
Compare the Hundred Days' Reform and the Boxer Rebellion as responses to crisis.
Answer
The Hundred Days' Reform was elite-led modernisation from the top, stopped by Cixi's coup; the Boxer Rebellion was popular anti-foreign resistance from below, stopped by foreign armies — both failed and pushed China toward revolution.
Question
How did the Qing dynasty actually end?
Answer
After the Xinhai Revolution spread in 1911, Yuan Shikai negotiated the last emperor Puyi's abdication in February 1912 in exchange for becoming president himself.
Read the notes
Full study notes for Qing China — failed reform and the fall of the dynasty
Topic 12.3 hub
Challenges to imperial rule in China (1736–1911)
More from Topic 12.3
All flashcards in this topic
History (2028+) exam skills
Paper structures & tips
Track your progress with spaced repetition
Sign up free — Aimnova tells you exactly which cards to review and when, so you remember everything before your IB exam.
Start Free