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Ports. Foreign methods of organisation, of administration and business asserted themselves. Any efforts there may have been on either side to mitigate the contrast were not effective, and a long period of friction and misunderstanding followed.
The efficacy of foreign arms having been demonstrated in a series of armed conflicts, China hoped, by building arsenals and by military training according to Western methods, to meet force with force. Her efforts in this direction, restricted as they were in scope, were doomed to failure. Much more fundamental reforms were needed to enable the country to hold its own against the foreigner, but China did not desire such reforms. On the contrary, she wanted to protect her culture and dominion against them.
Japanese comparison.Japan had to face similar problems when that country was first opened to Western influences: new contacts with disturbing ideas, the conflict of different standards, leading to the establishment of foreign settlements, one-sided tariff conventions and extra-territorial claims. But Japan solved these problems by internal reforms, by raising her standards of modern requirements to those of the West and by diplomatic negotiations. Her assimilation of Western thought may not yet be complete, and friction may sometimes be seen between the old and the new ideas of different generations, but the rapidity and the thoroughness with which Japan has assimilated Western science and technique and adopted Western standards without diminishing the value of her old traditions have aroused general admiration.
China's problem vastly more difficult.However difficult Japan's problems of assimilation and transformation may have been, those faced by China were much more difficult, owing to the vastness of her territory, the lack of national unity of her people, and her traditional financial system, under which the whole of the revenue collected did not reach the central Treasury. Although the complexity of the problem which China has to solve may be so much greater than that which confronted Japan as to make unjust any comparison between the two, yet the solution required for China must ultimately follow lines similar to those adopted by Japan. The reluctance of China to receive foreigners and her attitude towards those who were in the country was bound to have serious consequences. It concentrated the attention of her rulers on resistance to and restriction of foreign influence, and prevented her from profiting by the experience of more modern conditions in the foreign settlements. As a result, the constructive reform necessary to enable the country to cope with the new conditions was almost completely neglected.
China's losses from conflict with foreign Powers.The inevitable conflict of two irreconcilable conceptions of respective rights and international relations led to wars and disputes resulting in the progressive surrender of sovereign rights and the loss of territory, either temporary or permanent. China lost a huge area on the north bank of the Amur River, and the Maritime Province; the Luchu Islands; Hong-Kong; Burma; Annam; Tongking; Laos; Cochin-China (provinces of Indo-China); Formosa; Korea; and several other tributary States; she also granted long leases of other territories. Foreign courts, administration, police and military establishments were admitted on Chinese soil. The right to regulate at will her tariff on imports and exports was lost for the time being. China had to pay damages for injuries to foreign lives and property and heavy war indemnities which have been a burden to her finance sever since. Her very existence was even threatened by the division of her territory into spheres of 11interest of foreign Powers.
Reform movement starts after Boxer uprising in 1900.Her defeat in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894–95, and the disastrous consequences of the Boxer uprising of 1900, opened the eyes of some thoughtful leaders to the necessity for fundamental reform. The reform movement was willing at first to accept the leadership of the Manchu House, but turned away from this dynasty after its cause and its leaders had been