By the early 1900s the Qing dynasty was widely seen as weak and incapable of defending China’s interests.  Its earlier Self-Strengthening Movement (starting in the 1860s) had brought only superficial military and industrial improvements, failing to reform the government or society .  Foreign defeats – above all the humiliating loss to Japan in 1895 – … Continue reading The 1911 Revolution: From Wuchang Uprising to the Fall of the Qing.