Qing dynasty -useful or not for China?

   The Qing court reinforced its reign in remote areas like Xinjiang, Xizang, mongol, etc. Despite the Outer Mongol which was conspired to be independent by the Russia in the early 20th century, the ROC and PRC inherated the other areas which function strategistically for China today. 

 

 

After the founding of Han Dynasty, Confuscism (combined with bureacracy inherited from Qin) came to epitomize Han Chinese civilization.  The exam system ensured two thousand years of confuscism brainwashing of generations of Han intellectuals.  Regardless what Confuscious actually said, the version adopted by the bureacratic promotion system essentially boils down to one sentence:"Big Brother Knows Best."  Heck, the analygy for government wasn't even "big brother" but "father"; i.e. one step even more senior.  Being born to an age before significant use of currency (his own students paid tuitions in dried meats), Confuscious could not have known much about market intermediation and why trade is essential to economic efficiency  because what he lived under was more or less a barter economy.   That lacking in the Confuscist system of beliefs suited later bureacrats just fine because they fully intended to replace voluntary trade among individuals with government mandates under the "father" as the means for economic exchange.  The result was quite predictable: rampant corruption, abuse of power and general economic inefficiency.   

 

The version of Confuscism as embraced the Chinese bureacratic system was essentially soft-peddling of Fascistic Socialism.  It was manifest as early as Wang Mong's New Dynasty in mid-Han (about the same time as Christ).  By the time of Ming, the founder actively enforced policies of tying peasants to land . . . i.e. serfdom!  Just as Western Europe was coming out it. 

 

In the face of such economic depredation of the civilization core by centralized government and overbearing bureacracy, the "non-Han" tribes played the exact same role as "barbarians" to the Romans: they offered a chance for renewal and rejuvenation from under an empirial edifice that was rotten to the core.    Eventually even the slowest peasants saw through the pathetic ethnocentric rhetorics, and realized that rule by "foreigners" who promised light tax was far more preferrable to the big brother taxing subjects to death in the name of defending them (ie. enserfing them).  

 

In the case of Chinese, there's an additional advantage that unlike the "native" Confuscist regimes, many "babarian" tribes understood the advantage of commerce and trade.  It's interesting to note that the majority of dynasties in Chinese history had founders who had somewhat "babaric" roots (even the original Qin),  only to become more and more corrupt as their bureacracy multiplied with Han Confuscianists in later generations . . . the grip they had on the internal population seemingly got tighter as they institute more and more interventionist rules on the economy, yet the whole empire was slipping away from them as they became vulnerable to external competition when the Chinese economy weakened under their own meddling.

 

You and I actually agree that "pure" Chinese simply do not exist.  It is not unique to Chinese civilization that ground-breaking changes to a mature civilization often start at the peripheries of that civilization . . . in other words, as the empire/civilization became superannuated, to the observers at the core of the civilization, regardless Chinese or Roman, the new rulers/innovators tended to come from the (more recently) "babaric" peripheries . . . where tax rate is lower. 

 

Confuscism as embraced by Chinese bureacracy (not necessarily the same thing as what Confuscious said) was a powerful mind control tool for monopolizing  political and economic power . . . in other words, consolidating an empire . . . on the other hand, just like any monopoly, while it benefits the incumbent, it destroys the underlying industry and economy at the same time.

 

ps.

I seem to have forgotten my password; my apologies for any confusion if anyone is trying to search my previous posts . . . I'm trying to maintain some continuity with a similar username.

 

(1) The model of government promoted by the Bureacratic State Confucianism was essentially the rule by an enlightened despot, with the advisement of Confucian scholar/bureacrats, over peasants tied to their land and well taken care of by the aforementioned power structure.  Merchants and trading are waste of time and human resources; instead,  the bureacrats will have the wisdom to allocate labor and social resources to make everyone happy.  It smells like socialist utopia to me :-)  In fact, early French socialist thinkers very much admired Confucianism before the weakness of China was revealed in the 19th century.  English free-market thinkers realized the problem right away: (a) without a free market place setting prices competitively, how would demand/supply signal be transmitted? (b) without check and balances, what's to prevent the dictator and his cardre of bureacrats from becoming corrupt and self-serving?  There is no satisfactory answer to either questions.  Confuscious himself with little exposure to market economy probably never fathomed that question (a) existed; the traditional Chinese answer to question (b) was exactly the same as the French/Roman/Persian/Russian or any other land-based imperial solution to that same problem: appointing another layer of bureacrats to watch the existing bureacrats . . . never mind the proverbial question: who will then watch the watchers ;-)  The inevitable result was that after a few generations in every dynasty, there would be enormous layers of tax revenue eaters multiplying corruption at every level.

 

Because the fundamental flaws in such an economic system as illustrated above, eventually there will be shortages.  When that happens, the fascist aspect of the equation comes into play: the bureacratic elite (emperor being the head bureacrat) with vested absolute power gets the first call on resources.  Sometimes the fascist aspect comes into play even earlier, as in territorial aggrandizement in order to shore up prestige for the regime.  In both cases, the advocacy is wrapped in glowing rhetorics of putting the nation (Guo) ahead of your own family (Jia).  Although it may not be part of the theoretical work, if you do not follow that advocacy voluntarily, there are institutions that will induce you to do that in practice . . . much like Trotsky's War Time Communism . . . i.e. unlimited depredation by the government on the population at large.

 

(2) Yes, most Chinese dynasty exercised tight control of political power and economic power over the territories under its control.  There was no separation of power or parliament . . . the Aristocracy having been severely weakened before the original Qin Dynasty (221BC) and nearly wiped out during the war following the fall of Qin a few decades later.  Local Magistrate appointed by the Emperor was judge, jury, executioner as well as investigator . . . the "Guan" was literally in charge of everything . . . i.e. a miniaturized Emperor/Father figure.   

 

(3) The answer is yes.  Mongols were always pro-trade.  Before the conquest of China, Mongol regime lived off trade.  In fact, some of the first conquests Mongol engaged coming out of their heartland were results of trade disputes: some merchants under their protection got slaughtered while passing through neighboring kingdoms that refused to trade. . . a land-based Commodore Perry, with a big attitude, if you will.   As much as we'd like to think Marco Polo as a traveller, he was first and foremost a merchant who travelled from Asia Minor to Kubilai Court in China, among many other similar merchants, all under the protection of Mongols.  As for early Qing, here's what I found:

 

When Dorgon entered Beijing in June 1644, the new Qing dynasty proclaimed a general amnesty, . . . , and abolished the Ming military surtaxes that people had been resisting. Areas where the Manchus campaigned had their taxes cut in half, and others who surrendered got one-third off theirs. This strategy won over most of Zhili and Shandong in northern China.

 

The Manchus were literally winning the hearts and minds with tax cuts!  Later on,  Kangxi reduced and froze tax (and relaxed tax enforcement), resulting in massive economic and population growth.

 

 

btw, sorry, it appears I misjudged you

 

 

It is, b/c in this way the peasants have the right to sell/buy land from others. Otherwise the nobles would simply take all arable land for themselves and the majority would b/c serfs rather than peasants. Not very good for trade.

 

 

Irrelevant as there are cases in which Chinese called themselves barbaric as well. It can be coined as the strong/weak as much as it can be coined the civilized/nomadic.

 

 

I nver said trade was not important, but it was obviously not as important as agriculture. If merchants were more important than farmers, then the Qin would have never had the ability to conquer all of China and outcompete the other Warring States. Even countries like Rome needs food. It just happened that farming was less emphasized b/c of slave labor, in which slaves were the perfect machines to work the field, and thus no emphasis was given. The Southern Song lived off of agriculture. It's amazing surplus of food was able to be used to trade for various commodities of use, not to mention the fact that the Southern Song itself was made up of Confucian bureaucrats. Considering that the main commodity of trade was food/growable commodities itself, it is natural that farmers are extremely important for economic health.