Hundred Days' Reform

China embarked on an effort to modernize, the Self-Strengthening Movement, following its defeat in the First (1839–1842) and Second (1856–1860) Opium Wars.[4] The effort concentrated on providing the armed forces with modern weapons, rather than reforming governance or society. The limitations of this approach were exposed by the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) when China was defeated by Meiji Japan, which had undergone comprehensive reforms during the same period. The defeat led to additional unequal treaties as European powers took advantage of China's weakness.[5]

Elements of the Qing government were sufficiently alarmed to permit Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao to propose reforms to Emperor Guangxu; Guangxu agreed.[6] Some of Kang's students were also given minor but strategic posts in the capital to assist with the reforms. The goals of these reforms included:

• abolishing the traditional examination system[1]
• eliminating sinecures (positions that provided little or no work but provided a salary)[1]
• establishing Peking University as a place where sciences, liberal arts and the Chinese classics would all be available for study[1]
• establishing agricultural schools in all provinces and schools and colleges in all provinces and cities[1]
• building a modern education system (studying mathematics and science instead of focusing mainly on Confucian texts)
• encouraging imperial family members to study abroad[1]
• changing the government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy[1]
• applying principles of capitalism to strengthen the economy
• modernizing China's military and adopting modern training and drill methods[1]
• establishing a naval academy[1]
• utilizing unused military land for farming[1]
• rapid industrialization of all of China through manufacturing, commerce, and capitalism
• establishing trade schools for the manufacture of silk, tea, and other traditional Chinese crafts[1]
• establishing a bureau for railways and mines[1]

The reformers declared that China needed more than "self-strengthening" and that innovation must be accompanied by institutional and ideological change.

Opposition to the reforms was intense among the conservative ruling elite who condemned it as too radical and proposed a more moderate and gradualist alternatives.[1] Conservatives like Prince Duan suspected a foreign plot due to the introduction into the Qing government of foreign advisors like Timothy Richards and Ito Hirobumi; Duan wanted to expel foreigners completely from China.[7][8]

In addition to the reforms, the reformers plotted to forcefully remove Empress Dowager Cixi from power.[1] Tan Sitong asked Yuan Shikai to kill Ronglu, take control of the garrison at Tientsin, and then march on Beijing and arrest Cixi. However, Yuan had previously promised to support Ronglu; rather than kill him, Yuan informed Ronglu of the plot.[1][7]

With the support of the conservatives and the armed forces commanded by Yuan and Ronglu, Cixi launched a coup d'état on September 22, 1898, and took over the government.[1] Guangxu was put under house arrest in the Summer Palace until his death in 1908.

The reforms were reversed and their chief advocates – the "Six Gentlemen of Wuxu" (戊戌六君子): Tan Sitong, Kang Guangren (Kang Youwei's brother), Lin Xu, Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui, and Liu Guangdi – were ordered to be executed. The two principal leaders, Kang Youwei and his student Liang Qichao, fled to Japan where they founded Baohuang Hui (Protect the Emperor Society) and worked, unsuccessfully, for a constitutional monarchy in China. Tan Sitong refused to flee and was executed.

During the Hundred Days' Reform, generals Dong Fuxiang, Ma Anliang, and Ma Haiyan were called to Beijing and helped put an end to the movement along with Ma Fulu and Ma Fuxiang. Dong Fuxiang and the Muslim Gansu Army stationed in Beijing during the Hundred Days' Reform later participated in the Boxer Rebellion and became known as the Kansu Braves.

The court put into effect some reform measures a decade later, starting with Cixi's New Policies. These included the abolition of the Imperial Examination in 1905, educational and military modernization patterned after the model of Japan, and an experiment in constitutional and parliamentary government. The suddenness and ambitiousness of the reform effort actually hindered its success. One effect, to be felt for decades to come, was the establishment of the New Army, which, in turn, gave rise to warlordism.

On the other hand, the failure of the reform movement gave great impetus to revolutionary forces within China. Changes within the establishment were seen to be largely hopeless, and the overthrow of the whole Qing government increasingly appeared to be the only viable way to save China. Despite the late Qing reforms in the early 1900s, such sentiments directly contributed to the success of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, barely a decade later.

Leo Tolstoy corresponded with Gu Hongming on the Hundred Day's Reform and agreed that the reform movement was ill-advised.[9]

Views of the Hundred Days' Reform have grown increasingly more complex and nuanced. The traditional view[10] portrayed the reformers as heroes and the conservative elites, particularly the Empress Dowager Cixi, as villains unwilling to reform because of their selfish interests.

• History of China
• Qing dynasty
• Economy of China
• Economic history of China (Pre-1911)
• Economic history of China (1912–1949)

• Hao, Chang. “Intellectual Changes and the Reform Movement, 1890–98,” 274–338, in The Cambridge History of China, vol 11 part 2, ed. Fairbank, John K. and Liu, Kwang-Ching. (Cambridge University Press, 1980).
• Hsü, Immanuel C. The Rise of Modern China (6th edn, Oxford University Press 1999) pp 408–418.
• Hua, Shiping. "The Meiji Restoration (1868) and the Late Qing Reform (1898) Revisited: Strategies and Philosophies." East Asia 21.3 (2004): 3–22.
• Karl, Rebecca E. and Peter Gue Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China. (Harvard UP, 2002). ISBN 0-674-00854-5.
• Kwong, Luke S. K. A Mosaic of the Hundred Days: Personalities, Politics, and Ideas of 1898. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-674-58742-1.
• Kwong, Luke S. K. "Chinese Politics at the Crossroads: Reflections on the Hundred Days Reform of 1898" Modern Asian Studies 34#3 (2000) pp. 663–695 JSTOR 313144
• Li, ZongFang. "China’s Alternative: Kang Youwei’s Confucian Reforms in the Late Qing Dynasty." (2018). online
• Shan, Patrick Fuliang (2018). Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal, The University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 9780774837781.
• Lei Chia-sheng 雷家聖 (2004). Liwan kuanglan: Wuxu zhengbian xintan 力挽狂瀾：戊戌政變新探 [Containing the furious waves: a new view of the 1898 coup]. Taipei: Wanjuan lou 萬卷樓. ISBN 957-739-507-4.