#为什么清朝没有像奥斯曼土耳其一样被西方列强肢解掉 #
In the 19th century, there were two great things in the Asian continent – one was the Ottoman Empire in West Asia. The Ottoman Empire was vast, spanning three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. At the height of the empire, North Africa was the territory of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the Ottoman Empire also considered itself the heir of the Roman Empire. The Ottoman Empire and Europe were close together, so every move that took place on the European continent was well known to the Ottoman Empire, and most importantly, both the Ottoman navy and firearms were powerful. But even so, the Ottoman Empire eventually collapsed— so much so that Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, was a tiny country in today's world.
The other was the Qing Empire in East Asia. In the world at that time, the Ottoman Empire was called the Sick Man of the Near East and the Sick Man of West Asia, while the Qing Dynasty and even the later Republic of China were called the Sick Man of East Asia. Then the question arises: why did the Ottoman Empire, which looked better than the Qing Dynasty, eventually collapse, and when the Qing Dynasty collapsed, it was still legally left to the Republic of China more than 10 million square kilometers of territory - you know, from modern times, territorial jurisprudence has been very important in the system of international law.
Personally, I believe that the fate of the Qing Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire is different, for the following reasons:
1. The question of the ruling structure
The Ottoman Empire was a typical military empire. That is, after the Ottoman Empire conquered southeastern Europe, parts of Western Asia and North Africa, it was very unsuccessful in the local governance of the empire - for example, the Ottoman Empire's rule over Egypt and other places was in fact equivalent to a high degree of autonomy, after all, for the Ottoman Empire, it was too difficult to rule such a large country. This also led to a loose structure of the empire, with no cohesion to speak of.
This was not the case with the Chinese Empire. For what if ruled a unified but vast empire? From the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang tried through the county system. After the defeat of Qin, Liu Bang adopted a model of counties and sub-feudals in parallel. Since then, successive dynasties have explored local governance. It was not until after the Ming Dynasty that the Chinese Empire mastered a more mature system of local rule—that is, while centralizing power, it also implemented a system of supervision at the local level.
Therefore, when the Ottoman Empire was colonized, the Ottoman Empire was very loose in its local administration, and the Ottoman Empire naturally could not mobilize all the resources of the whole country to resist colonization. Although the Qing Dynasty lost the Opium War, the Qing Court was able to use its national strength to fight against the British.
2. The issue of national identity
In modern times, in order to dismember such behemoths as the Ottoman Empire and the Qing Empire, the European side began to advocate "national self-determination", intending to disintegrate the Ottoman Empire and the Qing Empire through the national card. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire, like the Qing Empire, was a multi-ethnic state.
For the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based on the Turks, conquering an empire composed of Arabs, Greeks and other ethnic groups. The rulers of the Ottoman Empire did not deal well with the national question. Thus, under the infiltration of European colonists, the Ottoman Empire soon lost large areas of land such as North Africa.
In contrast, the Qing Empire's achievements in this regard were much better. First of all, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty had already gained the approval of the Mongols before entering the customs and became the Great Khan of the Mongols. After completing the conquest of the Southern Ming, the Qing Dynasty also began to follow Confucian culture, which allowed the Qing Dynasty to gain the support of Confucian intellectuals, and later the Qing Emperor, who also gained the recognition of Tibetan compatriots, was revered as Emperor Wenshu. The emperor of the Qing Dynasty was the emperor of the Han people, the great khan of the Mongols, and also the Manjushri Bodhisattva in the eyes of his Tibetan compatriots. Therefore, when the European colonists promoted national self-determination, although objectively some of the princes of Outer Mongolia had the idea of breaking away from the Qing Dynasty, until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, in terms of legal theory, Outer Mongolia always belonged to the Qing Dynasty. It can be seen from this that the ruling techniques of the Qing emperors were much stronger than those of the monarchs of the Ottoman Empire.
3. Governance costs
Due to the different degrees of organization of the Qing Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire, at the same time, the people of the Qing Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire also had different concepts of foreigners. This has led to Westerners having to consider the cost of governance.
The Westerners could easily dismember the Ottoman Empire and even conquer the Ottoman Empire by force. In fact, the British had previously annexed the vast India by force. However, it was difficult to expect to conquer the Qing Dynasty by force.
Many people mistakenly believe that the Qing Dynasty was not divided in modern times because americans opposed the partition of China. However, at that time, the Americans were not the masters of the Wulin League, and whether what he said was adopted depended on the specific situation in China. In fact, although the United States does not support the partition of China, the Westerners still have the idea of dividing Up China. However, the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion made the Westerners realize that this idea was unrealistic.
It is true that the Boxer Rebellion was indeed suppressed by the Westerners, but the Westerners knew better that if the Qing Dynasty was directly divided, then different versions of the Boxer Rebellion would erupt one after another. This constantly erupting movement is likely to drag down the Western countries. Therefore, the Western countries considered this and had to abandon the idea of dividing up the Qing Dynasty.