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1. Watch the video and read the texts. Sum up the way events unfolded in 3 sentences, and add 2 quotes from the sources provided to support those sentences.
2. Write a 4th general sentence to sum up the whole process, using the words "imperialism" and "capitalism".
3. Post those sentences below, in this column.

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1. Watch the video and read the texts. Sum up the way events unfolded in 3 sentences, and add 2 quotes from the sources provided to support those sentences.
2. Write a 4th general sentence to sum up the whole process, using the words "imperialism" and "nationalism".
3. Post those sentences below, in this column.

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1. Watch the video and read the texts. Sum up the way events unfolded in 3 sentences, and add 2 quotes from the sources provided to support those sentences.
2. Write a 4th general sentence to sum up the whole process, using the words "imperialism" and "culture".
3. Post those sentences below, in this column.

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1. Watch the video and read the texts. Sum up the way events unfolded in 3 sentences, and add 2 quotes from the sources provided to support those sentences.
2. Find a 4th more general sentence to sum up the whole process, using the words "imperialism" and "liberalism".
3. Post those sentences below, in this column.

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Western analysts often overlook how much of China’s modern-day policy is driven by the collective trauma of its colonial past.

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Opium Wars: Great Britain vs China - Animated History

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1 primary source about the Opium Wars: Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Victoria

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1 primary source about the Opium Wars: Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Victoria

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digital china/harvard: Letter of Advice to Queen Victoria

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From Ssuyu Teng and John Fairbank, China’s Response to the West (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), reprinted in Mark A. Kishlansky, ed., Sources of World History, Volume II, (New York: HarperCollins CollegePublishers, 1995), pp. 266-69

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A real turning point moment for the last dynasty of China, the Qing, was the Taiping War from the early 1850s up to 1864. It was, quite possibly, the single bloodiest civil war ever in history. We don't have exact figures, but we know that tens of millions of people were killed during the course of the decade and half of this war.

But even more than that, it was one of the most bizarre civil wars in history because it was based on the premise that a young, unemployed man from southern China was, in his own view, in fact, the younger brother of Jesus Christ. And on the basis of the slightly dubious premise, he managed to lead a whole army of supporters behind him in a war that came very close to toppling the last dynasty of China.

The story began in a very small-scale way in a village in southern China, in Guangdong province, where a young man named Hong Xiuquan had basically taken the exams to enter the imperial bureaucracy for the fourth time.

Now, let's just very briefly explain that this was part of the great tradition of upward mobility in Imperial China, probably from about the year 1,000 or so all the way until the very early 20th century. You would take the formal exams-- very tough exams, very lengthy exams. And if you succeeded, if you're one of the small percentage of people who got through, you could make your way up the bureaucracy higher and higher, maybe, in the end, working at the Imperial Court and serving the emperor if he got to the really top echelon. Most people, of course, wouldn't get to do that.

But the sad fact is that most people who took those exams failed them. You could take them over and over again. But even so, there was no guarantee you would get through. And this young man was an example of a rather, sadly, typical sort of Chinese person who had studied hard but never quite made the grade. And his repeated attempts clearly seemed to have tipped him over the edge.

He saw a vision, it was a very particular vision, that in fact, he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and that he, Hong Xiuquan, this young, poor man from southern China, had been brought onto earth to destroy the demons. And who were the demons? They were the Manchus, the ethnically Manchu rulers who made up the Qing dynasty which ruled all of China.

He got a pretty unfriendly reaction, I have to say, until he reached a more remote part of the province, the border areas with Guangxi province in the west. He suddenly found his message was taking off because there he was amongst the Hakka, a sub-ethnicity of the Chinese people who had traditionally been discriminated against by their ethnic majority, as it were, compatriots. And because they had always had this economically slightly downtrodden position, they proved more receptive to this message of rebellion and change.

And on the back of this, he suddenly had 1,000 followers, 10,000 followers, and even more followers who not only wanted to hear his religious message, but also helped him to form an army. And between the mid-1850s and the early 1860s, one of the most remarkable things in modern Chinese history happened-- an entire separate state was set up in Central China under the rule of this failed examination candidate from South China, from Hong Xiuquan. And he termed it the Taiping Tianguo-- the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace.

And quickly, the Taipings managed to take over some of China's most prime real estate, including the major city of Nanjing, the former capital of China, which they made their capital. And during the eight years or so that they were in power, they established an alternative regime, one based on Christianity, but a very odd sort of Christianity. Christianity which involved, first of all, acknowledging Hong Xiuquan as the younger brother of Jesus, and also some pretty terrible penalties. Various people had to learn the Ten Commandments, and if you didn't learn them right, you could actually be executed, so a certain kind of motivation for education.

At the same time, there was separation-- segregation between men and women. But also-- and this is one of the things that later got a young man named Mao Zedong very excited-- a new social program. The idea that land and property should be made collective. And even way over in Europe, a man called Karl Marx heard about the Taiping and thought that this sounded like the death knell for the old Chinese empire and the beginning of what he would think of as communism.

But it did fall. Why? In the end, the foreigners were one of the factors. Foreign support did not come to the Taiping. But the Qing also took a somewhat desperate, but rather important, move to save themselves.

The dynasty took the initiative of allowing the leaders of the provinces to set up their own armies. Millions may well have died-- well, millions did die in the course of the Civil War between the Taiping and the Qing dynasty-supported new armies. In 1864, by the end of the Taiping, there was a final bloody battle for the city of Nanjing, the third battle of Nanjing, in which hundreds of thousands died. And even the Qing dynasty themselves noted that there had rarely been rebels like this in history who fought so hard and so bloodily.

But in the end, the Taiping threat to the Qing was finally put down. But it was put down at great cost to the Qing because they had let a particular sort of genie out of the bottle. By allowing the provincial leaders of China to set up their own armies, they had set the seeds for an acknowledgment that the central government no longer had the power to control things from Beijing, from the capital.

And eventually, the emergence of these local armies would lead to a phenomenon that became associated with early 20th century China, what's often called "warlord-ism." In other words, the idea that each province of China might have its own strongman in charge-- with his own army-- who would pay very little attention to the central government, because he had plenty of men on horseback behind him.

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Scholar Rana Mitter describes the history of the Taiping Rebellion(1850-1864).

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The University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute brings together our world leading research and expertise concerning the major sustainable development challenges in Asia through engagement with practitioners and our partners in the region. Its aim is to increase dialogue with, and to make an impact on, the ongoing debates within the region, together with our Chinese and Malaysian campuses.

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In October of 1911, a group of revolutionaries in southern China led a successful revolt against the Qing Dynasty, establishing in its place the Republic of China and ending the imperial system.

In the Nineteenth Century, the Qing Empire faced a number of challenges to its rule, including a number of foreign incursions into Chinese territory. The two Opium Wars against Western powers led by Great Britain resulted in the loss of Hong Kong, forced opening of "treaty ports" for international trade, and large foreign "concessions" in major cities privileged with extraterritorial rule. After its loss in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Imperial China was forced to relinquish control over still more of its territory, losing Taiwan and parts of Manchuria and ending its suzerainty over Korea. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) firmly established Japanese claims to the Northeast and further weakened Qing rule. The combination of increasing imperialist demands (from both Japan and the West), frustration with the foreign Manchu Government embodied by the Qing court, and the desire to see a unified China less parochial in outlook fed a growing nationalism that spurred on revolutionary ideas.

As Qing rule fell into decline, it made a few last-ditch efforts at constitutional reform. In 1905, the court abolished the examination system, which had limited political power to elites who passed elaborate exams on Chinese classics. Faced with increasing foreign challenges, it worked to modernize its military. With its central power weakening, the court also attempted a limited decentralization of power, creating elected assemblies and increasing provincial self-government.

Although the Qing court maintained a degree of control within China in these years, millions of Chinese living overseas, especially in Southeast Asia and the Americas, began pressing for either widespread reform or outright revolution. Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao emerged as leaders of those proposing the creation of a constitutional monarchy. Sun Yat-sen led the amalgam of groups that together formed the Revolutionary Alliance or Tongmenghui. The Revolutionary Alliance advocated replacing Qing rule with a republican government; Sun himself was a nationalist with some socialist tendencies.

Both the revolutionary leaders and the overseas Chinese bankrolling their efforts had their roots in southern China. The Revolutionary Alliance attempted seven or more different revolts against the Qing in the years leading up to the revolution, most of which originated in south China and all of which were ultimately stopped by the Qing army.

Finally, in the autumn of 1911, the right set of conditions turned an uprising in Wuchang into a nationalist revolt. As its losses mounted, the Qing court responded positively to a set of demands intended to transform authoritarian imperial rule into a Constitutional monarchy. They named Yuan Shikai the new premier of China, but before he was able to retake the captured areas from the revolutionaries, the provinces started to declare their allegiance to the Revolutionary Alliance. Dr. Sun was in the United States on a fundraising tour at the time of the initial revolt; he hastened first to London and Paris to ensure that neither country would give financial or military support to the Qing government in its struggle. By the time he returned to China, the revolutionaries had taken Nanjing, a former capital under the Ming Dynasty, and representatives from the provinces began to arrive for the first national assembly. Together, they elected Dr. Sun the provisional president of the newly declared Republic of China.

Sun Yat-sen telegrammed Yuan Shikai to promise that, should Yuan agree to the formation of a republic, the position of president would be his. With the military position of the Qing weakening and provisions made for the maintenance of the royal family at court, the emperor and the royal family abdicated the throne in February of 1912.

The 1911 revolution was only the first steps in a process that would require the 1949 revolution to complete. Though the new government created the Republic of China and established the seat of government in Nanjing, it failed to unify the country under its control. The Qing withdrawal led to a power vacuum in certain regions, resulting in the rise of warlords. These warlords often controlled their territories without acknowledging the nationalist government. Additionally, the reforms set in place by the new government were not nearly as sweeping as the revolutionary rhetoric had intended; unifying the country took precedent over fundamental changes.

International reaction to the revolution was guarded. Foreign nations with investments in China remained neutral throughout the upheaval, though they were anxious to protect the treaty rights they gained from the Qing through the first and second opium wars. Still, the United States was largely supportive of the republican project, and in 1913, the United States was among the first countries to establish full diplomatic relations with the new Republic. Britain, Japan, and Russia soon followed.

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Milestones: 1899-1913 - Office of the Historian

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Research

After two decades defined by growing integration, the global economy appears to be at an inflection point. This judgment has been prompted both by structural changes in the global economy, especially since the Great Recession, and political events over the past year illustrative of a backlash against past integration. Following one such event-the U.K.'s Brexit vote in June-The Economist magazine reported, in a funereal tone, that globalization now seems to be receding, inspiring comparisons with the rise and fall of globalization a century ago. ¹

Globalization's first wave, which lasted from 1870 to 1914, is viewed today as the embodiment of the liberal open economic paradigm. This period saw the spread of international trade, built on the exchange of Western manufactures for developing economies' primary commodities along low-tariff corridors. The production of those commodities was financed mainly by the West and supported by a stable global exchange rate regime so that capital flowed freely from where it was plentiful to where it was scarce and could reap the highest returns. For instance, around half of all British savings were channeled abroad over this period, while half of Argentina's entire capital stock was foreign owned by 1914. Migration was virtually unrestricted, with the exodus of Europeans across the Atlantic mirrored by even larger flows of laborers and merchants through North, South, and East Asia.

The retreat from globalization's first wave was decisive and ruinous. The passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act in the U.S. against the backdrop of the Great Depression set off a retaliatory backlash among the world's major economies that crippled global trade. A moratorium on the repayment of war debts and reparations saw a drying up of private international lending. Many Western economies imposed controls on the exports of capital, while a number of developing economies defaulted on their liabilities. Economic hardship triggered anti-immigrant sentiment and governments responded by imposing drastic restrictions on newcomers for the first time.

The breaking of globalization's first wave is proof that the forces of global economic integration are neither irresistible nor irreversible.

The breaking of globalization's first wave is proof that the forces of global economic integration are neither irresistible nor irreversible. But can we be sure that we are at another turning point?

The essence of globalization is the movement of goods, money, and people across international borders. In this brief, we develop three series that capture this phenomenon over the past 150 years (Figure 1).

Those proclaiming globalization's demise fall into two camps. Some argue that the process is already underway. Others argue that globalization has reached unsustainable levels as it did a century ago and so a backlash is inevitable. ² Our three series allow us to verify whether globalization's retreat has begun or not, and to gauge the degree of today's global economic integration measured against the peak of the early 20th century.

Figure 1.

Authors' calculations based on IMF 2015, Lane and Milesi-Ferretti 2013, Maddison 2001, the Maddison Project 2015, McKeown 2004, McKeown 2010, Riley 2009, U.N. 1999, U.N. 2015a, U.N. 2015b, UNCTAD 2015, U.S. Census Bureau 1975, World Bank 2015, World Bank 2016, and WTO 2016. Merchandise exports and foreign capital stock are expressed in market dollars as a share of global income expressed in international dollars, and will therefore differ with those cited elsewhere.

We find that, while the process of economic integration has slowed, there is only limited evidence so far of an absolute decline. In addition, today's level of integration matches or exceeds the heights of globalization's first wave. This could equally imply that globalization has reached unsustainable levels or that no such levels exist.

Generating any global data series over a century and a half is a complicated task. Few data series have complete coverage over space, incorporating all the world's countries, which raises challenges about representativeness and scaling. Even fewer series have complete coverage over time, so incomplete ones have to be spliced together, which raises issues of comparability. Our results therefore come with numerous, often significant, caveats.

Two specific caveats should be highlighted from the outset-both of which are necessitated by the availability of data and the objective of maximizing comparability within each series. First, one of our three series (goods) is a measure of flows, whereas the other two (money and people) are measures of stocks. The latter provide moderately lagging indicators of globalization's trajectory. Second, our series for goods and money are expressed in terms that differ from contemporary measures cited in economic reports and the media. Care is therefore required when interpreting the levels reported in our three series.

While these caveats impose limits on what can be reliably inferred from direct comparisons of the two waves of globalization, the process of assembling the three data series is itself illuminating. Each series can be understood as the aggregation of multiple underlying trends whose trajectories vary. Analyzing these trajectories helps explain the factors that are shaping globalization today and provides insights into its likely future.

In the following section, we look at the three series in turn. In each case, we begin by explaining how the series was generated and describing its caveats. We then assess the process of recent integration and the evidence that we are at an inflection point.

Goods

Our series for the international movement of goods is the most straightforward of the three to develop. Historical estimates of the dollar value of global merchandise exports for select years are provided by Angus Maddison. These are spliced together with annual estimates drawn from the World Trade Organization's contemporary dataset of trade flows beginning in 1960, which covers the vast majority of the world's countries.³ The series is weighted by global gross domestic product (GDP), expressed in international dollars.⁴

This last point warrants further elaboration. By presenting export values expressed in market dollars as a share of global income expressed in international dollars, we generate percentages that are out of step with those reported in standard analyses of trade. This unorthodox approach follows that of Maddison and ensures consistency and comparability across historical and contemporary estimates.

At the end of the first wave of globalization in 1913, merchandise exports peaked at 7.9 percent of global GDP. ⁵ That peak was surpassed as early as 1970, when tariff reductions under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade were still at an early stage, the standardization of shipping containers was being established, and the rise of export manufactures from the developing world had yet to occur. Goods exports have since been propelled to far greater heights, reaching 19.7 percent of global income in 2008.

That share stood at 15.1 percent in 2015, having declined continuously for the previous four years. Underpinning this decline is a slowdown-not a reversal-in the growth of merchandise trade volumes, combined with low commodity prices and a stronger dollar.

The recent slump in trade growth has not gone unnoticed and has been extensively researched. Both cyclical and structural factors are at work.

The recent slump in trade growth has not gone unnoticed and has been extensively researched. Both cyclical and structural factors are at work. The latter include the exhaustion of gains from both the incorporation of previously-closed economies into global markets and the fragmentation of value chains across borders-commonly referred to as the second unbundling. When cyclical factors reverse, many analysts expect trade growth to resume and the merchandise exports' share of GDP to stabilize. ⁶

The potential for future trade growth in services, which are excluded from our long-term series, is further reason to doubt that trade's role in the global economy is bound to diminish. While trade in services is considerably smaller than trade in goods,⁷ its value as a share of global GDP has doubled in the past 30 years and has proved more resilient during the recent trade slowdown, standing today at record levels (Figure 2).⁸

Concerns regarding the sustainability of global trade have been heightened by the inability of policymakers to advance multilateral and regional trade agreements. Some advocates of those agreements insist that closing new deals is crucial to unlocking trade growth, especially in services, where the largest barriers remain. In reality, modern trade agreements have become increasingly concerned with how the spoils of trade are distributed rather than with the volume of trade itself. Further trade integration will likely depend as much on technology as policy.

Figure 2.

Authors' calculations based on the Maddison Project 2015, World Bank 2016, and WTO 2016. Merchandise and service exports are expressed in market dollars as a share of global income expressed in international dollars, and will therefore differ with those cited elsewhere.

A more serious concern for trade growth than the failure to agree new trade agreements is the trend towards creeping protectionism using non-tariff barriers. In the absence of improved global growth, that trend could worsen. This risk is real, but for now remains speculative. Although it is possible to envision circumstances under which trade's share continues to decline, there is more reason to be optimistic as cyclical factors reverse and service exports rise.

Money

Our series for the international movement of money again starts with Maddison. He provides historical estimates of the value of the foreign capital stock in the developing world for a selection of years, based on an assessment of countries' gross external liabilities.⁹ Contemporary annual estimates from 1990 onward are built at the country level from independent estimates of external debt, foreign direct investment (FDI), and portfolio equity stocks. These are drawn from a number of independent sources: external debt from the World Bank; FDI from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; and portfolio equity from the "External Wealth of Nations" dataset developed by Philip Lane and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, and supplemented in the most recent years from the IMF.¹⁰ In keeping with the approach for merchandise exports, the series is weighted by developing world GDP, expressed in international dollars. The levels of international capital reported will therefore differ with those cited elsewhere.

Four caveats are immediately worth noting. First, the group of countries that constitute the developing world is held constant across the series in accordance with Maddison's historical estimates.¹¹ Thus, the series does not attempt to control for rising income levels and includes a small number of countries that are today classified as high-income. Sixteen percent of the group's GDP is accounted for by high-income countries in 2014. Second, the developing world aggregates are assembled independently for each type of capital based on the available country coverage of each dataset. Of the three types of capital, external debt suffers the most from incomplete coverage.¹² Third, estimates of FDI and portfolio stocks do not accurately capture the divergent performance-and value-of these assets over time.¹³ Fourth, we exclude both remittances and foreign assistance in the form of grants-both important sources of foreign capital for the poorest economies-from our measure to ensure consistency with Maddison's historical estimates.

Our focus on foreign capital in the developing world only is compelled by the availability of historical estimates, but has the advantage of concentrating our attention on the availability of money in areas where it is relatively scarce. The capital flowing from Western Europe to the New World and the colonies was crucial to the first wave of globalization, and similar dynamics are at play today. ¹⁴

During the first wave of globalization, the developing world's foreign capital stock peaked at 32.4 percent of GDP in 1914. The series is honing in on that peak today. Despite falling precipitously during the Great Recession, the foreign capital stock share has since rebounded, and at 30.1 percent, is at its highest level in a century.

Underlying the impressive recent growth of the foreign capital stock are changes in the composition of that stock. In Figure 3, we look beyond the total foreign capital stock share and trace the trajectory of the different types of capital separately.

FDI's rise is a defining component of globalization's second wave and is synonymous with the growing role of international finance beyond traditional areas such as railways and extractive industries into new sectors including commerce and industry. The value of FDI stock as a share of developing world income has risen almost continuously for the past 25 years, although the rate of growth has diminished since 2012, reflecting lower FDI inflows. ¹⁵

The growth of foreign-held portfolio equity since 1990 is similarly pronounced but limited to more mature developing economies; the foreign-held portfolio stock as a share of low-income country GDP remains negligible at only 0.4 percent in 2014. In contrast to FDI, foreign-owned portfolio investment in the developing world was hit hard by the Great Recession and has yet to return to its pre-crisis peak.

While foreign capital in the form of FDI and portfolio equity have become an increasingly prominent part of many developing economies, the role of external debt has markedly diminished. This is especially the case for low-income countries where the debt stock as a share of GDP has fallen by two-thirds since 1990. Two factors lie behind this: debt relief, and the nurturing of domestic debt markets through the issuance of debt denominated in domestic currency and the encouragement of purchases by local financial institutions. While in a literal sense these factors reduce the extent of global economic integration and interdependency, they are rightly perceived as a mark of progress in reducing unnecessary exposure and risk.

Concerns about the de-globalization of foreign capital since the Great Recession have centered on a different phenomenon: the reduction in inter-bank lending. ¹⁶ Its causes are believed to include regulatory changes, weakened bank balance sheets, and reduced access to wholesale funding. The fall has been largely limited to banks in advanced economies and so is not captured by our series. While this is certainly an example of international capital becoming less prominent, it should not overshadow the increasing role of foreign capital in other parts of the world.

Based on our review, the clearest evidence we have of global capital being in retreat is limited to examples of globalization's excesses being curbed. Elsewhere, the data suggest that the pace of global integration has slowed but not reversed.

Figure 3.

Authors' calculations based on IMF 2015, Lane and Milesi-Ferretti 2013, Maddison 2001, UNCTAD 2015, and World Bank 2015. Debt, FDI, and portfolio equity stock are expressed in market dollars as a share of global income expressed in international dollars, and will therefore differ with those cited elsewhere.

Migration

Our series for the international movement of people is the most problematic of the three to assemble.

Contemporary data on migration since 1960 are compiled by the U.N. and built from estimates of migrant stocks from national censuses. These estimates are notoriously weak, with censuses differing not just in terms of quality, but in their definition of a migrant. Additionally, estimates likely suffer from downward bias, as restrictions on immigration create incentives for migrants to avoid being counted.

Historical records of migration introduce a different set of problems. Flows-as opposed to stocks-of long-distance migration along certain routes are well documented from ports and customs statistics. Other routes, especially those overland, are not formally recorded. Accounts of short-distance migration are missing altogether for most of the world. Adam McKeown provides the most comprehensive and well-documented estimates of historical migration flows at a global level between 1850 and 1940. His estimates, which are provided for each five-year period, are based solely on known instances of international travel and include some long-distance travel within the same colonial jurisdiction which is not strictly cross-border.

To establish our series, we attempt to convert McKeown's historical estimates of global migratory flows into stocks so that these can then be compared with contemporary U.N. estimates. This conversion adds together consecutive estimates of migrant inflows adjusting for the age at which migrants migrate, their life expectancy, and their return rate, which we obtain using the best available benchmarks taken from the period. Our benchmark for age at migration is the median age at entry of migrants to the U.S. each year, drawn from official U.S. records. Our benchmark for migrant's life expectancy is U.S. life expectancy for the respective age, gender, and year of U.S. migrants, obtained again from U.S. records, and discounted by the ratio of U.S. life expectancy at birth to global life expectancy at birth.¹⁷ Our benchmark for the migratory return rate is drawn directly from McKeown who reports separate return rates for Chinese migrants, Indian migrants, and European migrants to the U.S.¹⁸

Our resulting series of the global migrant stock, which is marked by a gap between 1940 and 1960 when no records of global migration are available, provides an admittedly rough but illustrative account of the movement of people during the past 150 years. At the end of globalization's first wave in 1914, the global migrant stock is estimated to have peaked at 2.5 percent of the global population, although it stayed close to this level into the 1930s before beginning its descent. The share began to climb again in the 1970s and surpassed its previous peak for the first time in 1988. It rose further in the 2000s and today stands at 3.3 percent. Given the possibility that our historical estimates of the global migrant stock are underestimated, a judicious assessment is that the share of global migrants today has only recently exceeded the levels reached a century ago. ¹⁹

While contemporary migration at a global level may be comparable to that of a century ago in terms of proportional size, migratory patterns differ vastly across countries and regions. Migrants today come from an increasingly diverse set of origin countries, but over the last half century have concentrated in a shrinking pool of prime destination countries. Migration has therefore "globalized" from the perspective of destination countries but not from that of origin countries. ²⁰

Two popular destinations for migrants-the U.S. and the U.K.-have extensive migration records that allow us to track the size of the migrant stock since the 19th century, and compare across globalization's two waves, without resorting to statistical manipulations (Figure 4).

The U.S. migrant stock hovered at close to 14 percent of its population throughout globalization's first wave before falling precipitously. That share has rebounded since 1970 and in 2015 stands a fraction short of its historical high at 13 percent. As a result, the U.S. is the top destination for migrants from some 60 sending countries and is home to one-fifth of the world's migrants. By contrast, the U.K., which was an important source of migrants in globalization's first wave, has only emerged as a significant destination for migrants in the post-war era. Its migrant share has risen especially sharply in the last decade and now stands at almost exactly the same level as the U.S.

Much commentary on global migration reinforces the notion that migration is growing unsustainably, driven by formidable emigration pressure from source countries, and that anti-migrant rhetoric will soon lead to anti-migrant policies. ²¹ While our series shows that the share of the global population accounted for by migrants is at an all-time high, it does not corroborate this broader narrative.

Figure 4.

Based on preliminary estimates for 2015, growth of the global migratory stock as a share of the world population has slowed over the past five-year period, especially in the West. Moreover, while the global migrant stock is still rising, it would be wrong to assume this reflects ever increasing flows of migrants. Estimates of migratory flows derived from the U.N.'s migratory stock data suggest that both the absolute number and global share of migration flows has remained relatively stable in the past two decades.²² That means the increasing migrant stock must instead be explained by migrants' characteristics: a lower age of migration, longer life expectancy for migrants, and/or lower return rates. As for the demand to migrate, modelling exercises up to 2025 forecast diminishing demand from Latin America and Asia, while emigration pressure from Africa will rise.²³

This gap between rhetoric and reality is in part because the most visible migrant flows are often not the largest. Refugees, for example, accounted for just 8 percent of the global migrant stock in 2015. ²⁴

Of course, the likelihood of a clampdown on migration depends on perceptions of migratory trends-especially those at a national level-not their reality. If recent history is any guide, however, governments are more likely to strengthen their selectivity of migrants than impose absolute restrictions. Over the past 25 years, migration policies have become more discerning of migrants' skills, class, and nationality while simultaneously allowing for a greater volume of migrants overall. ²⁵ If the political backlash against migration ultimately focuses on restricting small but highly visible flows, then we should not expect global migration as a whole to decline.

Conclusion

Table 1 summarizes the results from our three series, comparing the degree of global integration across globalization's two waves. On two of the three measures, the degree of globalization is continuing to rise based on the most recent available data, contrary to the claim that globalization is receding. And on two of our three measures, the global economy is more globalized today than during the peak of the early 20th century. Whether that implies globalization has reached unsustainable levels, or that no such levels exist, remains to be seen.

Table 1: Benchmarking globalization across two waves

Authors' calculations based on IMF 2015, Lane and Milesi-Ferretti 2013, Maddison 2001, the Maddison Project 2015, McKeown 2004, McKeown 2010, Riley 2009, U.N. 1999, U.N. 2015a, U.N. 2015b, UNCTAD 2015, U.S. Census Bureau 1975, World Bank 2015, World Bank 2016, and WTO 2016. Merchandise exports and foreign capital stock are expressed in market dollars as a share of global income expressed in international dollars, and will therefore differ with those cited elsewhere.

As global economic integration continues, the composition of globalized stocks and flows evolves. The shifts in trade growth from goods to services, in foreign capital away from debt to FDI and portfolio equity, and in migration towards a more diverse set of origin countries concentrated in a shrinking pool of prime destination countries, represent defining features of the modern global economy.

While globalization is not yet in retreat, it seems likely that globalization is at an inflection point. The past two decades have been described as an era of hyper-globalization during which both the level and rate of global integration was judged as having intensified. Based on our analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that this period is over. The debate then is what will emerge next. Our speculative assessment is that the coming years will be characterized either by stabilization in the level of globalization, or further growth in the degree of integration but at a more modest pace than in the past.

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We are supported by a diverse array of funders. In line with our values and policies, each Brookings publication represents the sole views of its author(s).

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Is globalization's second wave about to break?

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After two decades defined by growing integration, fears abound that globalization is unraveling, or about to unravel, echoing the retreat towards autarky in the early 20th century. In a new report, Laurence Chandy and Brina Seidel assess these claims.

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V. Lieberman - The Qing dynasty and Its Neighbors

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V. Lieberman - The Qing dynasty and Its Neighbors

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A paper about the Qing dynasty.

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2 texts about the events following the Boxer Uprising

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2 texts about the events following the Boxer Uprising

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Hong Xiuquan

Hong Xiuquan, born in 1814 in Guanlubu, Guangdong, had failed multiple civil service exams when, in 1837, he returned home and went to bed, complaining of sickness.

In a feverish state, Hong hallucinated a journey to a heavenly land to the east where his father revealed that demons were destroying humankind. Wielding a special sword, Hong, with the help of his brother, fought the demons and the King of Hell.

Following the dream-state battle, Hong remained in heaven and took a wife, later having a child together. Eventually, Hong returned to Earth, receiving the title "Heavenly King, Lord of the Kingly Way."

But from his family's perspective, Hong was in bed for days, stricken by fever dreams and yelling about demons, claiming to be the Emperor of China, singing, and sometimes leaping out of bed and standing ready for combat.

When Hong finally did awake, he told his family about his experience and copied down poems he had written in heaven. The villagers believed he had gone insane.

Over time, Hong put the incident behind him and pursued civil service exams again.

Treaty of Nanjing

Around the same time as his hallucination, while in the city of Canton for exams, Hong was given Christian literature, which he kept but never read. In 1843, a relative, Li Jingfang, borrowed the tract, Liang Afa's "Good Words For Exhorting The Age" and convinced Hong to read it.

The tract portrayed an apocalyptic China that recalled recent events. The violent First Opium War against Great Britain, fought from 1839 to 1842, ended with the Treaty of Nanjing that damaged imperial prestige and allowed the British many advantages. It had the side effect of allowing an influx of Christian missionaries into the country.

In Liang's tract, Hong encountered the teachings of Jesus, which changed Hong's view of Chinese society and Confucian values. Hong became convinced the father in his fever dream from years before was the God of Christianity, the older brother was Jesus and the King of Hell was the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Hong was now confident that he was the son of God.

The God Worshipping Society

Hong revealed his dream to relatives, and his message began to spread. Hong and some of his followers took to the road, selling writing ink and brushes to fund their travels.

During this journey, Hong wrote his own tract, "Exhortations to Worship the One True God," to help win more converts.

Hong returned home to support his family and work on further tracts, but his disciples still traveled, vigorously spreading his ideas and forming a group known as Bai Shangdi Hui or the God Worshipping Society.

Many of these followers were the Hakka people, who had fled the Mongols in the 13th century and become an enclave treated as separate from regular Chinese society. They were primarily destitute laborers who sought protection from oppression.

Hong preached an early form of communism that stressed sharing property, mixed with religious ideas and laws based on the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament Bible. His promise of free land would soon bring in thousands more followers.

Thistle Mountain

In 1847, Hong went to Thistle Mountain to join local God Worshippers and conspire against religious traditions in the area. Numbering in the thousands, the God Worshipping Society grabbed the attention of local authorities who want to end the group's teachings and arrest some of the leaders.

Religious visions were not confined to Hong. In 1848, Hong accepted as authentic a Thistle Mountain charcoal burner named Yang Xiuqing who claimed to channel God, and a peasant named Xiao Chaogui, who said he channeled Jesus.

Tales of angelic interventions from heaven to save local villagers abounded. Worshippers claimed to visit heaven physically during prayers.

Taiping King

By 1849, the God Worshipping Society had expanded into four areas of China, which Hong treated as strategic points in his upcoming battle against demons-demons that Hong soon unveiled as the ruling Qing Dynasty itself.

Hong's total control of his followers' lives tightened. Calling himself "the Taiping King" after a historical region of China west of Nanjing, he decreed the separation of men and women, with beatings for anyone who defied him.

In 1850, alleging that Jesus had urged Hong to "fight for Heaven," Hong began to arm his followers. Soon, the God Worshippers were buying gunpowder in bulk and becoming organized by military rankings.

Taiping Army Victories

Qing forces and the God Worshippers clashed at the end of 1851. Unexpectedly, the Taiping army was victorious in these first battles, but fighting continued over the following months as Hong proclaimed 1851 as the first year of "the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom."

Later that year Hong and his forces, now numbering 60,000, abandoned Thistle Mountain and seized the city of Yongan, again defeating Qing troops.

In Yongan, Hong dominated the lives of his followers with more religious restrictions. He also created royal titles for his family.

Hong declared that his followers should not "commit adultery or be licentious" and should reject "the cast of amorous glances, the harboring of lustful thoughts about others, the smoking of opium and the singing of libidinous songs" or be punished with beheadings.

Fall of Nanjing

In 1852, Taiping soldiers snuck out of Yongan and began a trail of bloodshed that resulted in their control of a significant portion of the land bordering the Yangzi River and the city of Tianjin, from which the Qing emperor was forced to flee.

Hong then took Nanjing, by which time he boasted some 2 million followers.

After an attempt to seize Beijing was repelled, Hong chose to cease conquest and concentrate on building an administration in Nanjing.

The Taiping held Nanjing for 11 years. Hong stepped back from most secular matters of governance, leaving that work to others who soon slipped into decadence that conflicted with Taiping religious ideals.

One of these, the channeler Yang Xiuqing, claimed that God wanted Hong dead. The plot was thwarted, Yang was beheaded and his family members slaughtered.

In 1856, a second Opium War broke out with the west, continuing until 1861.

Hong believed Western governments sympathized with his movement and he tried to make overtures to them, but European forces eventually aided the Qing government in seizing back what the Taiping had conquered.

Taiping Rebellion Ends

Hong was found dead in May 1864, believed to have been poisoned, though it's unknown whether it was suicide or assassination.

Nanjing was put under siege and fell several months later. (It's believed that Qing soldiers created the popular game of mahjong to pass the time during the lengthy siege.) The Taiping occupiers were massacred, with some gathering in crowds and immolating themselves. Hong's son was named the new King of Heaven, but was later executed.

Estimates vary, but the Taiping Rebellion is believed to have claimed between 20 million and 70 million lives, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.
READ MORE: China: A Timeline
Sources

God's Chinese Son. Jonathan D. Spence.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Thomas H. Reilly.
The Great Big Book of Horrible Things. Matthew White.
Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Patricia Buckley Ebrey.

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Taiping Rebellion: Causes, Definition & Death Toll | HISTORY

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The Taiping Rebellion was a revolt against the Qing dynasty in China, fought from 1850 to 1864 with religious fervor over social and economic conditions.

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Hobson's quote from Imperialism: a study (1902)

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Hobson's quote from Imperialism: a study (1902)

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« The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa » (Hobson).

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1 primary source about Opium Wars: the Treaty of Nanjing (1842)

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1 primary source about Opium Wars: the Treaty of Nanjing (1842)

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May Fourth Movement | Chinese Student Protests, Nationalism & Reforms | Britannica

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May Fourth Movement, intellectual revolution and sociopolitical reform movement that occurred in China in 1917–21. The movement was directed toward national independence, emancipation of the individual, and rebuilding society and culture. In 1915, in the face of Japanese encroachment on China,

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Our Research question: How did Western imperialism influence the development of China without having to annex China?

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Our Research question: How did Western imperialism influence the development of China without having to annex China?

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We have seen that India changed under British rule (first the East India Company and then the British Raj). The local Empires (Mughal and Maratha) were crushed by military force. The British destroyed the prosperous economy of India by ruining the textile industry, they imposed new laws, spread their language, educated women, used the difference between islam and hinduism to "divide and conquer", etc., all that while ruling the country.
In China, it was different, since no Western country actually invaded mainland China. But European imperialism had a strong influence on China anyway. Let's find out how that happened, through 4 historical steps.

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The Xinhai Revolution was an intellectual revolution against the Qing dynasty. “The combination of increasing imperialist demands (from both Japan and the West), frustration with the foreign Manchu Government embodied by the Qing court, and the desire to see a unified China less parochial in outlook fed a growing nationalism that spurred on revolutionary ideas.” (history.state.gov). The Chinese people weren’t happy with the current imperial government and traditional Chinese traditions and politics. After 7 unsuccessful revolts, in autumn of 1911 a successful nationalist revolt finally occurred. The movement and revolution reorganized the Chinese nationalist party and caused the birth of the Chinese communist party. “As a result, the decline of traditional ethics and the family system was accelerated, the emancipation of women gathered momentum, a vernacular literature emerged, and the modernized intelligentsia became a major factor in China’s subsequent political developments” (Britannica.com).  The Xinhai revolution was against Imperialism. It fought for liberalism and a new political system.

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The Taiping War was one of the bloodiest wars in China’s history, lasting almost 14 years. Hong Xiuquan proclaimed himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ and soon formed a religion based on that, making it a somewhat twisted version of Christianity. “Hong Xiuquan (1814–64) developed a new Christian belief system that was heavily influenced by Confucianism and Chinese popular religion.” With this, he tried to create an army, mainly formed from the Hakka people, wanting to attack the so-called “demons,” who were The Manchus, who were rulers that formed the Qing Dynasty. “​​Many of these followers were the Hakka people, who had fled the Mongols in the 13th century and become an enclave treated as separate from regular Chinese society. They were primarily destitute laborers who sought protection from oppression”. He took over this dynasty and even took over the former capital of China, Nanjing. The war ended with the final battle for Nanjing with hundreds and thousands of deaths, which overall added to the millions that died throughout the Civil War.

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Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "May Fourth Movement". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Feb. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/May-Fourth-Movement. Accessed 7 October 2021.

U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/chinese-rev.  Accessed 7 October 2021.

EmperorTigerstar, “The Chinese Revolution”. YouTube, 8 June. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQkfQlkvchY, Accessed 7 October 2021.

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The Opium Wars were two conflicts fought in China in the mid-19th century between the forces of Western countries and of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911/12.

The First Opium War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing Empire, where the immediate issue was China's official seizure of opium stocks at Canton to stop the banned opium trade, and threatening the death penalty for future offenders. The British government insisted on free trade, equal diplomatic recognition among nations, and backed the merchants' demands. The British navy defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons, and the British then imposed a treaty that granted territory to Britain and opened trade with China.

The second major Opium War was a war pitting the British Empire and the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China (1856-1860), fought over issues relating to the exportation of opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing dynasty.

After China was defeated by the British, conditions were imposed on the Chinese government in a treaty, which was signed in Nanjing.

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The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreigner rebellion in China about 1900, started by peasants but later, it was supported by the government. The Boxers, a Chinese secret group, launched a violent campaign to expel all foreigners from China. Several nations dispatched soldiers to stop the attacks.\

“If we can change, we can preserve ourselves; but if we cannot change, we shall perish.” (Kang Youwei)

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The primary cause of the opium wars was the spread of commercial capitalism into Asia and the opium trade.