The Tributary system helped China gain respect from other nations as well as maintaining good foreign relations and a good economy. The system worked very well until The Qing Dynasty, who was in control of China for a very long time, began to lose power because of conflict with Western Nations. They no longer had the strength to support this system anymore, so the use of the Tributary system declined, resulting in weaker foreign trade and relations. This ultimately caused the nation of China to weaken.

The Opium trade cause China to have to export large quantities of silver in exchange for the drug. As more and more people became addicted, the more silver China had to export. This caused harm to China’s economy. Also, when China fought Great Britain, they were very unprepared. The British were using much  more modern, relevant technology that the Chinese was not using. China inevitably lost the war. China had lost a lot of land to Britain and also had to agree to the British’s treaty, which greatly favored Great Britain. The importation of Opium along with the loss of the war, caused damage to China’s economy and their strength  against other nations. 

China’s loss of land to the British gave them less power as a country. They also loss their superiority in terms of trade. They were forced to begin trading with the west under the Treaty of Nanjing. Finally, their requirements to allow British to live under their own rules in China gave more power to the British. China had lost much of it’s power from the treaty. 

China was obviously suffering from many issues at the time. China could not properly function as a country due to these issues. The peasants were very upset about their living conditions, which causes the to rebel. The conflicts in China were causing many problems that contributed to China’s decline. 

The rebellion was unsuccessful in terms of getting the reforms they wanted, but they were able to weaken the Qing Dynasty. There were millions of casualties, and the Qing Dynasty began to share power with regional commanders. Due to the declining of the Chinese government, Russia was able to take land from China, causing them to lose power once again. 

China had now lost most of it’s land. Over time, Western nations shad slowly been taking control over China’s land. China was losing power exponentially. Every time a nation conquered their land, they became more and more vulnerable to even more loss of land. China had become much weaker than other nations, and also completely lost its right to not trade with certain countries. 

The war had exposed China as a very weak country. This made more vulnerable to attack, resulting in loss of much of its coastal land to the West. The Chinese still had not modernized after the loss. This was one of the main factors in their decline. China needed to adapt to modern technology in order to stop their increasing weakness

The failure of the reforms resulted in many things. First, China was not able to modernize. Second, Guang Xu was put in prison and the power-hungry empress Ci Xi was put in place. Finally, many people left China due to fear of the new empress who eventually helped cause the fall of the Qing Dynasty. The evacuation of many citizens along with the new empress contributed to China’s loss of government strength. 

Empress Ci Xi was not much help to China at all. She refused to put much-needed reforms in place that would have helped China greatly. The Qing Dynasty continued to lose power due to Ci Xi. This causes even more weakening in China’s government. With an extremely weak government, China has become very inferior to the rest of the world. 

Due to the failure of the Boxer Rebellion, China had to make reforms. They took on much of Western culture and worked to improve the economy. China had finally begun modernization. Although China was starting to improve and fix itself, it had lost a decent amount of its culture and land to the west. 

After China’s decline and extreme loss of power, many changes were being put in place. The leader of these changes was spokesman Sun Yixian. He helped put in many helpful reforms in China. Although China had become a very weak nation, many people were trying to help rebuild it. 

Zehui, Yang. “Collapse of Tributary System Reshaped East Asia.” Chines Social Sciences Today, Social Sciences in China Press, 18 Sept. 2015, www.csstoday.com/Item/2588.aspx. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

Zhou, Fangyin. “Equilibrium Analysis of the Tributary System.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Oxford Academic, academic.oup.com/cjip/article/4/2/147/333000. Accessed 17 Mar. 2001.