Chapter 48 Lecture 8: Westernization Movement: Modernization without modernity

Historians of later generations often lament that the Chinese nation missed the budding period of modern industrial civilization, and thus was invaded and humiliated by foreign powers.However, if you take a look around the world, the answer may be different.In the mid-1860s when China started the Westernization Movement, the three countries that later became the world's strongest economies—the United States, Germany, and Japan—had just completed national reunification and started their modernization journey one after another. The United States ended the Civil War in 1865. Although President Lincoln liberated the black slaves, racial segregation continued, and the confrontation between the North and the South continued.Around 1860, the population of the United States accounted for 3% of the world’s total population. There were only 141 cities in the United States with a population of more than 8,000, and the steel production was less than 1 million tons. European newspapers directly compared it to “little brothers following Britain and France.” ". In 1865, Andrew Carnegie, who later became the richest man in the United States at the age of 30, co-founded the Carnegie Coleman United Steel Works in Pennsylvania; in the same year, Li Hongzhang also submitted the " Purchasing Machines in Foreign Iron Works.It was also during this period that Germany had just completed its unification. In 1870, with the "Eames Telegram" incident as the fuse, the Franco-Prussian War broke out and the Prussian army won a complete victory. The establishment of a unified German Empire was announced at the Palace of Versailles in Paris.The United States and Germany adopted the gold standard in 1879 and 1873, respectively.

The time when Japan and China entered modernization was surprisingly close. The Meiji Restoration and the Westernization Movement kicked off almost at the same time: On January 3, 1868, Saigo Takamori led 2,000 people from Kagoshima to the north to launch the "Royal Government Restoration" coup. The rule of the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown, and Emperor Meiji was welcomed back, and Japan entered a period of restoration. Through comparison, we can draw a conclusion: China's modernization is not a "late movement", and being late is not a reason for being behind.There are other reasons why the Westernization Movement failed and even today, China has not yet become a complete market economy country.