Part I of "The Asian Century" from which this video was edited is available in the Curriculum Resources section of the library under the call number, VID.C1951.T93C

For the text of the edited video shown in class click here.

• How far back does the video date the origins of Chinese civilization? _____________
• Upon the ideas and philosophy of ____________ China built one of the most sophistocated systems of _________ and ______________. But to what did this lead?

• What did it call itself?____________________. What was the negative consequence of this vision?

• How did the vision of the people of the eastern Coast differ?____________________________ What was it and to what did it lead?

• But, these coastal people did not prevail and by the 13th century, the __________vision of the rulers in the heartland became dominant. These men saw outsiders as _______________ and the sea as ______________________..

• What coast could they not ignore?_______________. Why may the Mongols be seen as coming from the "sea"? _______________________ What kind of a sea was it? __________________________
• What brought them to China?
• What territory did their Empire include?

• What did they accomplish "for the first time in history"?

• How was their "world-view" different from that of the Chinese?

• Why was their greatest strength also their greatest weakness? To what did it lead by 1363?

• The Ming dynasty that succeeded them reacted negatively to everything the Mongols had done. They believed China should be ____________. Their Empire was dominated by a vision of ______________ that was distrustful of the world outside. When the Mings looked for danger signs, they looked for ____________________________________.

• In contrast to the trading empire of the Mongols, they built_______________________________________ civilizations. How did they try to protect themselves from yet another invasion from the "northern coast"? What were the costs of this effort? What did it nearly do to the country? What did it lead to?

• The conquest of China by the ____________ proved the folly of this effort.

• What was the nature of civilization and government under the Manchus (Xing)? What examples illustrate this reaction to the Ming legacy?

• By the end of the 18th century, new barbarians arrived via the _____________ coast. From where did they come?

• Why did they come? 1)______________, 2)______________ and 3)______________

• Was China ready for this? Explain.

• Why were these countries, which were so tiny relative to China, able to impose their influence so easily on China?

• What riches did China have that lured these Western traders? 1)_______________ 2)__________________ and 3)______________

• What is meant by the expression that China reacted with noblesse oblige to the desires of the West to be allowed to trade?

• What did Britain have in mind as expressed in the mission of Lord McCartney in 1793?

• What was the Chinese reaction? Why?

• How did the China trade adversely affect the economies of the Western trading powers?

• What solution did the British and the Americans find to solve this problem? _____________

• What did Commissioner Lin, who was appointed by the Emperor in 1839 to deal with the problem, do?

• Why did British economic liberalism on matters of trade clash with Chinese values and make compromise on Lin's demands impossible?

• The ________ War (1839-1842) solved the problem What product of the industrial revolution the "secret weapon" made it possible for tiny Great Britain to defeat huge China?____________? How was it employed?

• Why may this be seen as a factor that ultimately led to the realization by China that it needed to modernize?

• Although not mentioned in the video, it was the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the opium war in 1842. According to the terms of the treaty that were mentioned in the video, China had to make a money payment of $___ million to pay for ____________________________________ and $___ million to pay for ______________________________.

The port-cities of ______________, ________________ and three others were forced open to western trade. This broke the Hong monopoly on trade, freeing Chinese trades to build up port cities even as it enforced western privileges. The treaty also invited the West to penetrate China. By the beginning of the twentieth centuy China was effectively divided in to spheres of interest by the ______________, __________________, _______________, ___________ and the U.S. "which also had interests."

Also not mentioned in the video is that it in this treaty that Britain acquired its first piece of territory in what ultimately became the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. For a brief historical discussion of the cession of Hong Kong and a contemporary interpretation of its return, click here.

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