How Did China Lose The Qing System

At the end of the 18th century in China, the Qianlong Emperor ruled the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Around that particular time, the British tried to enlarge their trade opportunities in China and create Westernized diplomatic relations with the Chinese. One of the attempts to expand trade by the British was when Lord Macartney visited China in 1793 to convince the Qianlong Emperor to open northern port cities to British traders. However, the Qianlong emperor refused and wrote a edict to King George III explaining that they had no need for British goods and that foreigners in China were not welcomed unless they gave up their native customs and adopted Chinese customs. In fact, years before as foreigners started visiting China more and more for trade, China developed the Canton System. The main purpose of the Canton System was to control trade with the west by focusing all trade in Canton. The Canton System was extremely strict on foreign trade and forced foreigners to pay expensive tariffs. One
This caused a war known as the Opium War, which was a war between China and Britain. China lost the Opium War because China could not match the technological superiority of the British and was forced to sign a treaty known as the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The treaty included paying debts British and the opening of ports to foreign trade. Couple of years after the Opium War, one of the bloodiest rebellions called the Taiping Rebellion occurred. The founder of the rebellion was Hong Xiuquan, after having a vision that he was visited by God. Hong Xiuquan believed that China should be based on equality, Christianity and the Manchu rule should be eliminated. However, the Taiping Rebellion was later stopped by Zeng Guofan. The Taiping Rebellion weakened the Qing because it fought to stop the rebellion for fourteen years resulting in the loss of 20 million