The Influence That Westernization Movement Had On Chinese Modernization

China's modern history. It opened the prelude of the modernization in China and promoted its process. The thirty years of Westernization Movement had a profound effect on every aspect of Chinese society. Though the historical significance of the Westernization Movement had not been objectively recognized during a fairly long period, the Westernization Movement was the first modernization movement in firmatively promoted the modernization in China. Now socialist reform has entered a new period. At this time, to mention the influence of Westernization Movement on the modernization in China may have a new meaning. This essay will make an exploration in the first"reform and opening-up"occurred more than one hundred years ago from four aspects, ideology, military, economy and technology. It is hoped that the exploration will benefit the present reform to a certain extent.There are two ways of transferring the English word"Modernization"into Chinese,"Jindaihua"and"Xiandaihua". Economic industrialization and political democratization are its hallmark. It develops technology and replaces manual labour with machines. In China, modernization means industrialization and the associated changing of ideology, politics, economy and culture. It also means social transformation, namely from Medieval Society to Modern Society. With the success of industrial revolution in varies countries, the world's modernization began. The Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Russia and Japan successively campaigned for modernization. Faced with the continuing shocks from the trend of modernization movement, China started its own proceeding of modernization. Because of the truth that China was semi colonial and semi feudal society in the modern times, the task of modernization in China had to be undertaken by the Liberal School who was split up from the feudal ruling class.During the 1960's to the 1990's, with the objective of"self-improvement"and"pursuing wealth", Westernization Faction widely started the reformation movement of"learning from foreign fortes on technology to restrict foreign", namely"Westernization Movement". They established three naval branches and a naval Yamen, developed military and civil industries, set up new schools, cultured translation and technology talents and sent students studying abroad.Ideology: From closed to open, the society of China experienced a great change, and so with its ideology. In the past, Confucianism, which is considered to be very conservative, dominated the Chinese philosophy. While then, a different ideology had been come up with. The main ideology changes in Westernization Movement were about reformation, differences between Chinese and foreigners, relationship between physical and spiritual and the domination between agriculture and industry. Firstly, Westernization Faction thought it is right to reform as time goes by to fit the age. Moreover, they began to stop thinking Chinese were the best people in the world. They thought foreigners also had some strength that Chinese could learn from. In addition, they changed the traditional philosophy in considering the spirit and matter. They began to think matter was as important as spirit. And the most important one is that they considered industry was more important than agriculture. So they began to found new enterprises, run new schools, produce ships and construct railways. They also introduced science and some marine technology. In conclusion, Westernization Movement and the ideology changes coming with it shocked the traditional ideology of this old nation and led to a series of modern ideology. This new ideology had a great influence on Chinese people's life, their behavior and their modernization process.Military: Westernization Faction began its military westernization movement with buying guns, cannons and training soldiers in the western way. In 1862, Yixin organized Foreign Gun Brigade in Tianjin. He selected good soldiers from traditional army Eight Banners to add into the new army and fired foreign approaches to train them. And the local armies like"Huai"and"Xiang"were used as the National Guard which had been acted by Eight Banners. After the war with France, the government realized the importance of navy and bought several cruisers. In 1888, Beiyang Navy was formally founded with 25 warships. The development of army and the foundation of the navy played a dominative role in the military modernization. Westernization Faction also began to introduce foreign tactics, and tried to generate the use of firearms and military manufacture. They founded a series of ordnance factories, like Jiangnan Manufacture Bureau, Jinling Manufacture Bureau, Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, Tianjin Machine Bureau, Hubei Artillery Foundry. Moreover, they organized the navy into 3 parts: Beiyang, Nanyang and Fujian. A modern military system began to take shape in China. Economic: Westernization Faction began to establish factories and mines for civil use, including mining, smelting, transportation, and textile industries. Westernization Faction had established more than twenty civil factories from 1870s to 1890s. The most important ones among them were Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, Kaiping Mining Bureau, Telegram Administration, Shanghai Mechanical Weaving Bureau, Hanyang Iron-melting Plant, and Hubei Weaving Bureau, etc. These civil factories applied machines on a large scale, involving plenty of mechanical equipments and technology. Moreover, these producing processes could apparently represent the capitalism. Thus, China had its own modern industries, which stimulated and provided the opportunity to the birth of national capitalism, resulting in the effect of giving positive supports. Meanwhile, in the war industries and civil industries established by Westernization Fraction, a large number of industrial workers were created, which expanded the amount of Chinese modern industrial workers positively. The birth of national capitalism and the existence of modern industrial workers promoted the collapse of Chinese feudal economy and accelerated the process of Chinese modernization.Technology: To culture new talents on foreign affairs, Westernization Faction successively ran a number of schools for western language and art. Firstly, capital foreign language college was made up in 1862. It taught foreign language and mainly cultured talents in translation and diplomatism. Li Hongzhang established shanghai foreign language college in 1863. Moreover, Rui Lin, the Governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi, set up Guangzhou foreign language college in 1864, and enrolled local teenagers to learn foreign language, so that Chinese could know the world better. It also made China get closer to the world and Modernization. Further more, Westernization Faction founded a set of schools especially for culturing talents in military, technology, manufacture and mineral such as Fuzhou Navigation College and Tianjin Arming College funded in 1867. In addition, Qing Dynasty sent the first team of students to study in America in 1867 and selected a team of students from Fuzhou Navigation College to study marine and military technique in the Great Britain and France. By setting up new schools and sending students studying abroad, Westernization Faction successfully cultured a large amount of modern talents for our country, which pushed the modernization of the education in China actively.During the period of Westernization Movement, though political modernization was not on the agenda, the ideology of people still changed to some degree. By virtue of the measures taken in Westernization Movement, old China possessed a new type defense capacity which was quite different from traditional Eight Banners, Old Chinese Army and the navy. The first capitalistic modern industry, the first team of entrepreneurs, engineers, intellectuals and industrialist all appeared with capitalist mode of promotion. With the effects of military economic field, to adapt the need for Westernization Movement, the modernization of technology, culture and education also start in succession. Therefore, though Westernization Movement did not really make China rich and powerful, it successfully introduced modernization into China, started the times of machinery in China and made China take a gratifying step in Modernization.