It was under her that formal Chinese diplomacy emerged. Cixi tried to use these accounts to convince China’s elite that change was necessary.

“If we are able to do what they are doing, there is no question that we, too, can be rich and strong,” one wrote. The book cites the diaries of the first Chinese officials who traveled to the West in the 19th century, the majority of whom were deeply impressed by democracy and the technological progress they saw. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. All these reforms took place against the resistance of a conservative establishment that continuously plotted against her and sought to remove foreigners from Chinese territory. Unprecedented in China, she urged her temporary successor, Emperor Guangxu, to learn English. She promoted Hsu Chi-she, the first scholar to argue that China was not the center of the world, but just one of many countries. She also tried to introduce science into China’s school system, a move that required hiring Western teachers. In a courageous move, she employed a large number of foreigners in the civil service to modernize the administrative structures. The author writes that “instinctively she seems to have known that a government needs dissenting voices,” turning her into a sort of Chinese counterpart of India’s sage Mughal Emperor Akbar, who promoted religious tolerance during his long reign in the 16th and 17th century.Ĭontrary to her predecessor, Cixi believed that trade with the West would strengthen China. Indeed, Cixi is depicted as unusually wise for her time and age. In the early 20th century, she allowed women to appear in public, abolished foot binding, lifted the ban on Han-Manchu intermarriage, and decreed that girls should be educated. The constitutional system Cixi initiated, Chang writes, included modern laws - commercial, civil, criminal, and judicial, and the establishment of law schools.

Chang argues that Cixi, the most important woman in Chinese history, “brought a medieval empire into the modern age.” Under Cixi’s rule, China built its first railroads (the Beijing-Canton railroad remains a key artery in today’s economy), installed telegraphs, introduced electricity, steam boats, modern mining, and newspapers, established the state bank, and promoted freedom of religion.

The Manchu Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is generally thought of as a conservative figure in Chinese history, incapable of defending China’s interests in the second half of the 19th century, when China lost its position as the world’s largest economy.Īgainst this broad consensus stands Jung Chang’s lively biography, first published in 2013 and now available as an e-book, that depicts Cixi (pronounced “Tseshi”) as quite the opposite.

Empress dowager cixi by jung chang