The boxer rebellion helped the revolution by making the people of china think that the government is bad by killing people, after this when Pu Yi becomes emperor they overthrow the Manchu emperors, and the leader of the Nationalists steps up Sun Yat Sen but he was not strong enough to rule China and the provinces were taken over by warlords and private armies then Sun died in 1925 with his plan in ruins.
This makes China weak and the Japanese takes advantage of China’s weakness and invade so this makes the China despise of foreigners and makes them think that they cannot be trusted, the warlords stole food from villagers but Mao Tse-Tung the leader at this time was nice and gave them food.
The chaos of the revolution lead to a civil war between Nationalists (GMD) and Communists (CCP) the USA wanted Capitalism and funded the GMD and sent guns but Russia wanted China to be Communists like themselves, once the CCP had taken power then the USA caused resentment by their funds because they didn’t like Communists they wanted the capitalism out of the Nationalists.
The results of the war was that the CCP won because they had by backing from the people of China and they were stronger the GMD retreated to Taiwan this made China feel unsafe of foreigners even more especially America but they still liked Russia because of their Communism this suited Russia because they could now trade with one another and try to spread Communism.
America continued to believe that Taiwan was the true government of China and affairs remained cold.
China was affected by civil wars with Korea (1950’s) and Vietnam (1960’s) on its border, China felt America was getting involved again and what would happen if South Korea or South Vietnam was to win because these were both backed by America.
This was the whole part of the cold war between America and China the Chinese had cold relations with the west because they were on Russia’s side.
Later on Russia and China fell out because China wanted the Russians to tell them the secret of making a nuclear bomb but Russia did not want China to be that powerful and they both fell into colder relations which meant that China could start talking to the rest of the world including America who were pleased and both China and America decided that they would have more to gain by friendship and a lot to lose from poor relations, America hoped to gain China as a huge market for its economic goods and China hoped that it could catch up with the west.
America established a base in Taiwan because the GMD retreated there after they had lost the civil war and because they believed in Capitalism, this made China feel that they were going to be invaded by the USA but in the warmer relations (1979) America recognised the Communists as being the sole legal government of China and Taiwan and relations were normalised. The USA withdrew its base from Taiwan and said they would be concerned if anything happened to Taiwan but no longer promise to protect it, Taiwan felt unsafe about this because China could invade anytime.
In 1989 China was ruled by Deng Xio Ping and he wanted the Capitalist system like other western countries but Communists to be the only party in china, people did not agree to this, they wanted greater freedom and so students gathered up at Tiananmen Square in Peking and refused to leave everyone was anxious to know what Deng was going to do about this, some people went on hunger strike, more and more people joined the protest. After two weeks of the protest when most of the cameras had gone and the story had lost its place at the top of the world headlines the Chinese people’s liberation army came and attacked the protesters at Tiananmen. More than 2,000 people died in 2 days of fighting while the rest of the world watched, countries were annoyed about this and told off China such as Mrs Thatcher, some of the west refused to trade with China but they didn’t care about what the western world thought of them.
In the years leading up to 1997 Britain was the first to start talking to China again this was because Britain’s lease on Hong Kong was going to run out and they wanted to hand it over peacefully, Taiwan was interested in this to how it goes and for if Taiwan was to be part of China again it would know what it would be like for them.
When President Jiang visited Britain in 2000 there were protesters following his visit because they didn’t agree with the way China treated its people it was against the human rights law. The Chinese president did not like these protesters so the British government made sure he didn’t see these protesters.
The picture of Jiang and President Bush tells us that America and China want warmer relations, Bush dressed in Chinese clothes to please the Chinese President but soon relations got cold again because of a spy plane that crashed in 2001 over China, America asked for the plane back but the Chinese government wanted to know why they were spying on them, they also took the plane apart to the look at the technology it used then sent it back to America in boxes and pieces.
When terrorists attacked America on September 11th 2001 China was one of the first countries to send a sympathy message to America this made relations warmer, but more recently China is against the war with Iraq so relations got colder again, however behind the scenes America could say that they would give them Taiwan if China helped America in the war.
I think that Chinas relations with the west is getting better and that one day Taiwan will be part of China aswell as being the worlds superpower and a major trading country.
My conclusion is that Chinas relations with the west has constantly been changing simply because they did not like foreigners or trust them but now they have more understanding about them and have warmer relations through trade and other things.
