System of organizing military troops, initiated by the Manchu leader Nurhaci, which served to integrate the different tribes of Manchuria by intermixing groups from different tribes into various subdivisions, each grouped under a distinct baner. Within these banners, soldiers encamped along with their families, making the system entirely integrative and holistic. Also integrated new nationalities (primarily Mongolians, Koreans, and Chinese) into the Manchu army, by giving different ethnic groups control over banner companies. Banner soldiers' positions were hereditary, making the system self-perpetuating, with soldiers forbidden from changing their occupation. Banners were given certain parts of cities and regions to be stationed in, allowing the emperor to situate banners strategically to encounter threats rather than control huge swaths of territory simultaneously.

Qing China

Controversy at the intersection of European Catholic politics and Sino-European relations in the late 17th century/early 18th century, as the Jesuits' practice of allowing Chinese converts to continue their traditional ancestor-honor ceremonies and traditions was challenged by the Vatican, likely at the prompting of rival mendicant orders in China (resentful of the Jesuits' focus on missionary work in the elite and at the imperial court, doing work for the emperor such as updating the imperial astrological data). Thus, a 1715 decree came down from the Vatican condemning such actions, banning Chinese converts from them and challenging Jesuit "syncretism" of Chinese custom and Christianity. Thus, resulted in the Empire becoming angry at foreign Christians condemning their practice, which honored the emperor and maintained social order, and thus barring Christianity in 1721. Left a vacuum of Catholic influence in China, especially in terms of Christian influence on elites, with Protestants becoming associated with imperialists and focusing on lower classes and women (misinformation allowed strangely syncretic Taiping religion to develop in 1840s).

Qing China, 1839-42

War between Britain and Qing China over Chinese seizure of British opium smuggled into Guangzhou (Canton), against imperial law, by a network of British East India Co.-contracted runners and Chinese smugglers, a practice resulting in the drain of silver and tea from Guangzhou into British hands, allowing for British benefit. When the imperial government opted for eradication of opium rather than legalization, it sent Lin Xu to Guangzhou, where he perpetrated a stringent anti-opium policy, violating some British merchants. Britain used its more powerful navy to destroy Chinese coastal fortifications, eventually capturing a threatening point and forcing the Chinese to negotiate, bringing on the Treaty of Nanjing, representing the beginning of China's domination by the West, symbolized by the "unequal treaties" modeled on Nanjing which followed through two more Opium wars.

Western Imperialism (China), 1899

US Secretary of State John Hay's proposal to solve the 1898 Far East scramble for concessions in China, with China left as with an "open door" to all imperialist powers, with all gaining the same benefits all across China--done to protect potential US interests, enabled by the recent acquisition of the Philippines, but representing a particular low in the complete loss of Chinese sovereignty, with imperialists debating how to divide China among themselves as with Africa in 1884.

Late Qing, 1898-1901

Violently xenophobic social and political movement which spread from Shantong in 1898, where angry locals organized into shamanistic societies known as "Boxers" for their belief in trances building up to complete invincibility, whereupon they used martial arts to drive out "foreign devils." Represents crux of Chinese resistance to Western imperialism, with Boxers rising up against Christian missionaries, angry at German missionaries' use of their own extraterritoriality (already a bete noire to nationalist Chinese) to defend the legal actions of their new converts, eventually spreading through north China and into Beijing, threatening the foreign legations there as the desparate Qing opted to hope for this to be a popular movement which could overpower the foreign imperialists.

Late Qing, 1898

Attempt by the Guanxu Emperor to implement radical reforms during 1898, in accordance with the writings of radical reformists (especially after the Chinese failure in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95) on the need to Westernize and modernize. The attempt represented the failure of China to reform itself, with the Empress Dowager Cixi launching a coup and holding Guanxu captive for the remainder of his reign in order to halt the possibility of reform.

Republican China, 1919-20s

• New Youth drove this movement, founded by Beijing University dean Chen Duxin in 1915, promoted this movement
• Reacted against the traditionalism, seeming backwardness, of neo-Confucianism
• Moved toward vernacular away from classical, literary language

Represented desire for more reformism in China, led by educated elite, against domination by Western powers and Western culture (especially strong after May 4th Movement encapsulated anti-Western political ideas).

Edo Japan

Daimyo independent in terms of domains from Shogun, but had to follow regulations in terms of castle guns, repairs, internal politics, but rule was entirely at daimyo's discretion (daimyo was controlled by having to provide men and money for projects, then having to spend six months out of the year at Edo [sankin kotai])

Edo Japan

Carefully ordered into the governing class (nobility: shogun and daimyo, with the subservient samurai) and the samurai above commoners, but cultivators below, with artisans and merchants at the bottom (merchants being a necessary evil at best), with outcasts who worked with dead animals and other distasteful occupations at the very bottom. Supposed to create a highly regulated society, it left some room for mobility and fluidity (especially by changing names) and gave privileges as well as ostracism to "outcasts."