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Discussion HW 4

NA

List and discuss one (1) reason for the decline in each of the Ottoman, Russian and Chinese empires.

 

The reason for the decline in the Ottoman Empire was because they couldn’t ward off European economic penetration or prevent territorial dismemberment. They endured defeats on the battlefield and lacked in good strategies, tactics and weapons. Loss of military power turned into a decline of the central government. The really relied on foreign loans and half of the revenues had high interest. This caused less trade through the empire. The Russian Empire was similar to the Ottoman Empire, they experienced battlefield reverses that left the economy in despair. The Crimean War showed the weakness of the Russian Empire because they couldn’t hold their own against industrial powers. Russian armies suffered humiliating defeats on their own land. This made them reevaluate their social order. The Chinese had it the worst of all of them, the opium war was one of the main factors. The cohong system made it inconvenient for them, they had to manage a market with little demand. That is when they looked to exchange opium, they would exchange it for Chinese silver coin. The silver flowed back to the British, where company merchants used it to buy Chinese products. The opium trade expanded rapidly and the East India Company paid for the luxury Chinese products. Even though the Opium trade was thriving it started creating problems, draining large quantities of silver from China and creating social problems. When Lin Zexu stepped up he destroyed the Opium trade by destroying 20,000 chests of opium. This ignited a war and China had a humiliating defeat.