China’s Qing Dynasty Collapsed For Reasons That Feel Eerily

The Qing dynasty in China, despite its incredible socio-political success across two centuries, had collapsed to nothing by 1912. The reasons for the decline of the imperial system have long been debated, and a new study highlights three crucial factors that played a role – each of which are scarily familiar to us today.

Led by the Manchu people, the Great Qing took control of Beijing in 1644 and reached its greatest extent in terms of area by 1760. In 1820, the imperial dynasty had made China the world’s largest economy, but trouble lay ahead.

Here, researchers from Osaka University in…