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The Empress Dowager Sushi, 1835 to 1908 was the dominant figure in the chinese court for almost 50 years.
This was a time of rapid change and slow reform, when western powers and Japan humiliated China in war after war, and the ruling Qing dynasty could not or would not modernize fast enough.
Later generations blamed many of the failures on Su Xi, who arguably ruled in her own interests more than China's.
Yet she's also gained credit for starting some reforms, even if she didn't see them through.
With me to discuss the Empress Dowager Su hsi are Yang Wenzheng, professor of chinese history at the University of Manchester, Ronald Poe, associate professor in the Department of International History at London School of economics and visiting professor at Leiden University, and Rana Mitter, the SD Lee, professor of US Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Rana, what's the state of China in 1830s, when Su Xi was born?
The 1830s is an absolutely pivotal time in China's history because it marks the decade in which, essentially, China moved from being in control of its own destiny as a country to being a country, country that essentially was at the whim of others prior to the 1830s.
Why was that?
Well, prior to the 1830s, for about a century or so, China had been growing and becoming increasingly prosperous and increasingly confident.
Through the 18th century, it doubled its population size from 150 million to about 300 million people.
That was because there were new crops, new measures that meant that health improved amongst the population.
And overall, it was considered in some way something of a golden era, but that changed quite rapidly by the early to mid 19th century.
And in particular, there was one product, opium, that really shifted the dial because the british empire, having conquered east India, produced large amounts of opium from the poppies that were grown in Bengal in eastern India.
And China was the place that they targeted as a market for that opium.
And when the chinese government at the time, the Qing dynasty, refused to allow the entrance of opium into the country as a whole, that really meant that China found itself in a much more difficult position.