Serious efforts to transform the defensive, self-limiting Qing Empire into a modern nation-state that could effectively mobilize its economic and human resources to become a rich state with a strong military and thus survive in the modern world began about 1900, both inside the Qing polity and among its opponents. All participants in this effort recognized that there had to be much basic learning from foreign examples if China was to be able to resist foreign aggression. The example of Meiji Japan was especial¬ly important. The Japanese and others were of course ready to provide advisors of all kinds and thus to increase their own influence. The mutual co-optation of May Fourth radicals and Moscow in the 1920's was another phase of this contradictory process.
Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan.
D. R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996.
Michael H. Hunt, "The May Fourth Era and China's Place in the World,” in K. Lieberthal et al., eds., Perspectives on Modern China: Four Anniversaries
William C. Kirby, Germany and Republican China
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