why did self strengthening fail?

Why did Self-Strengthening Fail?

Self-strengthening was aimed to preserve traditional Chinese ideals (Confucianism) and to incorporate modern Western technology into their society. It was “learning the superior techniques of the barbarians to control the barbarians” as Wei Yuan stated. However, self-strengthening failed due to a number of reasons: lack of co-ordination, lack of money, lack of skilled people, traditional Confucian attitudes, limited scopes and government corruption.
One of the most harmful to the self-strengthening movement was Chinese attitude to reform. Chinese people were very traditional therefore unwilling to change. There was a lot of opposition towards Chinese studying abroad. For a decade after 1872, 30 boys per year were sent to study in Connecticut. Chinese people back home disliked this as the boys become “too westernised” and had started dressing like westerners. Hsu suggests that the Chinese people despised Westerners; thi...