Part of what caused the instability in China in the nineteenth century was a population explosion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that continued on through the 1800s. The population grew from 150 million in 1650 to 450 million by 1900. There was very little land to feed this huge population, and famine became a problem. Further, the bureaucracy, which for many centuries had efficiently managed the country, was not increased at all to reflect the population growth. That meant the bureaucrats in power were overwhelmed and became focused on their own regions rather than on China as a whole.

Compounding the population problem were pressures from Europe, the United States, and Japan, all of whom wanted access to lucrative Chinese markets. When the Chinese government tried to keep out foreigners, especially objecting to the destructive opium trade they felt the British and other outsiders were pushing on its people, Britain (and, in the Second Opium war, Britain and France) used its military might to force the Qing dynasty into a series of humiliating and unequal treaties.

Famines, overpopulation, imperialism, the blow to Chinese pride at no longer being treated as an advanced civilization, and corruption weakened the Chinese state. The enormous problems the Chinese faced in the nineteenth century set the stage for the overthrow of the monarchy and then the communist takeover of the twentieth century, which modernized and transformed Chinese society.