Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Qing Dynasty and Diversity

The Qing Dynasty was tolerant of other cultures. The Qing conquered vast swaths of land in the western and northern parts of the empire and made the territories of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang part of the chinese empire. The chinese did not force the newly conquered people to abandon their own culture and showed considerable respect towards their ways of living. Noblemen and religious people were exempted from taxes and manual labor expected from normal citizens. The Qing Dynasty shrewdly put a limit on the number of merchants and immigrants entering the Mongol land because the chinese wanted to recruit the inherently feisty Mongols for their army, and feared that the chinese would dilute this fighting spirit. 

The Qing and Ottoman empires were both tolerant, the Qing being tolerant towards ethnic groups while the Ottomans were tolerant of religion, Christianity. 

The Qing differed sharply from the Safavid Empire because the Safavids forced everyone to convert to Shia Islam. While the Mughals under Akbar were pretty tolerant, Akbar still sought a way to unite everyone under the Islamic/Hindu hybrid religion he created. The Qing were content to let the Tibetans, Mongolians and Xinjiangs be. 

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