China's modern times began after the Opium War in 1840. After the Opium War, China became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Later, in 1842, we signed the first foreign treaty, treaty of nanking, but this was only the beginning. Later, other countries either took advantage of the fire to rob and sign unequal treaties with us, or launched wars to force the Qing Dynasty to sign treaties with itself.
After 1842, China was forced to sign more than 100 treaties with large and small foreign countries, and these treaties either made us pay, ceded land, or "demanded" that we allow other countries to enter China for activities. This series of unequal treaties has a direct impact on the future. Without money, social development cannot continue, and it is extremely shameful to cede land. However, allowing foreign countries to be allowed within China's borders seems to be good for China, which strengthens China people's understanding of the outside world. After all, since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the southeast coastal areas of our country have been affected by the Japanese pirates, which made our country move home and began a century-long closed door.
And signed such a treaty, there will be a most shameful treaty-the most far-reaching impact on China's "shame and ugliness treaty", and the person who signed this treaty, Li Hongzhang, became the target of public criticism. Everyone vented all their humiliation, sadness and anger on Li Hongzhang. Now, someone will step on Li Hongzhang from time to time. However, no one is perfect. Although Li Hongzhang is burdened with indelible mistakes, he can't ignore his other contributions in history: Li Hongzhang realized the backwardness of the Qing court after the defeat and began to develop "learning from foreigners to control foreigners." Although the Qing court still suffered repeated defeats and wars, Li Hongzhang's Westernization Movement laid the foundation for the future development in industry, diplomacy, commerce and education.
When Li Hongzhang was sent to other countries, he also showed his attitude: for example, when he was sent to Japan, he resolutely refused to touch the ground; When I am in the United States, I will visit the late President Grant, because Grant became friends with Li Hongzhang when he visited China. When he visited the American library, he followed because he couldn't smoke. When he left the library, he spat and was asked by the staff to wipe it off. Although Li Hongzhang knew that he was wrong, he refused to erase it in order not to bend his knees and affect the image of a big country. In order to eliminate the entanglement, he gave a tip to the staff. I would rather spend some money than damage the national image, because Li Hongzhang has always had his own pride in his heart. Li Hongzhang has different opinions in history. He is already a historical figure. For us now, when evaluating him, we should not look at him from the past, but comment on him with dialectical thinking. What do you think of Li Hongzhang spitting in front of the American library 122 years ago, and the way to deal with the results later?