At its peak in the mid eighteenth century, the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644-1911) was arguably the world's strongest, wealthiest and most flour­ishing polity.

Within half a century it was showing signs of demographic and social strain, and by the 1850s its very existence was challenged by the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping tianguo), a religious rebellion that occupied much of the southern half of the country, bringing destruc­tion on a scale that eclipsed by a factor of twenty the entire mortality of the American Civil War.

Even after that rebellion had been suppressed, similar movements, arising out of poverty and dislocation, and often expressing variations on the same religious themes, would continue to break out across China for the remainder of the nineteenth century. The spectre of militarised religion would haunt governments of the subsequent Republic of China (1912-49, continued on Taiwan) and People's Republic of China (founded 1949), so much so that they would continue to react violently against religious movements as recently as the 1999 campaign against Falungong.

More on the topic At its peak in the mid eighteenth century, the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644-1911) was arguably the world's strongest, wealthiest and most flour­ishing polity.:

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