Archive: Empress Dowager Cixi

Misha Glenny selects this 2024 episode from the In Our Time archive, in which Yangwen Zheng, Rana Mitter, and Ronald Po discuss Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi rose from low-ranking concubine to the most powerful figure in the late Qing court, ruling for nearly fifty years first through her young son and then through another child emperor. Her reign coincided with repeated humiliations of China by Western powers and Japan, and she faced the challenge of modernizing the empire. While she had opportunities to drive reforms, Cixi often obstructed or delayed them when they threatened the Qing dynasty or her own interests. She has been personally blamed for many of China’s setbacks, though historians debate how much responsibility was truly hers.