China’s Guangxu emperor adopts Kang Youwei’s program in 1898 and issues edicts covering the creation of a public education system, construction of a manufacturing and transportation infrastructure, centralization and reorganization of the military and modernization of the bureaucracy in the so-called “Hundred Days of Reform”.

Cixi, China’s Dowager Empress, leads a conservative faction in imprisoning the emperor and abruptly curtailing the Hundred Days.

The abortive reform movement strengthens the growing anti-Manchu sentiment.