A short-lived reform movement (weixin yundong 维新运动) of hundred days was lead by Kang Youwei 康有为 and Liang Qichao 梁启超, people that could win the Guangxu Emperor for their cause.

They tried to reform the state examinations, administration, state budget, ministries, education, jurisdiction, and military. The movement was abruptly ended by conservative circles, some followers of the reform movement like Tan Sitong 谭嗣同 were exectued, but Kang and Liang escaped to Japan.

Kang blamed Empress Dowager Cixi for the abortion of the reforms and contributed much to the bad reputation of Cixi in China and the West. In fact, his undertaking was illusory from the begin in a time when the central government lost more and more control over China.

According to the Chinese cyclical year denominations, the reform movement is called Wuxu Bianfa 戊戌变法 Only after the Boxer Uprising in 1900, the central government undertook some small steps in the direction of a reform.

The state examinations should include practical science and were finally ended in 1905, ministries for finance and economy were created, and the target was a constitutional monarchy after the model of Japan, and in 1910 a national constitution was planned.

But all these reformery undertakings came too late. The central government had shoven off the task of modernization to the provincial governors for too long, and these governors had not strength enough to modernize the whole empire of China.

Modern explanations for Qing's ruin include two reasons, the first reason is, of course, the economical exploitation by the imperialist powers that suppressed the birth of a Chinese capitalism; the second reason is seen in the fact that the late Qing government was not aware that deep changes had taken place in the Western world and that China could only encounter these challenges by modernizing its political and economical system, and that most people of the upper class did not give up the Confucian mentality that a morally exquisit ruler is able to cope with all internal and external problems.