The Westernization Movement advocated learning from foreigners to control them. Why was the Qing Dynasty beaten by foreigners with no strength to fight back?

First of all, the gap between the Qing Dynasty and foreigners is very large, so to some extent, the Westernization Movement can only slow down the pace of the demise of the Qing Dynasty, or even make up for this gap.

Secondly, the Westernization Movement learned superficial technology, but failed to learn the true essence of others. Systematically, the Qing Dynasty was still the corrupt monarchy, and the Westernization Movement was an out-and-out bureaucratic class movement, which had nothing to do with ordinary people.

And officials at this time are very corrupt. Take beiyang fleet as an example. Although it was the largest fleet in the world at that time, it only looked powerful on the surface, but it was actually just a show. A lot of shipbuilding money was swallowed up by these officials, so that during the Sino-Japanese War, their shells hit other people's ships like tickling others, because most of them were duds.

Not only that, foreigners developed so many years earlier than you and experienced the baptism of the industrial revolution. Their weapons are very advanced, and the technology of making weapons is not something you can catch up with in a short time.

In addition, at that point in time, the Qing Dynasty had just experienced the Opium War. Opium aggression can be said to make China people's physique very poor. It is difficult to find an army that can really fight against foreigners, so the ratio of war losses between the enemy and ourselves in a war is very large and there is no ability to wrestle with others.

Coupled with the peasant uprising in the Qing Dynasty, I have no energy to fight foreigners in the face of this situation. I even think that even if Kangxi is reincarnated, it will not save this riddled Qing Dynasty.