Prior to the Opium Wars, there was a dominant narrative of Chinese self-sufficiency and supremacy as an isolated nation. After devastating defeats during the Opium Wars, China began incorporating foreign technologies and ideologies for the survival of its states. In the wake of the Opium War, the Self Strengthening movement began. As the havoc of rebellion, religious uprising and widespread famine,  plagued imperial China, the Chinese people struggled to integrate the principles behind Western success after it suffered the humiliation of being coerced into the unequal treaties. From educational reforms, to weapon purchases and even the integration of religious ideology, various philosophies in China developed to counter foreign invasion through a creation of some semblance of national unity. In the end, after the failure of the Hundred Days Reform, a last ditch effort to reform the Qing dynasty, there is an inspiration for a new era of social change, through a vision of a young China. To understand Chinese foreign policy today, it is essential to analyze this history of pride, humiliation, and adaption as imperial China metamorphosed from an old husk to its image of a young revolutionary, hellbent of national cohesion and unity.