<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Standard Mandarin </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Hanyu Pinyin </Th> <Td> bǎirì wéixīn </Td> </Tr> <P> The Hundred Days' Reform was a failed 104 - day national, cultural, political, and educational reform movement from 11 June to 22 September 1898 in late Qing dynasty China . It was undertaken by the young Guangxu Emperor and his reform - minded supporters . Following the issuing of the reformative edicts, a coup d'état ("The Coup of 1898", Wuxu Coup) was perpetrated by powerful conservative opponents led by Empress Dowager Cixi . </P> <P> Guangxu (born 1871, reigned 1875--1908) ordered a series of reforms aimed at making sweeping social and institutional changes . He did this in response to weaknesses exposed by China's defeat by Japan in the First Sino - Japanese War in 1894 - 1895, not long after the First (1839 - 1842) and Second (1856 - 1860) Opium Wars; this blow came as a major shock to the Chinese, because Japan had been regarded as a tributary state, was much smaller than China, and was regarded as inferior . China also fought France in the Sino - French War from 1884 to 1885 . Moreover, the defeat of China by Japan led to a scramble for "privileges" in China by other foreign powers, notably by the German Empire and Russia, further awakening the conservatives . </P>

Who stopped the reforms of the qing emperor in 1898