China was certainly one of the most viable non-European cultures of the 19th century. In fact, China had been far in advance of Europe in terms of literacy, technology, art, and government for centuries by the year 1800. The idea that a European culture could make an impression on any part of China would have seemed ridiculous to the Chinese and the Europeans alike before about 1820.
China had been the location of the invention of the magnetic compass, the astrolabe, paper, and the movable type printing press centuries before Europe. Iron, paper money, credit, banking, checks, all were a part of Chinese culture for nearly 500 years before they had become a part of European culture.
Chronological Comparison of Development of Major Technologies in china & Europe:
| Technology | Arrival in China | Arrival in Europe |
| mariner's Compass | 10th Century | 1180 |
| movable Rudder | 4th century | 1190 |
| harnessing of Horse | 5th - 10th centuries | 1200 |
| wheelbarrow | 1st-2nd century | 1250 |
| gunpowder | 904-905 | after 1350 |
| segmented arch bridge | 610 | 1340 |
| paper | 1st - 2nd century CE | 13th century |
| wood block printing | 8th century | 1375 |
| movable printing press | 1048 | 1430-1460 |
| lock gates | 11th - 13th century | 1375 |
| cast iron | 4th century BCE | 1380 CE |
| steel | 200BCE - 100CE | 1380 CE |
(Data taken from Jaques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.378.)
By the middle of the 19th century Europeans were spending personal fortunes to buy Chinese products such as tea, silk, and porcelain. Chinese and Japanese art was all the rage.
By the end of the 19th century, the European interest in China, Japan, and other parts of Asia was still high, but from a different perspective: that of imperial overseer and investor. Asia came within the European sphere of influence at a rapid rate during the long 19th century as superior European armaments combined with a sense that empire was part of what made a country a great power, and with the desire for profit. In the 1890s, what had been the "scramble for Africa" became the race for territory. European powers claimed and conquered territories willy nilly, at least in part from the fear that if they did not, someone else might. China was caught in the crossfire.
But what was Chinese civilization like before the 19th century, when European power and influence seemed of all things the least likely to occur? China, from early in its history, had seen itself as the center, the Middle Kingdom, core of human culture and learning. The Qing dynasty, by the 19th century Manchu in name only, was certainly prey to that assumption. They had reason to be.
Since 1644, when the Manchu Banners successfully conquered Beijing and installed themselves as the new (if foreign) emperors of China, they had ruled a kingdom that was central to Asia, wealthier than almost any other kingdom on earth, well organized, and highly literate. They built upon that tradition.
To gain legitimacy as rulers of China, the Manchus had to portray themselves as, essentially, more Chinese than the Chinese. By this, I mean that to gain the trust of the Chinese people as the rightful rulers of China, the Manchu regime had been aware from the start it would have to use more than simple force of arms. With only an army to back it, stability would become the main problem, as any group with a bigger army would have the ability to 
challenge the Manchu government. Therefore, they had to make the Chinese believe that they had the "Mandate of Heaven" regardless of their foreign origins. To do this on the heels of a regime that was, to put it mildly, jingoistic, was a double challenge.
The Manchus, who took the dynastic name Qing, rose to that challenge with a well-planned and well administered governmental machine that took as its core Chinese ideology and functions from the previous dynasty and many other dynasties before that.
The Manchu government, with the Emperor at the top, fit itself into the same organizational structure and legal system that had been used by the previous Ming Dynasty, with only a few changes. The six ministries of the upper bureaucracy were kept intact, as was the council of ministers that advised the emperor. The structure below the ministry level, in which provincial governors were responsible for administering large regional districts, followed by the lowest rung on the administrative ladder, the district magistrate, was kept as well. Magistrates had the hardest job of
all, being responsible for maintaining all roads in a region, and registering a population of 25,000 to 55,000 on tax, corvée labor, and census roles, administering justice, acting as chief investigator, filling the role of prosecutor, serving as primary tax collector, and as the most important scholar in a district. Magistrates were busy constantly, and since the law stated that they could not be from the district which they managed, they also had to cultivate ties with the local landed gentry and scholar classes if they wanted to get anything done. This involved long hours of planning and attending dinners and parties, and plenty of shmoozing and keeping the wine flowing, even with people whose company they did not enjoy.
This well organized government also had another important feature, and that was its very accessibility; a feature that no other government in the world could claim at the time. Power in the Chinese system did not go with the individual, but rather with the office he held. Theoretically when an individual needed a permit, or to get something done, he or she knew exactly what office to go to, and could get government action without having personal connections in the government. The Qing emperors worked hard throughout the dynasty to maintain this transparency and transferability of power, in order to reduce corruption. One way in which they did so was through a rather opaque organization, the Censorate, an administrative office that answered only to the emperor directly, and was empowered to place spies in other ministries, in towns, and in various groups. Those spies were given special systems of communicating so that their messages would reach the emperor directly and be seen by no one else prior to the imperial gaze. The emperors of the Qing frequently made use of these spies, and often replied to them in the signature vermilion ink of the Qing throne, giving advise and orders to counter any potential problems.
The problem of Manchus in the ministries was solved in an ingenious, if expensive way. It was assumed that most Chinese would not want to deal with a Manchu in the ministries. While the Manchus could speak and read the Chinese language fluently, the Chinese were not expected to trust them. On the other hand, the Manchus did not feel they could trust the administration of China to the Chinese, for fear of rebellion, embezzlement, etc … So the Qing established a system whereby every member of government higher than a certain level would be shadowed by a Chinese who was assumed to be capable of such a tour.
Simple efficiency, and the lack of change from previous dynasties, was enough to make the Qing liked by a large number of people, who benefited economically and in terms of security, from the stability such a regime provided.
At a societal level, the Qing kept legitimacy through the use of the Confucian tradition held most sacred among Chinese government officials. Confucianism stressed the human part of an eternal equation that kept balance to all things in the world, from the slaughter of animals to the role of each individual in society. The primary emphasis of Confucianism was on proper behavior - what Confucius called "the rites" and ritual. Ritual here was defined broadly as the proper way to conduct any activity which has meaning between people. Confucius and his followers over centuries developed carefully defined rituals that they considered to be both traditional and conducive to peaceful civil relations between all members of society. Confucianism defined how any member of society should behave in any given circumstance toward any other member of society. It also emphasized the importance of each person in a society, stressing that even the lowliest farmer had a critical role to play in society. If anyone stepped out of their role, as in the case of a farmer trying to become a merchant, for example, the ripples of his neglecting the farm would spread throughout society like a shockwave, destabilizing the position of all others. Thus people were to respect their own roles, and the roles of others, and behave toward each other with honesty and humility. The person upon whom the greatest weight fell was the emperor, who was looked upon as the father of the kingdom, and accordingly had to provide a behavioral example for all of the people of China.
The Confucian philosophy of correct behavior, ritual, and how this applied to law and government was extremely complex by 1644, having been developed over centuries since Confucius' own lifetime in the 4th century BCE. The Manchus, who had studied Chinese for generations, adopted this philosophy wholesale, and continued to use it as seriously as had the Ming Dynasty before them in organizing and operating government.
In all, it is safe to say that China in the nineteenth century, far from needing European trade and advice, was secure and successful on its own. The Chinese experienced stability, economic growth, an increase in population with, until the 1900's, a corresponding increase in the ability to feed the population. China's literature, science, art, and history were alive and well before the Europeans arrived, and Chinese commercial culture appeared to be moving toward a commercial and industrial revolution of its own, with a very different character from that of Europe, prior to the 1830's. What changed, with the arrival in force of the Europeans in the 1830's, was China's need to adapt to European technology - and this China found to be very difficult indeed. Simple recognizing the need to adapt on a societal level was difficult for a culture that had always, with good reason, seen itself as the pinnacle of human development.