Republican China

The Fall of the Manchus/Qing Dynasty: “Made Efforts at ‘Self-Strengthening…”

1. Tried to reorganize the military along Western lines.

2. Attempted improved knowledge of the West and Western modernization.

3. Chinese emissaries sent abroad to learn.

4. Tried to modernize the infrastructure of Manchu society.

a) First telegraph network (1879).

b) First railroad (1880).

c) First iron works, at Haiyang (1890).

But too little, too late…

1. Excessive bureaucratic controls by the dynastic government hindered the

reinvestment of profits and therefore prevented sustained free-market growth.

2. The unequal treaties by the Western powers kept China from protecting its

industries from competition with better-established foreign companies.

3. Culture: Local, rural Chinese thought telegraphs and railroads would interfere

with ancestors’ graves and create unemployment. Opposed and sometimes

sabotaged development.

4. By 1894: A dismal 195 miles of RR track in the entire country!

Humiliation from Japan

1. Following the Japanese Meiji Restoration (1868), Japan rapidly outpaced

China in modern industrial and military development.

2. By the 1870s, Japan claimed the disputed Ryukyus Islands and “forced open”

Korea in 1876.

3. The Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)

a) Both China and Japan send in forces when a rebellion begins in Korea.

b) Japan, wanting to provoke war with China, sank a Chinese troop carrier.

c) China was no match for Japan and was quickly defeated by its much

smaller neighbor.

d) China was forced to pay 200 million oz. of silver, forced to give up to

Japan’s control of Taiwan (renamed Formosa) and the Liadong Peninsula,

and Japan could open factories in China

The Boxer Rebellion

1. Emerges in 1898 as an impoverished peasant uprising in northwest China.

2. Combining traditional martial arts, spiritual/shamanistic beliefs, and extreme

xenophobia, they called themselves the “Fists of Righteous Harmony,” or

“Boxers” by the West.

3. Harassed, killed, and destroyed the property of Western foreigners,

missionaries, and Chinese Christians.

4. Appeared in Beijing and Tianjin in 1900. The Empress Dowager tried to

harness them and turn them against the Western powers in their Western

coastal concessions.

5. Twelve nations, including the United States, sent in 20,000 forces to suppress

the Boxers and evacuate Westerners, but also Chinese Christians to California.

6. The Qing Dynasty was forced by the Western powers, in retribution for its

support of the Boxers, to pay 450 million oz. of silver; twice the dynasties

revenues to be paid over forty years with interest!

The Empress Dowager

1. Known as Cixi (1835-1908).

2. Notoriously corrupt and spent vast sums of money on her luxury items, and

her “marble yacht” and “fire cart.”

3. Reigned as an incompetent regent from 1861 to 1908.

4. To many young, educated, and “revolutionary-minded” Chinese, she

symbolized everything that was wrong with the dynastic system.

The Revolution of 1911

First Decade of 20th Century: Rising protest and demands for reform from

educated Chinese, including many who had studied abroad in the US

Henry Pu-yi (1906-1967)

1. Came to power at the age of 2 when the emperor and Cixi died in 1908.

2. Last Emperor of China (A great but lengthy 1987 film was made about

him titled The Last Emperor).

3. Reign lasted less than four years from December 1908 to February 1912.

Sun Yatsen (1866-1925; Sun Zhongshan in pinyin)

Along with Mao, Dr. Sun is a towering figure in modern Chinese history.

Despite not being communist, he is still widely regarded across China today

as the “Father of Modern China.” His portrait and statue are more commonly

seen in China than any figure except Mao himself.

1. Family members had spent time abroad and some lived in California and

Hawaii.

2. Sun was sent to Hawaii for school in 1879, where an older brother was a

landowner. He studied in Honolulu at the small, private Punahou Academy

(which also claims Barrack Obama as one of its alum).

3. Sent back to Hong Kong where he was baptized as a Christian and began

studying medicine.

4. Great admirer of American constitutionalism, Alexander Hamilton and

Abraham Lincoln. Also admired Western European socialism.

5. Returned to Hawaii in 1894 and founded the Revive China Society with

branches in Hawaii and Hong Kong. In 1896, like many young reformed and

revolutionaries, he cut off his Manchu queue (which was a sign of defiance to

the Qing) and adopted Western clothes, as did many revolutionaries.

6. Spent time in Japan and founded the Revolutionary Alliance along with other

Chinese reformers, some more radical than he. With Japanese help, he

emerged as a well-known leader among the reformers and revolutionaries.

7. While the Alliance tried to build support and sponsor several uprisings, Sun

traveled widely in the United States searching for funds and support, which he

was fairly successful at owing to his Western ties and demeanor and

especially his Christian conversion which earned the support of numerous

Americans churches and missionary societies.

The Revolution

1. Yuan Shikai (1859-1916)

a) In 1911, a bomb exploded in the headquarters of the Revolutionary

Alliance.

b) Army officers, many of whom supported the Alliance, feared exposure as

revolutionaries and took over Beijing. They used their influence to

pressure the Chinese outer provinces to declare independence.

c) Within 6 weeks, 15 declared their secession from Manchu rule.

d) The dynasty asked Yuan Shikai to take over, who then turned and

negotiated with Dr. Sun and the Alliance.

2. The Constitutional Agreement

a) Henry Pu-yi abdicated in February 1912, imperial rule ends.

b) Shikai became Interim President of the new Chinese Republic.

c) Sun Yatsen returned from the U.S. in March to issue a provisional

constitution and organize elections.

3. The Nationalist Party and Shikai’s Brief Dictatorship

a) In the 1913 elections, the successor to the Revolutionary Alliance, Sun

Yatsen’s Goumindang Party (GMD), or Nationalist Party, wins over half

the seats.

b) Shikai had the leading GMD organizer assassinated.

c) Shikai then used force to subdue the provinces that refused to declare

renewed allegiance to him.

d) In 1915, Shikai announced that he would become a new emperor,

initiating a new dynasty on January 1, 1916, but dies in June.

e) Sun and his inner circle had fled to Japan to keep from being killed by

Shikai.

The Warlord Era: 1916-1928

Warlordism

1. When Shikai dies, China comes apart as no central power, including Sun’s

Nationalists was strong to hold the country together. Local armies under

former Qing generals take control in local areas.

2. Destructive wars rage, especially across North China.

3. Banditry was rampant.

The First United Front

1. Sun returns from Japan to Guangzhou in 1916, after Shikai died, to maintain

and assume control of the Nationalist government, but with little authority

outside of Guangzhou in the far south and no military capability.

2. The May Fourth Movement (1919).

a) At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, following World War I, the

Western powers (the US, GB, & FR) awarded former German

possessions in China to Japan to reward it for its participation against

Germany, without consulting China whatsoever.

b) Thousands of Chinese students’ riot and protest at Tiananmen Square.

c) Strikes and demonstrations spread to more than 200 cities.

d) The warlord government in Beijing (not Sun’s) arrests 1,150 but releases

them.

e) Has a galvanizing effect on Chinese opinion for the better, marking the

beginning of a true, country-wide nationalist movement. A politically

conscious middle-class begins to emerge.

3. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forms in Shanghai in 1921 with Soviet

support.

4. Starting in 1923, Dr. Sun and the GMD received Soviet aid in return for

accommodating the CCP, owing to Mikhail Borodin (1884-1951) and the

Comintern. CCP members were allowed to join the GMD as individuals but

not as a separate party cell of communists.

5. Dr. Sun never was a communist himself but found common cause with them

as he believed that they, like himself, genuinely wanted a better China and

saw no reason not to cooperate.

6. Sun’s chief lieutenant, and his son-in-law, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi in

pinyin) returns from study in Moscow in 1924 to establish the Huangpu

Military Academy in Guangzhou with Soviet aid and advice.

7. The Huangpu Military Academy.

By 1926, Huangpu graduated several thousand officers, and the GMD

army has 100,000 men in uniform under Chiang’s leadership. The GMD

finally had a military capacity.

8. Sun dies unexpectedly in 1925; Chiang takes command of the GMD

The Nationalist Period (1928-1937)

Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975)

1. Came from upper middleclass family of salt merchants and landlords; father

died when he was very young.

2. Wanted to be a Confucian scholar and take the mandarin exams but never did.

Embarked upon a military career instead, studying military science in Japan.

3. While in Japan, he becomes affiliated with the Revolutionary Alliance and

later the GMD.

4. Appointed by Sun to head Huangpu and then head of GMD.

The Northern Expedition (July 1916)

1. Launched and led by Chiang in 1926 as he believed that Nationalist Army was

ready.

2. The GMD plan was to re-unify the country from the warlords thru force;

planned before Sun’s death.

3. Supported by the CCP which helped by mobilizing peasants and workers.

4. Chiang’s Nationalist forces defeated 34 warlords in less than a year; Warlord

Era ends.

5. Garners great patriotic fervor and international attention. The Northern

Expedition becomes the stuff of legend. Chiang, like Sun, was also a

Christian and therefore had many contacts in and great support from many

American quarters.

The “White Terror”

1. Unlike Sun, Chiang hated the Communists and moved to crush the CCP in

April 1927, as his army approached Shanghai on its return southward,

directing the “Green Gang” to execute labor union leaders and communists

organizers in the city.

2. The “Green Gang.”

The “Green Gang” was a powerful, mafia-like criminal organization

which controlled the streets of Shanghai, trafficking in drugs, gambling,

prostitution, etc. With ties to the early 17th-century Chinese Triad, they were

virulently anti-communist and Chiang had many supporters among its

members.

3. GMD forces attack nearly 100,000 striking workers and CCP members in

Shanghai, killing an est. 12,000.

4. CCP flees to the countryside and suffers repression at GMD hands, tens of

thousands ultimately killed. By the end of 1927, CCP membership had

declined from 60,000 to 10,000.

5. CCP flees southwestward to a remote part of China from 1928 to 1931 and

forms the “Jiangxi Soviet,” largely under Russian advisory leadership.

6. Chiang attacks the Jiangxi Soviet in 1934 in the fifth “extermination

campaign,” forcing the communists to flee once more towards the northwest

during a legendary flight known as the “Long March.”

7. The Long March: 80,000 CCP soldiers, porters and followers set out on a

6,000 mile march. Only 8,000 survived until the end, although numbers

approached 20,000 as peasants joined them on the way.

8. Very Important: During the Long March, Mao Zedong wrests control of the

CCP away from Russian advisors and urban-oriented, Marxist purists to

become the leader.

9. Mao established the CCP base at Yan’an in 1935.

World War II: Japanese Aggression

1. Japanese army officers of the Japanese Kwangtung 8th Army assassinated the

warlord of Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin (1875-1928), in 1928, hoping to expand

their power at China’s expense.

2. Zhang Zoulin (1875-1928).

3. Three years later, 1931, Japanese soldiers explode a bomb on the Southern

Manchurian Railroad as a pretext for occupying Shanyang.

4. January 1932: Japan attacked Shanghai over anti-Japanese protests and

established a puppet-regime in Manchuria, renamed Manchukuo, with Henry

Pu-yi as their “puppet emperor.”

5. Manchukuo.

The “Rape of Nanjing”

1. In 1937, Japan attacked southwards to conquer China from Manchuria.

2. Chiang forced to give up Beijing and Tianjin but held out for 3 months in

Shanghai, where he lost 250,000 soldiers.

3. Chiang retreated to Nanjing but the Japanese attacked with an aerial

bombardment and invasion. Over 300,000 civilians killed, est. 20,000 women

raped and the city ruined. Reported in the Western press as the “Rape of

Nanjing.” Creates much international sympathy for China.

The Second United Front

Despite their differences, and Chiang’s history of trying to kill off the

CCP, Mao, and Chiang joined together in the Second United Front to oppose the

Japanese takeover of China. Mao, in a move much admired across the country,

recognized Chiang as the superior military leader and followed his lead in the

mutual war against Japan. Mao’s CCP was able to mobilize the peasants while

Chiang’s Nationalists led the army

U.S. Involvement

1. Even prior to what would be the obvious US involvement following

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Chiang and the Nationalists,

and even China at large, enjoyed much American support. Chiang and his wife, a

daughter of Sun Yatsen, were close personal friends of Henry and Clare Luce.

Henry Luce, one of the most influential news publishers in American history,

founded Life and Time magazines (in addition to Sports Illustrated and Fortune).

2. Born in China to Christian missionary parents, Luce, who was also

extremely anti-communist, led the American campaign known as the “China

Lobby” to oppose Japanese aggression and support Chiang’s Nationalist

government. Chiang and his wife appeared on the cover of Time magazine eleven

times between 1927 and 1955! Because of support like this and the American

church community, and because US public opinion turned vehemently against

Japan following the “Rape of Nanjing,” the US openly supported Chiang and the

Nationalist party in their war to resist Japan and also obviously supported Chiang,

as opposed to Mao, as a future leader of China. This is despite Chiang’s

dictatorial ways, his brutal repression of the CCP, and his ties to the criminal

underworld in China, which hardly any American at all knew anything about at

the time.