Interwar Asia Period

The Changing World

Totalitarian Leaders

  • Russia

  • Italy

  • Germany

  • Japan


Major Changes

  • Imperial China collapses

  • India gains self-rule

  • Turkey

  • Iran


Imperial China Collapses

  • In 1911 Nationalists Overthrow the Qing Dynasty

  • Qing had ruled since 1644

  • Republic founded

  • Sun Yat-sen becomes President but turns over position

  • Returns later as leader of the Nationalist party

  • Republic doesn’t last and local warlords take over

Impact of World War 1

  • China declares war against Germany & enters WWI

  • May Fourth Movement:

  • Treaty of Versailles - German territories in China turned over to Japanese

  • Huge anti-imperialist protests throughout China

  • Chinese intellectuals turned to communism instead of Western democracy

Mao Zedong

  • Beijing University assistant librarian

  • Organizes the Chinese Communist Party

  • Believed the peasants could be the true revolutionaries

  • A civil war for control of China begins

Civil War in China

  • Nationalists led by Chiang Kai Shek

  • Supported by the middle class

  • Recognized by the US and Britain

  • Communists led by Mao Zedong

  • Supported by the peasants

  • Recognized by Lenin


Civil War in China

  • Nationalists victorious at first

  •  A Republic formed in 1927

  • Chiang Kai-Shek becomes the new President

  • Civil War erupts – 1930 and lasts until 1949

  • The Long March – 1933-34

  • Mao and 100,000 men flee 6,000 miles through China

  • Mao and the Communists gain followers

  • Truce called while when war with Japan began in 1937

India Ends British Rule

  • Nationalist movements begin after WW1

  • Rowlatt Act -“emergency measures” to control the public

  • Amritsar Massacre - British troops fired on a protest

  • Mohandas Gandhi emerges as leader of non-violent protests

  • 1920 – Congress Party endorsed Civil disobedience

  • The Salt March brings worldwide attention

  • India winds partial self rule in 1935

Ottoman Empire to Turkey

  • The Ottoman Empire was partitioned after WW1

  • Turkey fights for its independence

  • Mustafa Kemal Ataturk leads the movement 

  • Becomes 1st President and “Father of the Turks” 

Persia to Iran

  • The Qajar dynasty had led the “Sublime State of Persia” for 130 years

  • Reza Pahlavi led a coup d'état in 1921

  • Became Iran's prime minister & later Shah

  • Changes name internationally from Persia to Iran