China: history 1900–49

For Chinese history prior to 1900, see China: prehistoric and ancient history to 221 BC; China: early imperial history 221 BC–AD 1279: and China: late imperial history 1279–1900.

The foundation of the Chinese republic After the Boxer Uprising of 1900 (which had been supported by the empress dowager Zi Xi) the Manchu dynasty was again forced to make concessions in the direction of reform. Between 1901 and 1905 the old civil-service examination system was abolished and military reform promised. After Japan's impressive victory over Russia in 1905 clamour for a constitutional monarchy revived and the court promised steps towards constitutional government. But reforms were made too little and too late. Republicanism grew ever stronger, fostered by the United League of Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-sen). Risings took place in 1910, but the decisive rising took place in Wuhan on 10 October 1911 under United League leadership.

The movement, which was more antidynastic than republican, rapidly spread, and soon embraced most of the southern provinces of China. In December 1911 Sun Zhong Shan, the inspiration behind the revolution, returned to China from the USA and was elected president of the republic at a convention in Nanjing where the provisional government was set up. Meanwhile the Manchu court had called on Yuan Shihkai, the commander of the modern northern army, who came to their aid on being granted unqualified powers. Yuan's temporizing tactics paid off when in February 1912 the emperor abdicated and Yuan was elected president of the new republic by agreement with Sun.

Struggles in the early republic Almost immediately the struggle between the president and parliamentarians began. The parliamentarians organized themselves into the Guomindang in 1912. Yuan was censured by the National Assembly in 1913 for negotiating a large foreign loan, and in July southern provincial governors belonging to the Guomindang rose against him in a second revolution, which was crushed. Sun Zhong Shan fled to Japan, the Guomindang was dissolved, and parliament rigged.

In 1914 Japan attacked the German-leased territory of Kiaochow and on 7 November captured Qingdao (Tsingtao). Japan also occupied Chinese districts in Shandong, thus violating Chinese neutrality. Protests were met by the notorious Twenty-one demands, by which Japan effectively demanded the control of China. An ultimatum forcing acceptance of these was delivered to China on 7 May 1915. Yuan partly accepted Japan's demands and thereby lost support for his scheme to become emperor, which was already halfway to realization. Widespread protests forced him to renounce any such ambition in March 1916 and he died shortly afterwards.

In different parts of country military leaders declared their provinces independent, and set themselves up as warlords. The Beijing government continued, but was ineffective, while a rival revolutionary government was set up in Guangzhou.

The 4th May Movement After World War I the Treaty of Versailles, which the Chinese government accepted and which would have awarded Shandong to Japan, sparked off a movement of protest that was the first to involve ordinary citizens. Known as the 4th May Movement (1919) it was started by Beijing University students and spread to the workers and shopkeepers of Shanghai. The government was forced to dismiss the minister of foreign affairs and two other junior ministers previously responsible for the negotiations with Japan.

The students and their tutors realized that China's backwardness was deep-rooted and that the whole pattern of Chinese feudal thought was an anachronism in the modern world. The student movement then turned to questioning the value of the whole traditional pattern of Chinese thought and custom.

The most remarkable achievement of this movement was the reform of the education system. Hitherto the classical language had been the medium of instruction; now school textbooks were written in the vernacular and a modern curriculum adopted. Within a year over 400 newspapers and magazines changed their style from the classical language to the vernacular, and since then a huge amount of literature, including short stories, novels, plays, and poetry, has been produced in the vernacular. At the same time proposals were made for the future replacement of the complicated Chinese writing system with a phonetic alphabet. The movement was hailed with some justification as the ‘Chinese Renaissance’.

On the political side, it was in this movement that some young intellectuals, among whom was Mao Zedong, started the pioneer work of organizing first a Marxism study group, and then the Chinese Communist Party (1921), which was soon destined to lead the entire nation on to a totally different road.

The establishment of Guomindang rule The Soviet Union created a favourable impression in China by formally relinquishing all extraterritorial rights in 1923. In contrast the Western powers earned only more ill will by refusing to recognize the Guangzhou government. The Soviets also lent practical aid to the Chinese revolution. In 1922 and 1923 their envoy, Adolf Joffe, met Sun Zhong Shan in Shanghai and Sun accepted Soviet help in streamlining and centralizing the Guomindang organization, agreeing at the same time to cooperate with the new-born Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Sun now envisaged an initial period of ‘party tutelage’ of the country, prior to the introduction of democracy. The First National Congress of the Guomindang was held in Guangzhou in 1924, where Sun's ‘Three People's Principles’ (nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood) were proclaimed.

The following year Sun died in Beijing while on a fruitless mission to negotiate the reunion of north and south. A second popular movement developed after demonstrating students were shot down in Shanghai by British-led International Settlement police on 30 May 1925, thus giving a boost to anti-imperialism and incidentally helping to prepare the way for the northward drive of the forces of the Guangzhou government, which began in July 1926 under the command of Jiang Jie Shi (Chiang Kai-shek). Jiang had been head of the Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy set up by Sun in 1924 and staffed by Soviet advisers. By autumn the Northern Expedition had taken Changsha and Wuhan, where the Guangzhou government transferred to set in motion a social revolution. In March 1927 both Nanjing and Shanghai fell to the southern armies.

A clash with the foreign powers on account of the murder of foreign nationals in Nanjing seemed imminent when Jiang Jie Shi, who had no sympathy with the leftist government in Wuhan, swooped on his erstwhile communist allies, executed thousands of them, and set up his own right-wing government in Nanjing. After much manoeuvring the communists were expelled from Wuhan and the Guomindang government united in Nanjing. The northern expedition was resumed under Jiang in 1928. In alliance with the warlords, Feng Yuxiang (Feng Yu-hsiang) and Yen Hsi-shan (Yan Xishan), Jiang defeated the local despot presiding over Beijing. The seat of government, however, remained Nanjing. Meanwhile the Communist Red Army had been formed from a nucleus of the old Fourth Army, and communist bases set up in southern provinces relying on peasant support.

The Guomindang–communist conflict The Guomindang seemed now in a position to rebuild China's fortunes, but in fact little progress was made. The warlords who had allied themselves with Jiang reasserted their independence and in 1929 civil wars recommenced. The Guomindang had little popular appeal and Jiang's recourse to a modified Confucianism hardly inspired the youth of the nation; the more politically inclined among them were more receptive to the call of the beleaguered communists, not only because of their progressive social policies, but also because they alone seemed determined to resist Japanese imperialism, now clearly the biggest threat to China's security.

The Second Sino-Japanese War began when Japan overran Manchuria in 1931, and the next year set up the puppet state of Manchukuo there, with the ex-emperor of China, Henry P'u-i as titular head of state. They then attacked Shanghai in 1932, and took control of Chengde (Jehol) in 1933, after which they thoroughly infiltrated northeast China.

Jiang Jie Shi's policy was to avoid conflict with the Japanese until internal rebellion had been suppressed. Hence from 1930 to 1934 his main efforts were directed to destroying the communist bases, the main one being the Jiangxi Soviet. Growing pressure on the base forced the communists to break out of the Guomindang encirclement in 1934 and begin the famous Long March, which took them first to the frontiers of Tibet and then back into Shanxi (northwest China) where they settled at Yan'an (Yenan) in October 1935. From the march Mao Zedong emerged as practically undisputed leader of the CCP.

A united front against the Japanese The troops entrusted with the suppression of the communists in their new base were under Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsüeh-liang). Zhang had been expelled from Manchuria by the Japanese and was more interested in joining with the communists to fight the Japanese. Hence when Jiang Jie Shi flew to Xi'an in December 1936 to press for an offensive Zhang imprisoned him. He was released only after he had agreed with Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), one of Mao's chief supporters in the Communist Party, to form a united front against Japan.

War with Japan The Japanese wasted little time after this pact in manufacturing an excuse to launch a full-scale invasion of China. The Marco Polo bridge incident on 7 July 1937 provided the necessary pretext. Chinese forces fought effectively, resisting at Shanghai for three months and winning a notable victory at Dai Er Zhuang (Tai Erh Chuang), but Japanese superiority in armament, especially aircraft, enabled them to take all the eastern provinces within the year. The Japanese set up puppet governments in Beijing and Nanjing. The headquarters of the Chinese government were withdrawn westward to Wuhan, and then, when that city fell in October 1938, to Chongqing (Chungking) where it remained for the rest of the war.

At this stage of the war the initiative passed into the hands of the communist armies, organized into the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, which carried on guerrilla warfare in occupied areas, and at the same time made political gains among the peasants. Hostility between Guomindang and communists soon revived, reaching its high point in January 1941, when Guomindang troops surrounded and destroyed the New Fourth Army headquarters south of the Chang Jiang. In the last years of the war, once Britain and the USA were also at war with Japan (see World War II), the communists had increasing success in limited campaigns against the Japanese despite being deprived of Allied logistical help, while the Guomindang front was static.

The civil war resumes When Japan capitulated at the end of World War II its troops still garrisoned northern and eastern China, and the communists hoped to take over those northern provinces in which their armies were operating. However, the USA recognized the nationalists (the Guomindang) as the legally constituted government of China, and helped them to take the surrender of all Japanese garrisons by providing an airlift for Guomindang troops. The Soviets, who had occupied Manchuria, likewise refused to yield the cities to the communists. When the Soviets departed, stripping the region of its industrial plant, the Guomindang controlled the key points.

Neither communists nor nationalists could long tolerate the existence of the other. While negotiations went on between them, with the US envoy Gen George C. Marshall mediating, sporadic outbreaks of fighting occurred and both sides jockeyed for position. Marshall gave up his attempt at mediation in January 1947, and open war was resumed. The communists fought the same sort of campaign as against the Japanese, cutting communications, isolating enemy units, and bringing superior force to bear when they chose to fight. Nationalist strongholds in Manchuria and northern China fell one after another.

In government-controlled southern China galloping inflation and the depredations of the secret police did nothing to rally the people to the nationalist cause. Nationalist generals defected to the enemy, and Beijing was handed over intact on 31 January 1949. The newly named People's Liberation Army crossed the Chang Jiang in April and met little resistance in its march south. Jiang Jie Shi fled with his government to Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China was established in Beijing on 1 October 1949.

For subsequent developments in Chinese history see China and Taiwan.