Republican China (1912 to 1949)
In the decades prior to the 1911 Republican Revolution,
vast segments of Chinese society had become convinced that the
Qing government was incapable of carrying out the reforms necessary
to protect China from foreign domination. The precipitating event
of the 1911 Revolution was a mass protest against the nationalization
of the railways in Sichuan Province. Among the principals who
had an interest in this issue were wealthy investors, regional
military commanders and a group of revolutionaries led by Sun
Yat-sen.
Many Chinese regard Sun Yat-sen as the "Father of the Nation."
A Western-trained intellectual, Sun was instrumental in forming
an alliance of revolutionary organizations called the Tongmenghui.
While Sun was the popular choice to become the first president
of Republican China, he stepped aside in favor of Yuan Shikai,
commander of the New Chinese Army. Since Sun had no army at his
disposal, he realized that Yuan presented the best opportunity
to force the Qing to abdicate the throne and avoid civil war.
Yuan initially voiced support for a Tongmenghui agenda, but he
soon betrayed their trust. Sun and a fellow revolutionary, Song
Jiaoren, tried to respond to Yuan's treachery by forming a new
political party called the Guomindang. While the Guomindang swept
the national elections in 1913, Yuan had Song Jiaoren assassinated.
He then ordered that the parliament dissolved, and Sun and his
Guomindang supporters were forced to flee China. By 1914, Yuan
had become a virtual dictator. In 1915, Yuan had the new puppet
parliament vote for the creation of a monarchy, with Yuan as the
new emperor. Upon receiving word of his attempted imperial restoration,
rebellions broke out in several provinces; the country soon disintegrated
into several warring factions. By the time Yuan Shikai died in
June of 1916, a period of political fragmentation known as the
Warlord Period had begun.
As dissention plagued China's domestic relations, an international
crisis created further problems for the floundering republic.
With the beginning of World War I in 1914, Japan entered the war
on the side of the Allies. While Japanese troops saw virtually
no action in Europe, they were active in staking claims to German
territory in Asia. In 1914, Japan claimed authority over Shandong
Province, and in 1915, it issued the Twenty-One Demands to the
warlord government in Beijing. Acceptance of all of Japanese demands
would have made China a virtual colony of Japan. While the warlord
government denied some of these claims, they accepted Japanese
authority over Shandong, southern Manchuria and eastern Inner
Mongolia. When the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I in 1919,
word spread in China that the Beijing government had entered into
secret agreements with Japan, agreeing to accept its authority
over Shandong Province. On May 4, 1919, there was a massive student
uprising in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Upset with the capitulation
of the Beijing government to Japanese power, the students rode
the crest of a patriotic and intellectual wave that became known
as the May Fourth Movement. Students who had been trained in the
West returned to China to help fuel a movement of modernization
and national self-renewal.
Benefiting from the national reaction to the Beijing warlords'
apparent treachery, Sun Yat-sen allied himself with powerful warlords
in south China and set about reconstructing his Guomindang Party.
By 1921, Sun had become president of a rival government in the
south. While Sun and his compatriots sought aid and diplomatic
recognition from Western governments, most countries accepted
the warlord government in Beijing as China's official government.
Frustrated, Sun turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. In
1923, the Soviet Union began sending aid and political assistance
to help Sun's Guomindang forces reunify China. The Soviets ordered
the relatively small Chinese Communist Party to cooperate with
Guomindang efforts to reunify China. For the next several years,
the Guomintang and CCP would form a common front against Chinese
warlord armies.
When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became his successor.
Chiang had been trained in the Soviet Union and was commander
of the National Revolutionary Army. In 1925, Chiang undertook
the Northern Expedition, a military campaign designed to defeat
regional warlords and reunite China. By 1928, this effort had
succeeded. Chiang and his forces had nominally reunited much of
China; Chiang's Guomintang government received international recognition
as the official government of China.
While China had achieved military reunification under Chiang's
leadership, serious political divisions had arisen within the
Guomindang-CCP alliance. While fissures began to appear during
the Northern Expedition, open warfare broke out after Chiang's
forces occupied Shanghai in 1927. Chiang set about killing thousands
of Communists, widening a spit between left-wing and right-wing
factions in the Guomindang. Communists and left-wing members of
the Guomindang responded by setting up a rival government at Wuhan.
By February of 1928, however, the government at Wuhan collapsed,
and the depleted Communist forces were forced to set up their
bases in areas along the border of Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces.
With Chiang's government entrenched in Nanjing, the Guomindang
set about trying to establish a Chinese state along the "Three
Stages of Revolution" established by Sun Yat-sen. These stages,
military rule, political tutelage, followed by establishing a
full-fledged democracy, became a source of contention even among
Guomindang members. While some thought that a democracy should
be established immediately, Chiang and his allies seized the concept
of "political tutelage" to establish what amounted to
a dictatorship over China. In addition to dissention among the
ranks of the Guomindang, regional warlords also challenged the
legitimacy of the regime.
Adding to the internal confusion in China during this period was
the external threat posed by Japanese territorial ambitions in
China. In 1931, Japanese forces occupied Manchuria and set up
a puppet state called Manchukuo. The loss of Manchuria's rich
natural resource base dealt a blow to China's plans to modernize
its economy. Chiang Kai-shek, however, was more concerned by the
growth of Communist power in Jiangxi Province. While in Jiangxi
Province, Mao Zedong had had great success mobilizing support
for the CCP. Despite the fact that Japan was threatening China's
sovereignty, Chiang focused the Guomindang Army's efforts on exterminating
the internal threat posed by the CCP. By 1934, the pressure on
the CCP was so great that 100,000 communist leaders and soldiers
were forced to embark on a 6000 mile forced journey to remote
Shaanxi Province; this legendary journey is known as the Long
March. Only about 8000 of the original 100,000 communists who
fled Jiangxi survived the Long March.
Forces within Chiang's Guomindang Army soon grew resentful of
the efforts being made to hunt down Mao's Communists while the
"Japanese wolf" was at China's door. In 1936, a group
of Guomindang soldiers in Xian Province held Chiang Kai-shek hostage
until he agreed to end the campaign against the CCP and form an
anti-Japanese coalition. While tension between the CCP and Guomindang
forces remained common, a United Front against the Japanese did
officially exist between 1937 and 1941.
In July of 1937, the Japanese precipitated an incident near Beijing
and began moving troops into northern China. This incident, called
the Marco Polo Bridge Indicent, marks the official beginning of
the Anti-Japanese War. By the end of July, Japanese forces controlled
the cities of Beijing and Tianjin. The Japanese then turned their
eyes south and east. By the end of 1937, the Japanese controlled
the cities of Shanghai and Nanjing. Forced to flee Nanjing, the
Guomindang's capital city, the government was moved to Chongqing.
The Japanese occupation of Nanjing also marks one of the darkest
chapters in the history of warfare. After taking control of Nanjing,
Japanese troops indiscriminately raped and killed innocent civilians;
it is estimated that over 100,000 Chinese civilians died in the
brutal incident that has become known as "The Rape of Nanjing."
With the Guomindang government based in Chongqing and the Communist
leadership in Yan'an (Shaanxi Province), their forces combined
to fight the Japanese Army to a standstill in central China. While
Guomindang forces used primarily conventional military tactics,
the Communists were especially adept at using guerrilla warfare.
The United Front between the Guomindang and the CCP broke down
in 1941. Despite this split, the military efforts of both forces
were critical in tying down Japanese resources on the Chinese
mainland. The United States supplied the Guomintang with vital
military and financial assistance to keep the war effort in China
alive. They also attempted to mediate a truce between the rival
Guomintang Army and Communist People's Liberation Army, but were
ultimately unsuccessful.
By the time the war ended, the Communists had greatly increased
their strength; CCP party members numbered 1.2 million, and their
successful political and military campaigns helped them gain support
among peasants in wide areas of China. For the Guomintang's part,
the situation in postwar China was critical. While the Chiang
and the Guomintang emerged from World War II with international
recognition, the country itself was in disarray. China's social
and economic situation had been severely affected by years of
disruption caused by war. In addition, accusations of Guomintang
corruption led to the erosion of popular support for Chiang's
regime. While World War II was at an end, the Chinese Civil War
intensified. In January of 1949, Communist forces occupied Beijing.
Throughout that year, CCP forces occupied most of China's major
cities. In October of 1949, Mao declared the establishment of
the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek and a few hundred
thousand of his closest Guomindang supporters were forced to flee
to the island of Taiwan. From 1949 until today, China remained
divided into the communist, mainland People's Republic of China,
and the Republic of China that the Guomindang established on Taiwan.
Illustrations:
Chiang Kai-shek
Sun Yat-sen
