The Birth of a New China

As introduced by the Yearbook of Republic of China:

Waves of Revolution

After decades of pain and frustration brought about largely by the weakness of the Qing government, the Chinese people were totally disillusioned with the Qing dynasty, and began to take a keen interest in the revolutionary movement launched by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the late 19th century. Dr. Sun set up a series of secret societies that operated in inland Chinese cities as well as overseas. In 1887, Dr. Sun even set up a secret society in Japanese-controlled Taiwan, from where he directed an uprising in Huizhou.

In 1905, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who had been exiled for his involvement in the anti-Qing movement, organized the Revolutionary Alliance in Tokyo. This organization sponsored an entire network of revolutionaries inside China. On October 10, 1911, Dr. Sun's supporters in Wuchang, fearing their cover was blown by the recent arrest of one of their agents, seized the initiative and raised the standard of revolt in Hupei Province. Drawing on a wellspring of popular support and the defection of numerous officers in the local garrison, the revolutionaries soon captured Wuhan. Two months later, revolutionaries fought and won a pitched battle in Nanking. On January 1, 1912, the Revolutionary Alliance, which by that time controlled 16 of the Qing dynasty's 22 provinces, established a provisional parliament in Nanking and elected Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the provisional presidency of Asia's first democratic republic -- the Republic of China.

Northern China, however, was effectively controlled by Yuan Shih-kai, who had served the Qing dynasty in a variety of high posts. To break the deadlock and unify China, a three-way settlement was reached between revolutionaries in the south and the military strongman Yuan in the north. The last Qing Emperor abdicated. Dr. Sun Yat-sen agreed to relinquish the provisional presidency of the Republic of China to Yuan Shih-kai, and Yuan promised to establish a republican government. On February 12, 1912, the last Qing ruler, the Hsuan Tung emperor, gave up his throne. The rule of the Manchus had lasted 268 years and spanned the rule of ten emperors.

Shaky Beginnings

The first half of the 20th century in China saw the gradual disintegration of the old imperial order. Foreign political philosophies had halted the traditional dynastic cycle, and nationalism became the dominant force in China. Externally, China was still confronted by strong foreign powers and subject to the terms of unequal treaties. Domestically, the new democracy was severely tested by its nominal leader, Yuan Shih-kai.

As the former governor-general of Chihli, Yuan had trained the Peiyang Army, which was an elite Western-style army. He coerced the newly established parliament into formally electing him to the presidency, and was inaugurated on October 10, 1913. Upon his ascension to China's highest political office, Yuan sought to disband Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance, which had been reorganized into the Kuomintang. Yuan Shih-kai also dissolved the parliament and then assumed dictatorial powers. In an effort to appease China's rapacious neighbor in the northeast, Yuan Shih-kai agreed to Japanese demands -- known as the Twenty-one Demands -- for special rights and privileges in Shandong in May 1915.

As time passed, it became obvious that Yuan was planning to restore the imperial system with himself on the throne. Unmoved by the advice of foreign governments and the opposition of the Kuomintang, Yuan Shih-kai declared himself emperor on December 12, 1915. That month, Chen Chi-mei led a revolt against the incipient restoration of monarchy in China. More significant was a military revolt in Yunnan Province, led by the governor of Yunnan, Tang Chi-yao and General Tsai O . Joined by Lee Lieh-chun and other revolutionary generals, these men established a National Protection Army and demanded that Yuan cancel his plan to re-establish monarchal rule in China. During the spring and early summer of 1916, one after the other, provinces and districts declared independence from the Yuan regime. Faced with intense and mounting opposition, Yuan Shih-kai fell gravely ill and died on July 6, 1916. General Li Yuan-hung , vice president of the democracy that Yuan Shih-kai had sought to dismantle, succeeded the presidency, and General Tuan Chi-jui retained his post as premier.

Highly ambitious and supported by many senior commanders from the old Peiyang Army clique, Tuan Chi-jui quickly began to gather power in his own hands. In February 1917 when the American government severed diplomatic relations with Germany and pressed China to do the same, President Li Yuan-hung strongly opposed the move, but Premier Tuan and his supporters were able to push through China's declaration of war on Germany on August 14, 1917. Despite sending over 100,000 men to France during World War I, China reaped little benefit from its entry into the war. It was assured a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference, but the Chinese delegation to that meeting of world leaders was stunned to discover that Germany's holdings in China were not going to be returned to the Chinese people. Rather, the Western powers had agreed to Japanese claims to the German concession in Shandong Province. Major portions of Shandong were to be held by another foreign colonial power, Japan.

On May 4, 1919, students in Peking protested the decision at the Versailles Peace Conference. A riot ensued and many students were arrested. Waves of protest spread throughout the major cities of China. Merchants closed their shops, banks suspended business, and workers went on strike to pressure the government. Finally, the government was forced to release the arrested students and discharge some of the Chinese officials who had collaborated with Japan. Ultimately, the Chinese government refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

An intellectual revolution sparked by the events of May 4, 1919, and often referred to as the May Fourth Movement gained momentum during the first decade of the Republic of China. The movement was led by a new generation of intellectuals who scrutinized nearly all aspects of Chinese culture and traditional ethics. This new intelligentsia emerged in China after the traditional civil service examination system was suspended in 1905 and educational reform enabled thousands of young people to study science, engineering, medicine, law, economics, education, and military science in Japan, Europe, and the United States. The "overseas students" returned to modernize China and, through their writings and lectures, exercised a powerful influence on the next generation of students. Guided by concepts of individual liberty and equality, a scientific spirit of inquiry, and a pragmatic approach to the nation's problems, the new intellectuals sought a more profound reform of China's institutions than what was accomplished by the self-strengthening movement of the late Qing dynasty or the republican revolution. National Peking University, China's most prestigious institution of higher education, was transformed by its chancellor, Tsai Yuan-pei , who had spent many years in advanced study in Germany. Tsai made the university a center of scholarly research, and inspired educators all over China. A proposal by Professor Hu Shih, that literature be written in the vernacular language rather than in the classical style, won quick acceptance.

Important economic and social changes occurred during the first years of the Republic. With the outbreak of World War I, foreign economic competition against native industries abated, and state-run light industries experienced brisk development. By 1918, the industrial labor force numbered 1.8 million workers. A large portion of capital flowed from the agricultural sector to new industries in China's coastal provinces, and modern Chinese banks with growing capital resources were able to meet expanding financial needs.

In the 1920s the United States, Great Britain, and Japan seemed to be moving toward a new postwar relationship with China. At the Washington Conference, the major powers agreed to respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial and administrative integrity of China; to give China opportunity to develop a stable government; to maintain the principle of equal opportunity in China for the commerce and industry of all nations; and to refrain from taking advantage of conditions in China to seek exclusive privileges. The powers also agreed to steps leading toward China's tariff autonomy and the abolition of extraterritoriality.

The Warlord Era

For a few years after the Washington Conference, the foreign powers refrained from aiding particular Chinese factions in the recurrent power struggles. But China was in turmoil, and regional militarism was in full swell. During the first two decades of the republic, China had been fractured by rival military regimes to the extent that no one authority was able to subordinate all rivals and create a unified and centralized political structure.

The powerful Peiyang Army had split into two major factions: the Chihli faction led by Feng Kuo-chang and the Anhui faction under Tuan Chi-jui. These factions controlled provinces in the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys and competed for control of Peking. In the Manchuria, Chang Tso-lin headed a separate army. Shensi Province was controlled by Yen Hsi-shan.

Having witnessed the collapse of the fledgling central government he had worked so hard to create, Dr. Sun Yat-sen turned south to his home province of Guangdong, where he established a military government in August 1917. In 1919, Dr. Sun reorganized his party into the present-day Chinese Kuomintang (KMT, also known as the Nationalist Party), and in 1921 Dr. Sun Yat-sen assumed the presidency of the newly formed southern government in Guangdong. When war between the northern warlords erupted the next year, Dr. Sun issued a manifesto urging the reunification of China by peaceful means. However, the political idealist, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was to be disappointed by more years of sporadic fighting between warlords. Finally in 1924, Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his southern government moved to set up a military academy which would train an officer corps loyal to the Kuomintang and dedicated to the unification of China. Dr. Sun appointed Chiang Kai-shek as commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy.

On November 10, 1924, Dr. Sun Yat-sen called for the early convocation of a National People's Convention to bring each of China's regional leaders to the conference table. Two weeks later, Tuan Chi-jui became the provisional chief executive of the Peking-based government and Dr. Sun Yat-sen, as head of the southern government, traveled north to hold talks with Tuan. While in Peking, Dr. Sun succumbed to liver cancer and died on March 12, 1925 at the age of 59. His dream of a unified and democratic China freed of foreign constraint had yet to be realized.

Dr. Sun's untimely demise left the southern government in the hands of a steering committee. This 16-member committee established a national government in July 1925 and some 11 months later appointed Chiang Kai-shek commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. In this capacity, Chiang Kai-shek launched a military expedition northward to eradicate various feuding warlords in central and northern China. This military campaign lasted three years and came to be known as the Northern Expedition. On March 22, 1927, the first troops of the National Revolutionary Army entered Shanghai. Two days later, Nanking fell. Despite a split between the right and left wings of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek was able to establish a new National Government in Nanking on April 18, 1927, and the Northern Expedition continued without interruption.

Japanese Provocations

By the spring of 1928, the National Revolutionary Army was approaching Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong Province. Japan dispatched 3,000 soldiers to the city under the pretext of protecting Japanese residents. On May 3, two days after the National Revolutionary Army moved into Chinan, Japanese soldiers killed the Chinese negotiator Tsai Kung-shih . Thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were slaughtered by Japanese regulars in the ensuing massacre. Less than a month later, the Japanese followed this atrocity with the assassination of the Chinese warlord in northeast China, Marshal Chang Tso-lin, after he had expressed his intention to surrender Manchuria to the National Government. Manchuria was a huge and rich area of China in which Japan had extensive economic privileges. Japan dominated much of the southern Manchurian economy through a monopoly of the Southern Manchuria Railway. Manchuria's impending unification with the rest of China threatened Japan's economic privileges in central China and its domination in Manchuria.

The Chinese government realized the Chinan massacre and the assassination of Chang Tso-lin were premeditated actions designed by the Japanese militarists to provoke war while China was still divided. Chiang Kai-shek thus ordered the National Revolutionary Army to continue its northward march but to avoid Japanese controlled areas in northern China. This strategy frustrated the Japanese schemes and effectively unified China under the National Government based in Nanking.

Japanese militarists remained undaunted. Believing Manchuria to be strategically and economically vital to their plans for the conquest of all Asia, Japanese officers in Shenyang (Mukden) sabotaged the Southern Manchuria Railroad on September 18, 1931, and ambushed the Northeastern Chinese Armies. On January 28, 1932, following a wave of murders and arson by their agents in Shanghai, Japanese armies attacked that city. Chinese defenders resisted heroically, and thereby drew international attention. To deflect world opinion which condemned their actions, the Japanese installed a puppet regime known as Manchukuo in 1932. The "land of the Manchu" proved to be no more than another stepping stone for the extension of Japanese aggression. In 1933, a humiliating Tanggu Truce was signed, which in effect yielded eastern Hebei Province to the Japanese-controlled Manchukuo.

After long negotiations, Japan acquired the Soviet interests in the Chinese Eastern Railway , the last legal trace of Russian influence in Manchuria. In 1935, Japanese armies attempted to detach Hebei and Chahar provinces from Chinese control and threatened Shanxi, Suiyuan, and Shandong provinces. The Japanese then set up a so-called East Hebei Anti-Communist and Self-Government Council , another move after the Tanggu Truce to extend Japanese control over northern China.

The Rise of the Chinese Communists

The Japanese were not the only threat to the integrity of Chinese democracy. The Chinese communists, who had rebelled against the National Government, established a provisional Soviet "government" in Jiangxi on November 7, 1931, and created 15 rural bases in central China. The National Government launched five successive military campaigns to eradicate the communist threat to central authority. The communist armies were, in the end, forced to abandon their bases and retreat. Communist troops led by Mao Zedong , Zhu De , Zhou Enlai , and Lin Biao marched and fought their way across Western China on the 6,000-mile Long March. By mid-1936, Nationalist forces had cornered the remnants of several communist armies in the impoverished area of Yennan in northern Shaanxi.

At this point, the Chinese communists opted for a new "united front" strategy against Japan. In effect the communist leaders suggested that the National Government fight the Japanese instead of the communist armies. The National Government, however, argued that the communists must capitulate to central authority before China could effectively repel Japanese encroachment. The National Government's policy, therefore, was one of "unity before resistance against foreign aggression." While further Japanese transgressions made this policy a costly one, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was determined to carry on the anti-communist campaign. He ordered the Northeastern and Northwestern Armies to attack the communist forces in northern Shaanxi Province. When the Northeastern Army, commanded by Chang Hsueh-liang, disobeyed the order to pursue the war against the communists, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Xian on December 12, 1936, to confront Chang Hsueh-liang. Chang's army subordinates, however, shot Chiang Kai-shek's bodyguards and arrested the generalissimo. After a series of behind-the-scenes negotiations, Chang Hsueh-liang freed the generalissimo and escorted him back to Nanking on Christmas day of 1936. The Sian Incident was a severe setback to Generalissimo Chiang's efforts to subjugate the communists.

The War Against Japan

On the eve of China's all-out war against Japan, the Japanese nation had a total of over 4.5 million soldiers. The total tonnage of its navy came to nearly 2 million, while its air force had 2,700 planes of various models. In comparison, the Chinese army had 1.7 million men, and its navy a total tonnage of 110,000, and its air force 600 aircraft, only 305 of which were fighters.

On July 7, 1937, a minor clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near Peking finally led China into war against Japan. (In Chinese this conflict is called the Eight-Year War of Resistance Against Japan.) From this point on, Chinese resentment of over half a century of Japanese barbarism was expressed in the form of overt, concerted, and armed resistance. The war against Japan unfolded in three stages: a first stage of undeclared war beginning with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937; an intermediate stage beginning in late 1938; and a third stage that began with China joining the Allied Forces after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945.

During the first stage of the war, Japan won successive victories. Tientsin was occupied in July 1937 and Peking in August. After three months of fierce fighting, Shanghai was captured by the Japanese on November 11, 1937. The ROC's capital, Nanking, fell in December. The fall of the capital is now known as the Rape of Nanking because Japanese forces occupying the city killed some 300,000 people (defenseless civilians and Chinese troops that had already laid down their arms) in seven weeks of unrelenting carnage. The loss of Nanking forced the ROC government to move its capital up the Yangtze River to the city of Chongqing, which was shielded by a protective mountain screen. By the end of this initial phase of the war, the ROC government had lost the best of its modern armies, its air force and arsenals, most of China's modern industries and railways, its major tax resources, and all the Chinese ports through which military equipment and civilian supplies might be imported. However, China had won the battle in Taierzhuang on April 6, 1938.

In 1940, Japan set up a puppet government in Nanking under Wang Ching-wei . But the Chinese people would not submit. Hundreds of thousands of patriotic Chinese continued to attempt the difficult trek to Chongqing. Students and faculties from most colleges in eastern China traveled by foot to makeshift quarters in distant inland towns. Factories and skilled workers were re-established in the west.

The government rebuilt its scattered armies and tried to purchase supplies from abroad. But the supply lines were long and precarious. When war broke out in Europe, shipments became even more scarce. After Germany's conquest of France in the spring of 1940, Britain bowed to Japanese demands and temporarily closed Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), to military supplies for China. In September 1940, Japan seized control of northern Indo-China and closed the supply line to Kunming. While Japan had more than 1,000 planes, China had only 37 fighter planes and 31 old Russian bombers that were not equipped for night flying. The United States, however, had by then sold the Republic of China 100 fighter planes -- the beginning of an American effort to provide air protection to the ROC.

By the summer of 1941, the United States knew that Japan hoped to end the undeclared war in China and was preparing for a southward advance toward British Malaya and the Dutch Indies, planning first to occupy southern Indo-China and Thailand, even at the risk of war with Britain and the United States. On July 23, 1941, President Roosevelt of the United States approved a recommendation that the US send large quantities of arms and equipment to China, along with a military mission to advise on their use. The military mission arrived in October 1941. By December 1941, the United States had implicitly agreed to help create a modern Chinese air force, to maintain an efficient line of communication into China, and to arm 30 divisions of soldiers. The underlying goal was to revitalize China's war effort as a deterrent to Japanese military and naval operations in the south. The logistics line for all foreign aid depended on the 715-mile Burma Road, which extended from Chongqing to Lashio, the Burmese terminus of the railway and highway leading to Rangoon.

The third phase of the war against Japan began on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and shortly afterwards the United States and Britain declared war on Japan. China, which also formally declared war against Japan after four years of staunch resistance, joined the Allies in waging the Pacific War. On January 2, 1942, Generalissimo Chiang assumed the office of Supreme Commander of the China Theater of War. This escalation of the Sino-Japanese conflict raised Chinese morale but did damage to China's strategic position. With the Japanese conquest of Hong Kong on December 25, 1941, China lost its air link to the outside world and one of its principal routes for shipping supplies. By the end of May 1942, the Japanese held most of Burma, and China was almost completely blockaded.

Following an initial grant of US$630 million in lend-lease supplies, the United States granted China a loan of US$500 million in February 1942, and Great Britain stated its willingness to lend 50 million. This helped to stabilize the Chinese currency and provided China with better terms of trade. A solution to the supply problem was found in an air route from Assam, India, to Kunming in southwest China -- the dangerous "Hump" route along the southern edge of the Himalayas. In March 1942, the China National Aviation Corporation began freight service over the Hump, and the United States began a transport program the next month. It was not until December 1943 that cargo planes were able to equal the tonnage carried over the Burma Road by trucks two years before, but China's needs for gasoline, arms, munitions, and other military equipment were still not adequately met.

Both air force development and army modernization were pushed in early 1943. A training center was established near Kunming and a network of airfields was built in southern China. By the end of 1943, the China-based American Fourteenth Air Force had achieved tactical parity with the Japanese over central China, and began to bomb Yangtze River shipping. The Fourteenth Air Force even successfully raided Japanese airfields on Taiwan. China's determination was beginning to pay off. During November and December of 1943, the leaders of the Allied countries met in Cairo, Egypt. In the December 1st Cairo Declaration, the return of Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Pescadores was promised to China. The prewar system of extraterritoriality -- whereby Chinese courts had no jurisdiction over any foreigner residing in China -- was abolished. In addition, the Allies pledged themselves to "persevere in the prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan."

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The subsequent Japanese decision to surrender was delivered to the Allies through Switzerland the next day. On August 14, Japan announced its formal surrender in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration of July 1945 and declared that "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out." The Japanese government accepted this in the instrument of surrender concluded on September 3, 1945, between Japan and the Allies. The Japanese armies in mainland China surrendered to the ROC government on September 9, 1945, in Nanking.

Communist Rebellion

Even before Emperor Hirohito's announcement of Japan's surrender was known, the commander of the Chinese communist armies, Zhu De, ordered his troops to move into Japanese-held territory and seize Japanese arms. The American general, Douglas MacArthur, then ordered all Japanese forces in China to surrender their arms only to forces of the ROC Government. Despite MacArthur's request, the Chinese communists sent tens of thousands of political cadres and soldiers into Manchuria. The Chinese communists got most of the arms of the 600,000-strong Japanese army in Manchuria which had previously been confiscated by the Russians. The Soviet army dismantled most of the industrial machinery in Manchuria. The valuable equipment, so crucial to China's postwar revival, was shipped to the Soviet Union while immovable objects were mostly destroyed. The situation in northeastern China was clearly alarming.

The government and the Chinese communists held peace talks which culminated in an agreement on October 10, 1945. The agreement called for the convening of a multiparty Political Consultative Council to plan for a liberalized postwar government and to draft a constitution for submission to a National Assembly. When the Chinese communists continued to accept the surrender of Japanese garrisons, occupy cities, and confiscate property, Chiang Kai-shek ordered an offensive against them in November. Hostilities lasted throughout December and the early part of January 1947. At this point, US President Harry S. Truman dispatched George Marshall to China. Marshall was able to negotiate several cease-fires during 1947, but a pattern of non-cooperation between the government and the communists soon escalated into open conflict.

While ROC troops were busily suppressing the incipient communist rebellion, the many citizens were working to implement true democracy. On January 1, 1947, the Constitution of the Republic of China was promulgated. Within the year, members of the National Assembly, Legislature (Legislative Yuan), and Control Yuan had been democratically elected. In April 1948, the new National Assembly elected Chiang Kai-shek to the presidency of the Republic of China. These moves toward democratic government, however, were overshadowed by a communist offensive that cut Manchuria off from the rest of China.

The military setback was compounded by serious economic problems. Inflation continued unabated, caused principally by government financing of military and other operations, particularly for maintaining large garrison forces. Apart from the loss of millions of Chinese lives, the war against Japan had generated huge war debts, not to mention serious financial distress in the private sector. The government had run a budget deficit every year since 1928. Alarmingly, the money supply in China increased by 500 times between 1937 and 1945. Retail prices of daily necessities were so inflated that even middle-class families tottered on the brink of abject poverty. This unrestrained inflation triggered a national recession and alienated the public from its elected representatives.

By 1948, communist forces had cut lines of communication and destroyed vital outposts along the Longhai and Pinghan railways, isolating many cities. In December, the pivotal battle for Xuzhou was lost. This defeat was followed by the fall of Tientsin and Peking on January 19, 1949. Other cities in northeastern China were lost by March. In early 1949, Chiang Kai-shek began deploying a force of 300,000 troops in Taiwan backed by a few gunboats and some planes. After the Chinese communists successfully crossed the Yangtze River, the government of the Republic of China began relocating its offices to Taiwan. As the mainland was falling to the communist forces, some two million people (both soldiers and civilians) accompanied the ROC government to the island of Taiwan. However, they were not the first people to reach the island.