Lecture 28 – Modern East Asia
Modern China (1839-1949):
This can be divided between the period of
Manchu failure to adapt to the West (1839-1911) and the period of Chinese collapse and
civil war (1911-1949).
Close of Manchu Rule (1839-1911):
First Opium War (1839-2): In the 18th century, the triangle trade of British goods
to Indian, Indian cloth to China and Chinese porcelain, silk, and other luxuries to
Britain had favored the Chinese, draining India’s silver into China. However,
when Opium replaced cloth in the trade, the flow of silver reversed, damaging
China’s economy. In 1836, China banned the importation of opium and its use.
In 1839, Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu came to Canton and cracked down on
opium, destroying 20,000 chests of opium (a six month supply). (Heritage, p.
834.) War broke out with a clash of Chinese junks vs. a British merchantman in
November 1839. The next June, a British fleet arrived and began destroying
Chinese ships, blowing up forts, and seizing cities. In 1842, the Chinese gave up
and had to abandon the tribute system. It also gave Britain control of Hong Kong,
Most Favored Nation Status, the opening of five ports to trade, the righ to appoint
a consul for each city, and all British citizens could only be tried under British
law. In 1844, France and the US got similar rights. Chinese imports of Opium
soared to 87,000 chests in 1879, then gradually declined. Other trade, however,
stagnated. A Second Opium War (1856-60) dragged on four years until the
British and French took Beijing and forced further humiliations on China:
legalization of opium, the establishment of embassies, the opening of more ports,
and free access for missionaries to all of China. In the North, the Russians
encroached on China, taking over some northern areas.
Rebellions Against the Manchus: Between 1850 and 1873, China was hit by
three Anti-Manchu rebellions: Taiping, Nian, and Muslim rebellions. China lost
some 20-30 million to the Taiping rebellion. Combined with other disasters,
China’s population dropped to 60 million by 1875.
Taiping Rebellion (1850-64): The Taiping rebellion was started by Hong
Xiuquan (1814-64), a schoolteacher in Southern China. During an illness,
he began having visions, and blended Christianity with traditional Chinese
ideas. He announced he was “the younger brother of Jesus and that God
had told him to rid China of evil demons—including Manchus,
Confucianists, Daoists, and Buddhists.” (Heritage, p. 836.) The
Association of God Worshippers founded by him began attacking
Confucian temples. In 1851, he declared a new dynastic period—the
Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, and in 1853, took Nanjing in central
China to act as his capital. At their height, they controlled the Yangzi
river valley and had over a million soldiers. They combined the Old
Testament with the traditional Chinese Rites of Zhou, long favored by
reformers, mixing puritanical morality with the redistribution of property.
However, the Taiping leadership was too poorly educated to administrate,
and over time, their unity broke down between quarreling leaders.
Nian and Muslim Rebellions: The Nian revolted north of the Taiping,
while the Moslems of Northeastern and Southwestern China also revolted.
The Manchu had grown too weak to put down rebellions.
Counter-Revolution: In South China, Manchu official Zeng Guofan
managed to rally the gentry class to lead forces to defend their property
and stopped the Taiping advance in 1852. The defeat of China in the
Second Opium war opened the way for reforming Manchus in 1860. The
reformers worked with the Westerners and with Zeng to build forces able
to push back against the rebels. The Taiping collapsed in 1864, the Nian
in 1868 and the Moslems in 1973.
Self-Strengthening and Decline (1874-1895): China restored internal order, but
was increasingly unable to fend off Western demands or slow the loss of its
sovereignty to the West (and then to Japan). China’s government began to
recover some strength, but China’s enemies grew stronger much faster.
The Court at Beijing: Prince Gong and the Empress Dowager Cixi
(Born 1835, dominated China from 1861-1908) were co-regents for the
Tongzhi Emperor (1856-1875, ‘ruled’ 1861-1875), who came to the
throne as a child. Prince Gong was a hopeful reformer, establishing a new
bureau to handle the new diplomatic relations with Europe in 1861. In
1862, he set up a school for foreign language studies. However, by 1884,
he was ousted by the Empress Dowager. She was an enemy of change and
reform and wanted to consolidate all power in her hands. She thus
crushed any reformer she could. She also dominated first her son the
Tongzhi Emperor and then her nephew, the Guangxu Emperor (Born
1871, died 1908, ‘ruled’ 1875-1898, then imprisoned the rest of his life).
The result was a paralytic court.
Regional Governments: The real center of any reform was the provinces,
where some governors formed more effective governments. They
mobilized gentry support to direct the rebuilding of the economic
infrastructure and help to the poor. Secondly, they imported western arms
and technology. They also built up businesses which were overseen by
officials, but run by merchants.
Treaty Ports: By the 1860s, there were 14 treaty ports, dominated by
European (and later Japanese) power. Foreigners lived the high life while
the Chinese served them. However, they were also islands of security,
honest government, and the importation of technology and business
methods. Many Chinese merchants moved in to exploit good business
conditions. Foreign imports tended to destroy Chinese competition
outside the ports. The customs revenues from these ports provided an
incentive to the Chinese government, desperate for money, to let things
stay this way.
The Borderlands—The Northwest, Korea, and Vietnam:
The Northwest: In the Northwest, China confronted Russian
expansionism. Caught in a pincers, the local tribes fell to Russia or China
one by one. Victory over Mongolian Moslems consolidated the ‘New
Territories’ (Xianjiang) in the 1870s, and Russia ceded part of Mongolia
to China in 1881. This was a serious victory for the Qing dynasty.
Vietnam: China thought of the heavily Chinese-influenced Vietnamese
state as just another tributary. Efforts to suppress Christianity by the
Vietnamese Emperors had led to the French coming in and overruning the
whole Indochina area between 1859 and 1882. China tried to aid its
tributary in 1883. Instead, the French stomped on the Chinese in a 2 year
war, ending in 1885 with Chinese withdrawal and abandonment of any
claims to Vietnam. By 1893, all of Indochina was under French control
until 1954.
Korea: During the last years of the Choson dynasty, Korean military
power was weak. In 1876, Japan forced Korea to end its centuries long
policy of isolationism (irony of ironies). The Korean elite split over
whether to back China or Japan; radical reformers supported
modernization in the Japanese manner. They were suppressed, but in
1893, the peasants revolted. This erupted into a war between China and
Japan, ending in Japanese victory and colonization of Korea.
China: From Dynasty to Warlordism(1895-1926): Defeat at the hands of Japan
shocked China to the core. Some Chinese thinkers now began desperately pushing for
reform.
Kang Youwei (1858-1927): Kang began calling for reforms to end the
enfeeblement of China. He argued Confucianism had been mis-interpreted as a
philosophy of paralysis, yet Confucius had been a REFORMER. History was
evolutionary and China must evolve or die. He thus reinterpreted Confucianism
to be compatible with adapting to modernity. In 1898, the Guangxu Emperor
became interested in Kang’s ideas and launched the “one hundred days of reform”
on June 11. He took Peter the Great and the Meji Emperor (of Japan) as his
models. (Heritage, p. 840) Edicts were issued for sweeping reforms, but
conservatives blocked their implementation. The Empress Dowager struck back,
imprisoned the Emperor and drove the reformers into exile.
Carving the Melon: After 1895, the Western Powers + Japan each took a chunk
of China for themselves, a ‘sphere of interest’, where they leased the land,
controlled a railine and had special extraterritorial rights. Only the US stayed out
of this rush for territory, calling for an ‘Open Door’ policy of free trade for all.
The Boxers: The Righteous and Harmonious Fist Society (known as the Boxers
in the West) were in some ways similar to the Ghost Dancer movement of the
Great Plains Indians of the 1880s and 90s. They rejected Western influence and
believed they possessed magic which would protect them from bullets. Their
1898 rebellion led to an alliance with the Court in 1890, who put the foreign
delegation under siege for two months, triggering a European invasion. 20,000
men fought their way into Beijing, ended the siege and suppressed the Boxers.
The new treaty allowed the foreigners to keep an army in Beijing, the Russians
seized Manchuria, and China was fined 450,000,000 tael of fine silver (around
67.5 million pounds/333 million US dollars). This caused even the Empress to
mount a reform campaign...too late.
The Manchu Reforms (1901-1911): Education was reformed. Women were
admitted and science, math, geography, and nationalist history took the place of
Confucian education. A new army was created on the western model. The
examination system was abolished in 1905; henceforth, officals would be
recruited from the new schools and students who studied abroad. Provincial
assemblies were formed in 1909 and a consultative assembly in Beijing was made
in 1910. But it was not enough.
The 1911 Rebellion: A peasant revolt in Sichuan province caused by plans of
railroad nationalization lit the fuse. There were two major groups and two major
leaders:
1. The Gentry, who feared to lose their rail investments
2. Qing military commanders who broke with Beijing, claiming
independence for their provinces.
3. Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) (1866-1925), a republican
revolutionary and founder of the Nationalist Party (Guomintang or
Kuomintang) in 1912.
4. Yuan Shikai, called in by the dynasty to save it. Instead, he arranged
for the child emperor to abdicate and made himself first president of a
Republic of China.
The Nationalists won the 1913 election, so Yuan forced their leadership into exile.
He now tried to make himself emperor, but was overthrown by 1916. China now
sank into chaos and disorder.
Cultural and Ideological Ferment: The May Fourth Movement (19141920s): Politically, China now sank into chaos. But culturally, China now
entered a period of intellectual ferment. Chinese nationalists abandoned tradition
in favor of pragmatism, asking if ideas worked and discarding those which did
not. Scholars returned from Europe, founding and strengthening universities.
Chen Duxiu, a fan of French culture, blamed China’s ills on Confucius and the
paralytic influence of the conservatism he had spawned. He published the
magazine New Youth from 1915, which became a source of support for the
movement. The greatest writer of the movement’s leaders was Lu Xun (18811936), who had been born to a scholar-official family but studied in Japan,
becoming a literature scholar. He was a socialist and wrote in a wry, ironic style,
and later became the author of many left-wing magazines. Never a communist,
he was nevertheless liked and respected by them. Marxism was not the most
dominant form of socialism in China until much later; at this time, conditions fit
the Marxist theory of revolution poorly, due to lack of industrialization.
However, the rise of Communist Russia did lead to the formation of a small
Chinese Communist party. Leninist views of Imperialism enabled the Chinese to
blame the West for all their woes. In 1921, the Chinese communist party was
formed.
Nationalist China
Guomindang Unification of China and the Nanjing Decade (1927-37): Sun
Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) returneed to south china in 1916. He was a poor
organizer and his Guomintang party made little progress. In 1923, he began to get
help from the Russians, who reorganized the Nationalists on Leninist lines. The
party now redirected its nationalism against Western influence. The long term
goal was democracy, though in the short term, a dictatorship to carry out
reforms—land redistribution and nationalization of some industries--would likely
be necessary. With the help of the Russians, the party was put into a more
effective form and began building itself an army. By 1926, it had 200,000
members and 100,000 soldiers, but was divided between its left and right wing.
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) had grown to 20,000 by 1926. Many of its
members were also members of the Guomintang. By 1926, the Guomintang
controlled the region around Canton. Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek, 18871975), Sun’s main lieutenant, felt ready to push north. The Northern Expedition
(1926-8) first drove to the Yangzi river, then to Shanghai by mid-1927. He now
purged all communists from the Guomintang. The surviving CCP members fled
to Hunan and Jiangxi to the southwest and established the Jiangxi Soviet. By
1928, the Guomintang controlled Beijing and had the nominal submission of the
Northern Warlords.
Jiang Jieshi: Jiang was a harsh and unkind man, but utterly honest and devoted
to Sun Yat-sen’s dream of a nationalist, prosperous China to eventually be ruled
by democracy, “the three principles.” Jiang was a Methodist but admired
Confucianism. He was essentially dictator of the Guomintang, his power resting
on the military, the bureaucracy, and the party. German advisors took the place of
Russians and the army expanded to 300,000. Most of the strength of the party
was on the coast, where the interior was still home to warlords. In 1931-4, Jiang
defeated the CCP again, forcing them on the ‘Long March’ to Shaanxi province
(the ruling place of many early Chinese dynasties from the Zhou to the Tang) in
northwest China. This lead to the ascendency of Mao Zedong in the Communist
party; Mao proposed a peasant based revolution, rather than the urban workerbased revolution hoped for by his Moscow-trained rivals.
Manchuria and Japan: The rise of the Guomintang in the north made the
Japanese fear for their interests in Manchuria. In 1932, the Japanese forces in
Korea and Manchuria set up the puppet state of Manchuko, ruled by the last of the
Chinese emperors, Puyi, the Xuantong Emperor. Jiang avoided confrontation
until the events of 1937 left him no other choice; he wanted to consolidate rule
over China before challenging outside powers.
War and Revolution (1937-49): In 1937, the Guomintang controlled most of
China. However, in July 1937, the Japanese invaded the rest of China. The
Guomintang crumbled under the assault, constantly driven back, and the Japanese
set up puppet regimes, declaring a “New Order in East Asia”—effectively a
Japanese colonial empire. Jiang retreated up the Yangzi to western and
southwestern China, refusing to give up. The economy of his area was poor and
got worse; the US tried to aid Jiang, but he tended to hoard his resources for a
post-war showdown with the Communists. This cut him off from popular
support. The Communists, by contrast, worked hard to gain peasant trust, fought
the Japanese as hard as they could, and moderated its policies to gain as broad
based of support as possible. The party boomed in size to 1.2 million by 1945 and
became better organized and educated. A system of self-criticism was used to
purge intellectual deviation from Mao’s thought, starting in 1942. By 1945, they
had broad grass-roots support and an army of 900,000, plus militia and guerilla
forces. The Soviets allowed the CCP to enter Manchuria when they seized it in
1945. Still, most expected the Guomintang to rule China; it had three times the
forces of the communists by 1945 due to conserving its strength.
The Chinese Civil War (1946-9): In the first year, the Guomintang was
generally victorious. In July 1947, the CCP went on the offensive in north
China, capturing American military equipment abandoned by the
Guomintang. By the end of 1949, all of China except Taiwan fell to the
Communists, and the Guomintang evacuated to Taiwan. Many Chinese
felt that China’s future was finally in the hands of the Chinese, even if
they didn’t know for sure what to expect of the CCP.
Modern Japan (1853-1945):
Overthrow of the Tokugawa Bakufu (1853-66): The arrival of Commodore Perry in
Japan in 1853-4 forced an end to centuries of isolation; Japan now had to adapt to
changes in the outside world. For four years, little changed, until the 1858 commercial
treaty. Some daimyo criticized it for violating the policy of seclusion; the Bakufu
(Japan’s military government under the Shogun) began a purge of those who resisted it.
In 1860, a samurai assassinated the head of the Bakufu council, paralyzing it. In 1861,
the powerful domains of Choshu and Satsuma (each had 10,000 samurai families), now
controlled more by mid-rank samurai than by their own Daimyos, stepped into the breach
which had opened between the Imperial court and the Shogunate. In 1863, Satsuma
seized the court in a military coup. In 1866, however, the two domains allied. New rifle
units were formed, commanded by low-ranking samurai, transforming war and politics.
This enabled the defeat of larger Bakufu forces in 1866.
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), a Bakufu translator, now proposed the idea that
the west was most civilized and that to catch up with it would require adopting its
customs with its technology. James Watt, for example, had been willing to invent
because British culture would protect his profits through patents. This stood
traditional confucianism on its head. (Heritage, p. 849.)
Building the Meiji State (1868-1890): In 1868, the power of the Emperor was
supposedly restored and the Shogunate destroyed in the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji
leaders wanted economic, social, and technological progress...but weren’t sure how to get
it. The Meiji government was initially dominated by the samurai leaders from Choshu,
Satsuma, and their allies.
Centralization of Power: They now abolished the domains and replaced them
with prefectures controlled from Tokyo by 1871. Each new governor was chosen
from samurai of a different old domain. In 1871-2, the leaders toured Europe to
study it. Secondly, they converted the rice tax to a money tax, then abolished
Samurai stipends and developed a conscript army to replace them. The samurai
were paid off in bonds, but the inflation of the 1870s reduced many samurai to
poverty. Some revolted, but all failed.
Political Parties: Some Samurai formed political parties to try to fight back.
They argued for a national assembly using western liberal arguments. In 1878,
the government now formed prefectural assemblies. In 1881, they promised a
constitution and national assembly within 10 years.
The Constitution: Ito Hirobumi went to Europe, then brought home the Prussian
constitution of 1850 (rather conservative) and a German jurist to help adapt it. It
granted strong powers to the Emperor and weak ones to the lower house of the
Diet (the legislature). The Emperor was sovereign, with direct command of the
armed forces. The Emperor could appoint his own council and prime minister
and could dissolve the lower house of the Diet, then rule by decree when it was
out of session. The Emperor was given vast funds. Yet, it was expected that
Meiji officials would actually act in his name to use these powers. The lower
house of the Diet, on the other hand, could only approve budgets and pass laws.
Unapproved budgets meant the old budget stood in its place and the House of
Peers, appointed upper house, had to approve any laws. Also, only adult males
paying 15 yen or more in taxes (5% of the male population) were allowed to vote.
A new nobility of old nobles and Meiji leaders was created. A new civil service
system was created, insulated from the parties.
Growth of a Modern Economy: In the late Tokugawa period, 80% of the population
lived in the countryside at near subsistence levels. Taxes were 35%, 2/3rds paid in kind
(rice, cotton, etc.) The Meiji freed occupations up for any to enter and silk became a
leading crop. Silk production rose from 2.3 million pounds in 1868 to 93 million by
1929. The land reform of 1870 gave farmers a clear title and lowered land taxes.
Progressive land lords introduced new methods and fertilizers; farm tenancy rose along
with rice production (from 149 million bushels a year in the 1880s to 316 million a year
in the 1930s). With more food, the population frew from 30 million in 1868 to 75 million
in 1940.
First Phase: Model Industries (1868-1881): In this period, the government
initiated a variety of businesses intended to strengthen the nation—arsenals,
railroads, shipyards, telegraph lines, coal and copper mines, textiles, etc. They
didn’t produce much, but they trained technicians for the future. European
finance and education was also copied.
Second Phase (1880s-1890s): The great industrial combines known as zaibatsu
now developed. Iwasaki Yataro (1835-1885) used his government connections to
help fund and found the Mitsubishi combine, first gaining control of ships he’d
managed for the Tosa domain, then acquiring other military ships and founding a
shipping line and a bank. Textiles boomed. Railroads were a major area of
growth. By 1894, Japan had 2,100 miles of track; by 1934, 14,500 miles. Other
industries now followed, and the government promoted growth, unlike China.
Third Phase (1905-29): By the early 20th century, Japan was becoming a modern
nation with booming industry, more food, longer lives, and more material goods.
By 1925, primary school education was universal; no other non-European nation
had universal literacy. Only 3%, however, went to university, creating a social
gap. More than half the labor force was women, mostly in textiles, who worked
from primary school’s end to marriage. They had a difficult life and didn’t get
much respect.
Fourth Phase: Depression and Recovery: The 1927 Japanese bank crisis was
followed by the miseries of the Great Depression. Japan was the first industrial
nation to recover; mostly by 1933, but by 1935 in the northeastern rice lands.
Exports and military goods helped this. Pig iron, steel, and chemical production
doubled in the 1930s. Japanese goods were now competitive in quality.
The Politics of Imperial Japan: Japan’s experiment with a constitution was a bold
move; no other non-European power had tried this. Japan was not ideally suited for
democracy, lacking local democratic traditions and having a weak middle class and weak
unions. Imperial militarism and nationalism was also a problem. Yet, over time, until
the depression, the Diet was gradually growing in strength.
From Confrontaiton to the Founding of the Seiyukai (1890-1900): In 1890,
the Meiji oligarchs saw themselves as transcending politics. The existence of the
Diet, however, drew them into politics. The Diet used its budget powers to force
concessions; rising inflation meant old budgets could never be adequate. The
parties controlled regional diets as well. In 1900, Ito Hirobumi formed a new
party—the Rikken Seiyukai, “Friends of Constitutional Government.” It became
the government party, providing support to 20 years worth of ministries.
The Golden Years of Meiji: In 1894, Japan ended all extraterritoriality
agreements, then defeated China in Korea in 1895, taking control of it. In 1900,
Japan participated in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. In 1902, the AngloJapanese alliance was formed. In 1904-5, Japan crushed the Russians. Japan
seized Russia’s territory near Korea, southern Sakhalin island, and the Russian
railway in southern Manchuria. In 1911, Japan regained control of its own tariffs.
Rise of the Parties to power: In 1914, Hara Takashi (1856-1921) took control
of the Rikken Seiyukai. He was the first of the major post-Meiji generation
politicans, who rose from newspaper reporter to leadership in the oligarchy. He
worked unceasingly to grow the party, believing in democratic rule...by himself.
Under him, the old oligarchy was gradually shoved aside as the party built its
ability to win elections and the Diet pushed other power centers aside. His party
used pork and addressing of local issues to build ties to local leaders who brought
in the vote. The old oligarchy was now shoved aside; even in the military new
leaders arose as the oligarchs got too old to govern. The new bureaucracy was
proud of its independence from the old men. Growing liberal democratic
sentiments ate away at the oligarchy into the early 1930s. Labor unions and
social reform movements arose. In 1924, rival parties now formed their own
goverment, ending the reign of the Rikken Seiyukai. Until 1932, democratic
cabinets ruled.
Militarism and War (1927-1945): In the late 20s, the army began pushing the
rest of government to adopt the foreign policies it desired. The armed forces
inculcated “the values of discipline, bravery, loyalty, and obedience.” (Heritage,
p. 860) The army decided it was the true national institution, above the petty
partisanship of the parties. The cutting of military budgets and decline of military
prestige led to resentment. With the passing of the Meiji oligarchs, there was no
one to restrain the military.
A Crisis in Manchuria: The World War I settlement had discouraged further
acquisition of colonies. Japan’s power in Manchuria through a Chinese warlord
was ambiguous in nature. Having lost 100,000 lives to seize the area, the army
was loathe to give it up, yet the rising unification of China by the Guomintang
threatened them. Finally, in 1931, the army provoked a crisis, seized Manchuria,
and set up a puppet state in 1932. When the League condemned Japan in 1933,
Japan left the League.
The Great Depression: The Great Depression threw doubts on the international
economic order and the zaibatsu. The military saw them as evil profiteers. Rural
Japan was worst hit by the Depression. The government did effectively fight the
Depression, but it took long enough for many to conclude democracy was a
failure. Socialist moderates grew in power as the Depression dragged on, as did
more radical groups of the left and right.
The Radical Right and the Military: In the 1930s, fiercely nationalist and
imperialist organizations arose. They attacked democracy as a self-interested
failure. Military officers wanted a military-run colonial empire. Junior officers
talked about a ‘second restoration’ of Imperial power. On May 15, 1932, they
rose up, attacking the parties and killing the Prime Minister. A series of mixed
military and party ministries followed. In 1936, the Minseito party took over the
Diet, only to find itself attacked by junior officers and 1400 soldiers. They
demanded a military government. But the navy opposed the revolt, as did many
senior officers, who suppressed the rebellion and purged the army. But at the
same time, the military increasingly came to dominate the government. The
outbreak of war with China in 1937 cemented this.
The Road to Pearl Harbor: There were three critical points between the China
war and Pearl Harbor. The first one was the decision in 1938 to try and finish the
Guomintang with an attack on Nanjing rather than to end the war. The attack was
a huge success, but Jiang Jieshi refused to roll over and die, forcing a stalemate.
The second key point was the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940 with Italy and
Germany. Inability to improve relations with the US due to the war in China
finally led to Japan allying itself with these powers. They also hoped to seize the
Asian colonies of the French, British, and Dutch. The Japanese did not aid
Germany against Russia, however. The third decision was that of going to war
with the US. The Japanese seizure of Indochina in 1940 led to the US cutting off
exports to Japan. This cut oil imports by 90%, putting Japan in a dangerous
position. They needed Anglo-Dutch oil further south, but the US might attack...so
Japan struck first. They hoped to knock the US out quickly. Things wouldn’t go
so well.