CHINA
1900-2000
• At the end of the 19th century the Manchu dynasty
looked like it was coming to an end
• In 1894 China went to war with Japan over Japanese
involvement in the Korean peninsula
• In surprise to many, China was easily defeated
• In 1897 under the pretense of compensation for two
murdered missionaries the German government
demanded and received part of the Shandong peninsula
• Other nations immediately joined the land rush
• The Confucian scholar Kang Youwei won approval to
instigate reform - but the conservative opposed any
reform
• Reform was also opposed by the Empress Dowager Cixi,
a leading power in the royal court
• Cixi allied with the conservatives and forced Kang
Youwei to flee and thereby ended the One Hundred Days
of reform
• In an attempt to limit the amount of access available to
foreign powers the British and Americans proposed that
all foreign powers agree to accept the territorial claims
of the Chinese - an Open Door policy
• This was merely an agreement not a treaty, but it
worked well for China because it stopped foreign
involvement but it did not stop the Boxer Rebellion
• The Boxers belong to a secret society mostly in the rural
areas of the north
• They believed foreign involvement caused high
unemployment
• They attacked foreigners and the foreign legation
headquarters in Beijing
• The rebellion was finally suppressed by a joint task
force of nations
• In the aftermath the Chinese were forced to pay a huge
indemnity as compensation
• The dynasty tried to reform itself but internal
corruption and political instability had gone too far
• Political and radical groups emerged all determined to
change China
• During the 1890s the Revive China Society led by Sun
Yat-sen started to make an impression
• He had little success initially, but did manage to unite
several groups into the Revolutionary Alliance
• The group adopted the Sun’s Three Principles of
Nationalism - a) end of Manchu rule, b) Democracy, c)
employment
• In 1908 both the Empress and her nephew Guangxu
died and the last emperor was the child Henry Puyi
• In 1911, while Sun was in the United States, the group
launched an attack on the city of Wuhan
• The Alliance lacked leadership and weapons and so
could not gain the advantage
• The old military leader General Yuan Shikai took over
and so the dynasty ended
• Still, because there was no real middle class, Sun’s
policies were widely accepted and many peasants had
refused to participate
• One could say the revolution of 1911 was not really a
revolution just the inevitable collapse of a dynasty
• The end of the Manchu dynasty in China was merely
one of several great transitions taking place. At the
virtually the same time the German, AustrianHungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires all came to
an end. History was repeating itself across the globe
• In 1921 the Chinese Communist Party was founded at
Peking University. The organization was based on
Marxist principles and in many ways idealistically
similar to other Communist Parties
• The policies of General Yuan gradually conflicted with
those of Sun’s party, now known as the Nationalist Party
• Early in the century, when China was in political
turmoil, Japan had taken control of Manchuria and
Korea
• In 1915 Japan insisted that General Yuan accept the
“twenty-one demands” which give them virtual
control of the country
• Yuan was able to stop Japan but died the following
year
• At the Paris Peace Conference Japan was awarded
Shandong Province, an area formerly under German
suzerainty, as payment for support against Germany
• When the news was announced thousands of Chinese
protested in the streets in what was known as the May
Fourth Movement
• The protest did not regain Shandong, but it
demonstrate that the people of China were sick of
political incompetence
• In the early 1920s two groups emerged:
Sun’s Nationalist Party and the Communist Party
(CCP)
• Soviet advisors quickly moved to China to help the CCP
and advised cooperation with the Nationalists
• Sun was equally interested in gaining Soviet help since
his anti-imperialist policies had alienated him from the
major powers
• In 1923 the two formed an alliance against the imperial
powers in China
• Both parties contributed to the Northern Expedition in
1926. The expedition was to free northern China
• In 1925 the Father of Modern China, Sun had died and
had been replaced by Chiang Kia-shek
• In 1927 Chiang attacked the Communists in Shanghai
and killed thousands
• The surviving Communists, like Mao Zedong, moved to
the rural areas to regroup
• In 1928 Chiang founded the Republic of Nanjing
• By 1931 the country was basically split - Communists in
the south and Nationalists in the north
• In 1934 Chiang successfully attacked Mao’s base at
Jiangxi and forced the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
on the dreaded Long March
• The Communists walked thousands of miles to safety
but over 80,000 died on the journey
• Chiang seemed to be the victor
• Chiang used his powers to carry out lands reforms and
improve industry
• He depended upon the ideas of the west and risked
alienating himself, especially in a country like China
with a traditional history of conservatism
• His American-educated wife promoted the New Life
Movement which tried to unite Chinese morals with
western capitalism
• He faced not only internal problems but he had to deal
with the economic effects of the Great Depression
• Chiang didn’t do well when trying to relieve the
economic problems of the country. The expense of the
army and the traditional rural economies prevented
much improvement
• In 1931 the Japanese military seized Manchuria
• They claimed that the Chinese had attacked the
Japanese railroad at Mukden and used the
Mukden Incident to mask their aggression
• Widespread protest forced the United Nations to
send a team of investigators to the region
• When the report was filed Japan withdrew from
the United Nations, but stayed in Manchuria
• The Japanese renamed the area Manchukuo and placed
the former emperor Henry Pu Yi as head of a puppet
government
• From here Japan moved into northern China
• Many countries refused to accept Japanese control of
the the region but refused to risk anything to help China
• Chiang even tried to ignore Japan so he could focus on
the Communists
• In 1937 after a contrived incident at the Marco Polo
Bridge, Japan demanded an apology from China Chiang refused
• The Japanese moved further south looking to add to
their gains by eventually adding China
• They also wanted Siberia which meant a possible
conflict with the Soviet Union
• After the war Chiang and the Americans quickly took
different paths
• While Chiang had helped defeat the Japanese the
Communists had gained strength and were ready to
move
• In 1946 a civil war erupted between the Nationalists and
the Communists
• Peasants had been attracted to Mao’s political and
economic promises, including land reform
• Many of Chiang’s troops defected and joined the
Communists
• Soon most of China was in the hands of the
Communists, Chiang and his supporters left the country
and crossed to Taiwan
• In 1949 China was at peace and Mao could focus on
internal policies
• His plan was for a New Democracy that would create a
society based on the principles of Lenin’s New Economic
Policy
• The Chinese leaders hoped to indoctrinate the people
over time and get them to follow these new ideas
• Mao implemented major land reforms to appease the
millions of peasants
• Those that did not support the new philosophies were
tried as enemies of the state and many were killed
• The success of the Communists worried the Truman
government, but they also had little faith in Chiang even
though they give him some support
• By 1950 the U.S. government was firmly behind the idea
of stopping Communism anywhere in the world
regardless of cost
• In the early 1950s the Soviet Union did recognize
Chinese claims to Manchuria and Chinese troops
occupied Tibet, but that still left Taiwan and Korea
• Korea had been under Japanese and Russian control
since the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5)
• After the Russo-Japanese War (1905) the region fell to
the Japanese control
• Korea became important after the defeat of Japan when
the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to divide
the country
• Korea became Communist in the north and democratic
in the south
• When North Korean troops invaded the south President
Truman worried that there might be Chinese
participation
• Mao wanted Communism to take hold in all Asia
countries
• As a result China became isolated from the rest of the
world - an isolation that lasted almost 20 years
• In 1953 the government launched its first five-year plan
based on the Soviet model
• After the death of Stalin (1953) relations between China
and the Soviet Union deteriorated
• Issues over ideology, territory, and political support all
served to undermine the relationship
• The Soviets pulled their advisors from China by the end
of the decade
• Collectivization was a far greater success in China than
in the Soviet Union, but they still get the output they
wanted or needed
• But the size of China hindered Mao’s plans and he
started to consider collectivization
• In 1958 the government approved the Great Leap
Forward which combined areas of land into huge
communes
• The Great Leap Forward failed and was a disaster
• Production fell and millions starved to death
• In 1966 in the face of increasing criticism Mao created
his Red Guard - youth who wanted to help Mao reform
China at all costs
• The Red Guard tried to eliminate the “old four” (old
thoughts, old culture, old customs, and old habits)
• China became increasing critical of Soviet policy
especially in the Third World
• When the United States became involved in Vietnam the
Chinese voiced their support for the Communists but
fell short of all-out aid, unlike the Soviet Union
• In 1972 President Nixon visit China as part of the
process of restoring relations
• In 1976 Mao died ending the terror of the Red Guard
• In 1979 diplomatic ties were arranged between the two
countries
• The United States renounced its security treaty with
Taiwan that had been signed in 1954
• The United States and China worked together against
the common threat of the Soviet Union
• Mao was replaced by Deng Xiaoping who ended the
Cultural Revolution and advocated moderation
• However when Chinese students protested for
democracy in Tiananmen Square Deng ruthlessly
suppressed the protest and killed many of the students
• Clearly he was not going to allow too much moderation