User:DownUnder555/sandbox/Republican China
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The
A series of political, economic, and military missteps led the Kuomintang to defeat and retreat to Taiwan in 1949, establishing an authoritarian one-party state that declared itself to be the sole legitimate ruler of all of China. However, since political liberalization begun in the late 1970s, the Republic of China has transformed itself into a localized, multiparty, representative democracy.
Early Republic of China (1912-1916)
Founding of the Republic of China
Main article:
The last days of the
There were many revolutionary groups, but the most organized one was founded by
The Republican Era of China began with the outbreak of revolution on
However, this euphoria over the revolution was short-lived. On October 27, Yuan Shikai was appointed by the Qing Court to lead his New Armies, including the First Army led by Feng Guozhang and the Second Army led by Duan Qirui, to retake the city of Wuhan, which was taken by the Revolutionary Army on October 11. The Revolutionary Army had some six thousand troops to fend off nearly fifteen thousand of Yuan's New Army. On November 11, the Revolutionaries retreated from Wuhan to Hanyang. By November 27, Hanyang was also lost and the Revolutionaries had to return to their starting point, Wuchang. However, during some fifty days of warfare against Yuan's army, fifteen of the twenty-four provinces had declared their independence of the Qing empire. A month later, Sun Yat-sen returned to China from the United States, where he had been raising funds among overseas Chinese and American sympathizers. On January 1 1912, delegates from the independent provinces elected Sun Yat-sen as the first Provisional President of the Republic of China.
Because of the short period and fervor in which the provinces declared independence from the Qing Court, Yuan Shikai felt that it was in his best interest to negotiate with the Revolutionaries. Yuan agreed to accept the Republic of China, and as such most of the rest of the New Armies were now turned against the Qing Dynasty. The chain of events forced the last emperor of China, Puyi, to abdicate, on February 12 upon Yuan Shikai's suggestion to Empress Dowager Longyu, who signed the abdication papers. Puyi was allowed to continue living in the Forbidden City, however. The Republic of China officially succeeded the Qing Dynasty.
Early Republic
On January 1, 1912, Sun officially declared the Republic of China and was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first Provisional President . But power in Beijing already had passed to Yuan Shikai , who had effective control of the Beiyang Army, the most powerful military force in China at the time. To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, Sun agreed to Yuan's demand that China be united under a Beijing government headed by Yuan. On March 10, in Beijing, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as the second Provisional President of the Republic of China.
The republic that Sun Yat-sen and his associates envisioned evolved slowly. Although there were many political parties each vying for supremacy in the legislature, the revolutionists lacked an army, and the power of Yuan Shikai began to outstrip that of parliament. Yuan revised the constitution at will and became dictatorial. In August 1912 the
Second Revolution
Yuan Shikai had Sung assassinated in March; he had already arranged the assassination of several pro-revolutionist generals. Animosity towards Yuan grew. In April, Yuan secured the Reorganization Loan of twenty-five million pound sterlings from Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Japan, without consulting the parliament first. The loan was used to finance Yuan's Beiyang Army. On May 20, Yuan concluded a deal with Russia that recognized special Russian privilege in Outer Mongolia and restricted Chinese right to station troops there. Kuomintang members of the Parliament accused Yuan of abusing his rights and called for his removal. On the other hand, the Progressive Party (Chinese: 進步黨; pinyin: jìnbùdǎng), which was composed of constitutional monarchists and supported Yuan, accused the Kuomintang of fomenting an insurrection. Yuan then decided to use military action against the Kuomintang.
In July of 1913 seven southern provinces rebelled against Yuan, thus began the Second Revolution (Chinese: 二次革命; pinyin: èrzìhgémìng). There were several underlying reasons for the Second Revolution besides Yuan's abuse of power. First was that many Revolutionary Armies from different provinces were disbanded after the establishment of the Republic of China, and many officers and soldiers felt that they were not compensated for toppling the Qing Dynasty. Thus, there was much discontent against the new government among the military. Secondly, many revolutionaries felt that Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong were undeserving of the posts of presidency and vice presidency, because they acquired the posts through political maneuvers, rather than participation in the revolutionary movement. And lastly, Yuan's use of violence (such as Sung's assassination), dashed Kuomintang's hope of achieving reforms and political goals through electoral means.
However, the Second Revolution did not fare well for the Kuomintang. The leading Kuomintang military force of
Yuan Shikai and the National Protection War
In November Yuan Shikai, legally president, ordered the Kuomintang dissolved and forcefully removed its members from parliament. Because the majority of the parliament members belonged to the Kuomintang, the parliament did not meet quorum and was subsequently unable to convene. In January 1914 Yuan formally suspended the parliament. In February Yuan called into session a meeting to revise the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China, which was announced in May of that year. The revision greatly expanded Yuan's powers, allowing him to declare war, sign treaties, and appoint officials without seeking approvals from the legislature first. In December 1914, he further revised the law and lengthened the term of the President to ten years, with no term limit. Essentially Yuan was preparing for his ascendancy as the emperor.
On the other hand, since the failure of the Second Revolution, Sun Yat-sen and his allies were trying to rebuild the revolutionary movement. In July 1914, Sun established the Chinese Revolutionary Party (Chinese: 中華革命黨; pinyin: zhōnghúagémìngdǎng). Sun felt that his failures at building a consistent revolutionary movement stemmed from the lack of cohesiveness among its members. Thus, for his new party, Sun required its members to be totally loyal to Sun and follow a series of rather harsh rules. Some of Sun's earlier associates, including Huang Hsing, balked at the idea of such authoritarian organization and refused to join Sun. However, they agreed that the republic must not revert back to imperial rule.
Besides the revolutionary groups associated with Sun, there were also several other groups aimed at toppling Yuan Shikai. One was the Progressive Party, the originally constitutional-monarchist party which opposed the Kuomintang during the Second Revolution. The Progressive Party switched their position largely because of Yuan's sabotage of the national parliament. Secondly, many provincial governors, who had declared their independence from the Qing Imperial Court in 1912, found the idea of supporting another Imperial Court utterly ridiculous. Yuan also alienated his Beiyang generals by centralizing tax collection from local authorities. In addition, public opinion was overwhelmingly anti-Yuan.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Japan fought on the Allied side and seized German holdings in Shandong Province. In 1915 the Japanese set before the government in Beijing the so-called Twenty-One Demands. The Demands aimed to install Japanese economic controls in railway and mining operations in Shandong, Manchuria, Fujian, and pressed to have Yuan Shikai appoint Japanese advisors in key positions in the Chinese government. The Twenty-One Demands would have made China a Japanese protectorate. The Beijing government rejected some of these demands but yielded to the Japanese insistence on keeping the Shandong territory already in its possession. Beijing also recognized Tokyo's authority over southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia. Yuan's acceptance of the demands was extremely unpopular, but he continued his monarchist agenda nevertheless.
On
Warlord Era (1916-1928)
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After Yuan Shikai's death, shifting alliances of regional warlords fought for control of the Beijing government. Despite the fact that various warlords gained control of the government in Beijing during the warlord era, this did not constitute a new era of control or governance, because other warlords did not acknowledge the transitory governments in this period and were a law unto themselves. The warlord era is considered by some historians to have ended in 1927.
World War I and Manchu Restoration
After Yuan Shikai's death, Li Yuanhong became the President and Duan Qirui became the Premier. The Provisional Constitution was reinstated and the parliament convened. However, Li Yuanhong and Duan Qirui had many conflicts, the most of which was China's entry into World War I. Since the outbreak of the war, China had remained neutral until the United States urged all neutral countries to join the Allies, as a condemnation of Germany's use of unrestricted submarine warfare. Premier Duan Qirui was particularly interested in joining the Allies, because he would then use the opportunity to secure loans from Japan to build up his Anhui Clique army (also known as the Wan Clique (Chinese: 皖系; pinyin: wànxì)). The two factions in the parliament engaged in ugly debates regarding the entry of China and in May 1917 Li Yuanhong dismissed Duan Qirui from his government.
Duan's dismissal caused provincial military governors loyal to Duan to declare independence and to call for Li Yuanhong to step down as the President. Li Yuanhong summoned
The Constitutional Protection War
Duan Qirui's triumphant return to Beijing essentially made him the most powerful leader in China. Duan dissolved the parliament upon his return and declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary on August 13, 1917. In September, Duan's complete disregard for the constitution caused Sun Yat-sen and the deposed parliament members to establish a new government in Guangzhou and the Constitutional Protection Army (Chinese: 護法軍; pinyin: hùfǎjū) to counter Duan's abuse of power. Ironically, Sun Yat-sen's new government was not based on the Provisional Constitution. Rather, the new government was a military government and Sun was its Generalissimo (Chinese: 大元帥; pinyin: dàyúanshuài). Six southern provinces became part of Sun's Guangzhou military government and repelled Duan's attempt to destroy the Constitutional Protection Army.
The Constitutional Protection War continued through 1918. Many in Sun Yat-sen's Guangzhou government felt Sun's position as the Generalissimo was too exclusionary and promoted a cabinet system to challenge Sun's ultimate authority. As a result, the Guangzhou government was reorganized to elect a seven-member cabinet system, known as the Governing Committee. Sun was once again sidelined by his political opponents and military strongmen. He left for Shanghai following the reorganization.
Duan Qirui's Beijing government did not fare much better than Sun's. Some generals in Duan's Anhui Clique and others in the Chihli Clique did not want to use force to unify the southern provinces. They felt negotiation was the solution to unify China and forced Duan to resign in October. In addition, many were distressed by Duan's borrowing of huge sums of Japanese money to fund his army to fight internal enemies. President Feng Guozhang, with his term expiring, was then succeeded by Xu Shichang, who wanted to negotiate with the southern provinces. In February 1919, delegates from the northern and southern provinces convened in Shanghai to discuss postwar situations. However, the meeting broke down over Duan's borrowing of Japanese loans to fund the Anhui Clique army and further attempts at negotiation were hampered by the May Fourth Movement. The Constitutional Protection War essentially left China divided along the north-south border.
May Fourth Movement
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In 1917 China declared war on Germany in the hope of recovering its lost province, then under Japanese control. But in 1918 the Beijing government signed a secret deal with Japan accepting the latter's claim to Shandong. When the Treaty of Versailles confirmed the Japanese claim to Shandong and Beijing's sellout became public, internal reaction was shattering. On May 4, 1919, there were massive student demonstrations against the Beijing government and Japan. The political fervor, student activism, and iconoclastic and reformist intellectual currents set in motion by the patriotic student protest developed into a national awakening known as the May Fourth Movement. The intellectual milieu in which the May Fourth Movement developed was known as the New Culture Movement (新文化運動) and occupied the period from 1917 to 1923. The student demonstrations of May 4, 1919 were the high point of the New Culture Movement, and the terms are often used synonymously. Chinese representatives refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, due to intense pressure from the student protesters and public opinion alike.
Fight against warlordism
The May Fourth Movement helped to rekindle the then-fading cause of republican revolution. In 1917 Sun Yat-sen had become commander-in-chief of a rival military government in
In
Chiang consolidates power
Sun Yat-sen died of cancer in Beijing in March 1925, but the Nationalist movement he had helped to initiate was gaining momentum. During the summer of 1925, Chiang, as commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, set out on the long-delayed Northern Expedition against the northern warlords. Within nine months, half of China had been conquered. By 1926, however, the KMT had divided into left- and right-wing factions, and the Communist bloc within it was also growing. In March 1926, after thwarting a kidnapping attempt against him, Chiang abruptly dismissed his Soviet advisers, imposed restrictions on CPC members' participation in the top leadership, and emerged as the preeminent KMT leader. The Soviet Union, still hoping to prevent a split between Chiang and the CPC, ordered Communist underground activities to facilitate the Northern Expedition, which was finally launched by Chiang from Guangzhou in July 1926.
In early
The Comintern cause appeared bankrupt. A new policy was instituted calling on the CPC to foment armed insurrections in both urban and rural areas in preparation for an expected rising tide of revolution. Unsuccessful attempts were made by Communists to take cities such as
But in mid-1927 the CPC was at a low ebb. The Communists had been expelled from Wuhan by their left-wing KMT allies, who in turn were toppled by a military regime. By 1928 all of China was at least nominally under Chiang's control, and the Nanjing government received prompt international recognition as the sole legitimate government of China. The Nationalist government announced that in conformity with Sun Yat-sen's formula for the three stages of revolution — military unification, political tutelage, and constitutional democracy — China had reached the end of the first phase and would embark on the second, which would be under KMT direction.
Nanjing Decade (1928-1937)
The "Nanjing Decade" of 1928-37 was one of consolidation and accomplishment by the Kuomintang. Some of the harsh aspects of foreign concessions and privileges in China were moderated through diplomacy. The government acted energetically to modernize the legal and penal systems, stabilize prices, amortize debts, reform the banking and currency systems, build railroads and highways, improve public health facilities, legislate against traffic in narcotics, and augment industrial and agricultural production. Great strides also were made in education and, in an effort to help unify Chinese society, in a program to popularize the
Although the Kuomintang was nominally in control of the entire country during this period, large areas of China remained under the semi-autonomous rule of local warlords or warlord coalitions. The Kuomintang's rule was strongest in the eastern regions of China around the capital Nanjing, but regional warlords such as
See also:
The United States Military in pre-Republic/Republic of China
Between
In the 1920s and 1930s, the
The United States military also created several awards and decorations to recognize those personnel who had performed duty in China. The China Service Medal, China Campaign Medal, Yangtze Service Medal, and the China Relief Expedition Medal were all military medals which could be presented to those who had performed duty in China.
With the approach of World War II, the United States military in China was slowly withdrawn to protect other U.S. interests in the Pacific. With the rise of Communist China, there was no further U.S. military presence in mainland China, a status which continues to this day.
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
Main article:
Few Chinese had any illusions about
with General Stilwell
The Chinese resistance stiffened after
The collaboration between the KMT and CPC took place with salutary effects for the beleaguered CPC. The distrust between the two parties, however, was scarcely veiled. The uneasy alliance began to break down after late
In 1945 the Republic of China emerged from the war nominally a great military power but actually a nation economically prostrate and on the verge of all-out civil war. The economy deteriorated, sapped by the military demands of foreign war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by Nationalist profiteering, speculation, and hoarding. Starvation came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and the unsettled conditions in many parts of the country. The situation was further complicated by an Allied agreement at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 that brought Soviet troops into Manchuria to hasten the termination of war against Japan. Although the Chinese had not been present at Yalta, they had been consulted; they had agreed to have the Soviets enter the war in the belief that the Soviet Union would deal only with the Nationalist government. After the war, the Soviet Union, as part of the Yalta agreement's allowing a Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria, dismantled and removed more than half the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese. The Soviet presence in northeast China enabled the Communists to move in long enough to arm themselves with the equipment surrendered by the withdrawing Japanese army. The problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the ravages of a protracted war were staggering.
Civil War (1945-1949)
Main article: Chinese Civil War
During World War II, the United States emerged as a major actor in Chinese affairs. As an ally it embarked in late 1941 on a program of massive military and financial aid to the hard-pressed Nationalist government. In January 1943 the United States and Britain led the way in revising their treaties with China, bringing to an end a century of unequal treaty relations. Within a few months, a new agreement was signed between the United States and Republic of China for the stationing of American troops in China for the common war effort against Japan. In December 1943 the Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s and subsequent laws enacted by the United States Congress to restrict Chinese immigration into the United States were repealed.
The wartime policy of the United States was initially to help China become a strong ally and a stabilizing force in postwar
Through the mediatory influence of the United States a military truce was arranged in January
Belatedly, the Nationalist government sought to enlist popular support through internal reforms. The effort was in vain, however, because of the rampant corruption in government and the accompanying political and economic chaos. By late 1948 the Nationalist position was bleak. The demoralized and undisciplined Nationalist troops proved no match for the communist People's Liberation Army, earlier known as the Red Army(解放軍/紅軍). The Communists were well established in the north and northeast. Although the Nationalists had an advantage in numbers of men and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population than their adversaries, and enjoyed considerable international support, they were exhausted by the long war with Japan and in-fighting among various generals. They were also losing the propaganda war to the Communists, with the population weary of Nationalist corruption and yearning for peace. In January 1949 Beiping was taken by the Communists without a fight, and its name changed back to Beijing. Between April and November, major cities passed from KMT to Communist control with minimal resistance. In most cases the surrounding countryside and small towns had come under Communist influence long before the cities. After Chiang Kai-shek and a few hundred thousand Nationalist troops and 2 million refugees, predominantly from the government and business community, fled from the mainland to the island of Taiwan (台灣) (which had been in Nationalist hands since 1945), there remained only isolated pockets of resistance. In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei (台北) , Taiwan, the temporary capital of the Republic of China.