12.4 Upheavals in China

Read the Section and answer the questions that follow.
Upheavals in China

Terms, People, and Places
Twenty-One Demands
May Fourth Movement
vanguard
Guomindang
Long March

As the new Chinese republic took shape, nationalists like Sun Yixian (soon yee SHYAHN) set the goal of “catching up and surpassing the powers, east and west.” But that goal would remain a distant dream as China suffered the turmoil of civil war and foreign invasion.

The Chinese Republic in Trouble

As you have read, China’s Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911. The president of China’s new republic, Sun Yixian (also called Sun Yat-sen) hoped to rebuild China on the Three Principles of the People—
nationalism, democracy, and economic security for everyone. But he made little progress. China quickly fell into chaos in the face of the “twin evils” of warlord uprisings and foreign imperialism.

The Warlord Problem 
In 1912, Sun Yixian stepped down as president in favor of Yuan Shikai (yoo AHN shih KY), a powerful general. Sun hoped that Yuan would create a strong central government, but instead, the ambitious general tried to set up a new dynasty. The military, however, did not support Yuan, and opposition divided the nation. When Yuan died in 1916, China plunged into still greater disorder. 
In the provinces, local warlords seized power. As rival armies battled for control, the economy collapsed and millions of peasants suffered terrible hardships. Famine and attacks by bandits added to their misery.
Foreign Imperialism During this period of upheaval, foreign powers increased their influence over Chinese affairs. Foreign merchants, missionaries, and soldiers dominated the ports China had opened to trade.
During World War I, Japanese officials presented Yuan Shikai with the Twenty-One Demands, a list of demands that sought to make China a Japanese protectorate. With China too weak to resist, Yuan gave in to some of the demands. Then, in 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies gave Japan control over some former German possessions in China. That news infuriated Chinese Nationalists.

May Fourth Movement
In response, student protests erupted in Beijing on May 4, 1919, and later spread to cities across China. The protests set off a cultural and intellectual ferment known as the May Fourth

Movement. Its goal was to strengthen China. Reformers sought to improve China’s position by rejecting Confucian traditions and learning from the West. As in Meiji Japan, they hoped to use their new knowledge to end foreign domination.
Women played a key role in the May Fourth Movement. They joined marches and campaigned to end several traditional practices, including footbinding. Their work helped open doors for women in education and the economy.

The Appeal of Marxism 
Some Chinese turned to the revolutionary ideas of Marx and Lenin. The Soviet Union was more than willing to train Chinese students and military officers to become the vanguard, or elite leaders, of a communist revolution. By the 1920s, a small group of Chinese Communists had formed their own political party.

Struggle for a New China
In 1921, Sun Yixian and his Guomindang (gwoh meen DAWNG) or Nationalist party, established a government in South China. Sun planned to raise an army, defeat the warlords, and spread his government’s rule over all of China. When Western democracies refused to help, Sun accepted aid from the Soviet Union and joined forces with a small group of Chinese Communists. However, he still believed that China’s future should be based on his Three Principles of the People.
Jiang Jieshi Leads the Nationalists After Sun’s death in 1925, an energetic young army officer, Jiang Jieshi (jahng jeh shur), took over the Guomindang. Jiang Jieshi (also called Chiang Kai-Shek) was determined to smash the power of the warlords and reunite China, but he had little interest in either democracy or communism.
In 1926, Jiang Jieshi began the Northern Expedition with the Chinese Communists. In the Northern Expedition, Jiang led the combined forces into northern China, crushing or winning over local warlords as he advanced and captured Beijing. Jiang would take control of a new government led by the Guomindang—but without the Communists. In mid-campaign, Jiang seized the chance to strike at the Chinese Communist Party, which he saw as a threat to his power. The Communists were winning converts among the small proletariat in cities like Shanghai. Early in 1927, on orders from Jiang, Guomindang troops slaughtered Communist Party members and the workers who supported
them. In Shanghai and elsewhere, thousands of people were killed. This massacre marked the beginning of a bitter civil war between the Communists and the Guomindang that lasted for 22 years.

Mao Zedong and the Communists 
Among the Communists who escaped Jiang’s attack was a young revolutionary of peasant origins, Mao Zedong (mow dzuh doong) (also called Mao Tse-tung). Unlike earlier Chinese Communists, Mao believed that the Communists should seek support not among the small urban working class but among the large peasant masses.
Although the Communists were pursued at every turn by Guomindang forces, Mao was optimistic about eventual success. In southeastern China, Mao and the Communists redistributed land to peasants and promised other reforms.
The Long March 
Jiang Jieshi, however, was determined to destroy the  “Red bandits,” as he called the Communists. He led the Guomindang in a series of “extermination campaigns” against them. The Guomindang
harassed Mao’s retreating army throughout the Long March from 1934 to 1935. Mao’s forces used guerrilla, or irregular hit-and-run, tactics to fight back. At the end of the Long March, the Communists set up a new base in a remote region of northern China. There, Mao rebuilt his forces and plotted new strategies for fighting the Guomindang.
During the march, the Communists enforced strict discipline. Soldiers were told to treat peasants politely, pay for goods they wanted, and avoid damaging crops. Such behavior made Mao’s forces welcome among peasants, many of whom had suffered greatly at the hands of the Guomindang.
One of the most dramatic events in the conflict between the Guomindang and the Communists was the epic retreat known as the Long March. During the Long March, Mao and about 100,000 of his followers fled the Guomindang. In the next year, they trekked more than 6,000 miles, facing daily attacks as they crossed rugged mountains and mighty rivers. Only about 8,000 marchers survived the ordeal. For decades, the Long March stood as a symbol of communist heroism and inspired new recruits to follow Mao. He claimed the great retreat as a victory. As he observed:
“The Long March is also a seeding-machine. It has sown many seeds in eleven
provinces, which will sprout, grow leaves, blossom into flowers, bear fruit, and
yield a crop.”
—Mao Zedong, “On the Tactics of Fighting Japanese Imperialism”

Japanese Invasion
While Jiang was pursuing the Communists across China, the country faced another danger. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria in northeastern China, adding it to the growing Japanese empire. As Japanese aggression increased, a faction within the Guomindang forced Jiang to form a united front with the Communists against Japan.
In 1937, the Japanese struck again, starting what became the Second Sino-Japanese War. Airplanes bombed Chinese cities, and Japanese troops overran eastern China, including Beijing and Guangzhou. Jiang Jieshi and his government retreated to the interior and set up a new cap-
ital at Chongqing (chawng CHING).

After a lengthy siege, Japanese troops marched into the city ofNanjing (nahn jing) on December 13. Nanjing was an important cultural center and had been the Guomindang capital before Chongqing. After the city’s surrender, the Japanese killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers
and civilians and brutalized still more. The cruelty and destruction became known around the world as the “rape of Nanjing.”
The united Chinese fought back against the Japanese. The Soviet Union sent advisors and equipment to help. Great Britain, France, and the United States gave economic aid. The Guomindang and the Communists still clashed occasionally, but the united front stayed intact until the end of the war with Japan.

Looking Ahead
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the United States into the war against Japan and into an alliance with the Chinese. By the end of World War II, Jiang and the Guomindang controlled China’s central government, but Mao’s Communist Party controlled much of northern and central China. The Communists had organized hundreds of thousands of Chinese peasants at the village level, spreading their political ideas. Meanwhile, corruption grew in Jiang’s government. Soon, the Communists
would triumph, and Mao would impose revolutionary change on China.

( vocab ) Twenty-One Demands

( vocab ) May Fourth Movement

( vocab ) vanguard

( vocab ) Guomindang

( vocab ) Long March

( checkpoint ) How did warlord uprisings and foreign imperialism lead to the May Fourth movement?

( checkpoint ) How did the Communists manage to survive Jiang’s “extermination campaigns”?

( checkpoint ) How did the Japanese invasion help unify the Chinese temporarily?

( assessment ) Why did the new republic of China fall into chaos after 1912?

( assessment ) Do you think the retreating Communists’ policy to pay for goods they wanted during
the Long March was a good idea? Why or why not?

( assessment ) How do you think the “rape of Nanjing” affected Japan’s reputation around the world?

( objectives ) Explain the key challenges faced by the Chinese republic in the early 1900s.

( objectives )  Analyze the struggle between two rival parties as they fought to control China.

( objectives )  Describe how the invasion by Japan affected China.

( focus question ) How did China cope with internal division and foreign invasion in the early 1900s?