Birth Pangs of a New State
The state of China as the last Manchu emperor abdicated in
February 1912 bore many parallels to China’s position when the last
Ming emperor hanged himself in April 1644. The national finances were
in disarray, with a depleted treasury in Peking and little money coming
in from the provinces. Groups of scholars and bureaucrats had expressed
a wide range of dissatisfactions with the defunct regime, and this
discontent now had to be addressed. The army troops occupying Peking
were numerous but hard to control, of doubtful loyalty, and liable to
mutiny or desertion if their pay fell too long in arrears. Natural
disasters had devastated the countryside, causing ruined harvests and
starvation, and creating masses of refugees just when financial
shortages made it difficult for local governments to offer famine
relief. Many supporters of the defeated ruling house remained loyal and
could be the focus for future trouble. Foreign pressure was intense,
the possibility of invasion imminent. In the macroregions of central,
western, and southern China, there was a strong chance that independent
separtist regimes would emerge, further weakening central authority.
Regular Cycle of Dynastic Transition
Transition from Qing to the Republic of China
There were also, of course, numerous differences between the two
transitional periods, of which four were probably the most significant.
First, in 1912 there were at least seven predatory foreign powers with
special interests in China, not just one, and China was already heavily
in debt to them. Second, in 1912 the entire economic infrastructure of
the country was being dramatically transformed by new modes of
communication, transportation, and industrial development. Third, the
significance of Confucianism as a central philosophical system with
answers germane to all Chinese problems had been called into question.
And fourth, although in 1912 many Chinese still favored a strong,
central authority, the entire institution of the emperorship along with
the compromise arrangement of a constitutional monarchy had been
rejected by most educated Chinese. The most influential forces in the
country sought to impose some type of republican government. (SMC,
261-2)
The restoration of order to China
required that Yuan Shikai link his Peking base and Beiyang army support
to the Revolutionary Alliance and the Nanjing forces. It also hinged on
the integration of the New Army units and the provincial assemblies
into a national polity bound by a legitimate constitution. The first
steps toward these goals were halting ones. Since his troops were no
match for Yuan’s, Sun Yat-sen, hailed by his supporters as
provisional president on January 1, 1912, relinquished claims to the
title just over a month later, on February 13, the day after the Manchu
abdication; Yuan Shikai assumed the office in Sun Yat-sen’s
place. ...
The task now was to create a meaningful
constitution, under which valid elections would be held across China
for the new two-chamber parliament. The initial step toward this goal
had been the convening of the National Assembly in Peking in October
1910. ... Although a creation of the Qing court, the National Assembly
swiftly moved to a position of importance for the future of
constitutional government in China. ... Overlapping with these
developments in Peking, however, came the meetings, at the instigation
of the Revolutionary Alliance, of various groups of provincial
delegates — first in Shanghai, then in Hankou, and finally in
Nanjing. These delegates were formally convened as the National Council
in Nanjing on January 28, 1912, with three delegates from each
province. Their role was essential to the healthy growth of Chinese
democracy, since Sun Yat-sen had stipulated that the National Council
would ratify Yuan’s election as provisional president. (SMC,
263-4)
Yuan Pledges Allegiance to the Republic
February 12, 1912
A
republic is the best form of government. The whole world admits this.
That in one leap we have passed from autocracy to republicanism is
really the outcome of the many years of strenuous efforts exerted by
you all, and is the greatest blessing to the people. The Da Qing
emperor has proclaimed his abdication by edict countersigned by myself.
The day of the promulgation of this edict shall be the end of Imperial
rule and the inauguration of the Republic. Henceforth we shall exert
our utmost strength to move forward in progress until we reach
perfection. Henceforth, forever, we shall not allow a monarchical
government in our country. (DC, 203) |
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The Rise & Fall of Democracy
Under the rules of [the] provisional
constitution, the Chinese began to prepare for their first national
elections. There were to be two chambers in the Parliament: one, a
Senate, would comprise 274 members serving six-year terms, chosen by
the provincial assemblies, with ten members from each province and the
remainder representing the overseas Chinese; the other chamber would be
a House of Representatives with 596 members serving three-year terms,
and drawn more or less proportionately according to population on a
basis of one delegate for each 800,000 people. (SMC, 265)
| New electoral regulations promulgated
in 1912 gave the vote to Chinese males over twenty-one who held
property worth $500 or paid taxes of at least $2, and held an
elementary-school graduation certificate. Approximately 40 million
men — around 10 percent of the population — could meet these
requirements. (SMC, 266) |
The results of China’s first national
election were announced in January 1913, and they spelled a clear
victory for the Guomindang [i.e. the party that was formed out of Sun
Yat-sen’s Revolutionary Alliance]. ... Under the provisional
constitution, the Guomindang would now have a dominant role in
selecting the premier and cabinet, and could proceed to push for the
election of the president in a fully supervised parliamentary setting.
 In the spring of 1913, China’s newly elected representatives began to travel by rail, road, river, and sea to the Parliament in Peking. The victorious party leader, Song Jiaoren,
went with his friends to the Shanghai railroad station on March 20. As
he stood on the platform waiting to board the train, a man walked up
and shot him twice at close range. Song was taken at once to the
hospital but died two days later — two weeks before his
thirty-first birthday. It was widely believed that he would have been
named China’s premier. It was also widely believed that Yuan
Shikai was behind the assassination, since the trail of evidence led to
the secretary of the cabinet and to the provisional premier. But the
main conspirators were either themselves assassinated or else
disappeared mysteriously, and Yuan was never officially
implicated.
When the other Guomindang
delegates had assembled in Parliament, they pressed to gain control
over Yuan, to develop a permanent constitution, and to hold a full and
open presidential election. The Guomindang members, in particular, were
intensely critical of Yuan’s handling of national finances: instead of
addressing tax-collection problems directly, he had taken out another
huge loan — a so-called “reorganization loan” — of over £25 million
(approximately $100 million) from a consoritum of foreign banks. Yuan
interpreted these bitter protests as personal attacks and resolved to
strike back. In early May 1913, [Yuan] dismissed the leading
pro-Guomindang military governors. In heavy fighting that summer,
troops loyal to the Guomindang were routed by Yuan’s forces, and
in September, Nanjing was taken for Yuan by the reactionary general
Zhang Xun, whose troops still wore their Manchu queues. In October,
Yuan forced the members of Parliament to elect him president for a
five-year term. (It took three ballots before he won a majority,
however.) Finally, calling the Guomindang a seditious organization, he
ordered the dissolution of the party and the eviction of its remaining
members from Parliament. At the end of November, Sun Yat-sen left China
for Japan, driven once more into exile from his own country, his
republican dreams in ruins. (SMC, 266-7)
As a prelude to purging the Guomindang
members from Parliament in late 1913, Yuan had ordered his police to
conduct house-to-house searches of those representatives and senators
believed to be Guomindang affiliates. The searches yielded up 438
members with Guomindang party cards, and these members were henceforth
banned from Parliament. Since the Parliament now lacked a quorum, in
late November the speakers of both houses announced an indefinite
adjournment; in January 1914, Parliament was formally dissolved, and in
February similar dissolution orders were issued for the provincial
assemblies and for local government organizations.
To give a semblance of legality to his
regime, Yuan now convened a body of sixty-six men from his cabinet and from
various posts in the provinces, and these men produced, on May 1, 1914,
a “constitutional compact” to replace the provisional
constitution. The compact gave Yuan as president virtually unlimited
power over war, finance, foreign policy, and the rights of citizens. In
explaining his action to one of his close advisers, Yuan observed:
| “Parliament was an unworkable body. 800 men! 200 were good, 200
were passive, 400 were useless. What had they done? They had not even
agreed on procedure.” |
It was a suitably sardonic comment on the
destruction of China’s democratic hopes. (SMC, 269)
- Was
Yuan simply a power-hungry autocrat or were the problems that China
faced too pressing to resolve through democracy, which requires "checks
and balances" that slow down the process and make it difficult for the
president to directly implement his/her policy objectives?
- Is democracy the ideal choice for every country? Was it right for China? Is it right for China now?
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World War I
The Broadening of Japan’s “Sphere of Influence”
It was to Yuan’s initial advantage as he built his
dictatorship that the First World War had erupted in Europe in August
1914, leaving France, Britain, Germany, and Russia too distracted to
press for any more gains in China. Furthermore, in their desperate need
for troops on the Western front, these foreign powers summoned home all
their able-bodied nationals from China. This gave a new generation of
Chinese entrepreneurs and managers a golden opportunity to take over
the key functions in business and administration, to build up their
private fortunes, and to gain invaluable financial experience. But
unfortunately for Yuan, Japan was more than ready to pick up the slack.
With formal ties of alliance to Great Britain that dated back to 1902,
Japan had declared war on Germany in August 1914 and had immediately
followed up by attacking the German concession areas in Shandong
province.
In January 1915, Japan dealt China an even harsher
blow when it issued Yuan’s government the Twenty-one Demands. In these,
the Japanese demanded far more extensive economic rights for their
subjects in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia; joint Sino-Japanese
administration of the huge Han-Ye-Ping iron and coal works in central
China; nonalienation of any Chinese ports or islands to other foreign
powers; the stationing of Japanese police and economic advisers in
north China; and extensive new commercial rights in the region of
Fujian province. (SMC, 270-1)
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The Twenty-one Demands
January 18,
1915
Section I
The Japanese
Government and the Chinese government being desirous of maintaining the general
peace in Eastern Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and good
neighborhood existing between the two nations agree to the following articles:Article 1. The Chinese Government engages to give full assent to all
matters upon which the Japanese Government may hereafter agree with the German
Government relating to the disposition of rights, interests and concessions which
Germany, by virtue of treaties or otherwise, possesses in relation to the
Province of Shantung.
Article 2. The Chinese Government engages that
within the Province of Shantung and along its coast, no territory or island will
be ceded or leased to a third power under any pretext.
Article 3. The Chinese Government consents to Japan’s building a railway from Chefoo or
Lungkow to join the Kiaochow-Chinanfu Railway.
Article 4. The
Chinese Government engages, in interest of trade and for the residence of
foreigners, to open by herself as soon as possible certain important cities and
towns in the Province of Shantung as Commercial Ports. What places shall be
opened are to be jointly decided upon in a separate agreement.
Section II
The Japanese Government and the
Chinese Government, since the Chinese Government has always acknowledged the
special position enjoyed by Japan in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia,
agree to the following articles:
Article 1. The two Contracting
Parties mutually agree that the term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny and the
term of lease of the South Manchurian Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway
shall be extended to the period of 99 years.
Article 2. Japanese
subjects in south Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia shall have the right to
lease or own land required either for erecting suitable buildings for trade and
manufacture or for farming.
Article 3. Japanese subjects shall be
free to reside and travel in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia and to
engage in business and in manufacture of any kind whatsoever.
Article
4. The Chinese Government agrees to grant to Japanese subjects the right of
opening the mines in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia. As regards
what mines are to be opened, they shall be decided upon jointly.
Article
5. The Chinese Government agrees that in respect of the (two) cases
mentioned herein below the Japanese government’s consent shall be first obtained
before actions is taken:
(a) Whenever permission is granted to the subject of a
third Power to build a railway or to make a loan with a third Power for the
purpose of building a railway in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia.
(b) Whenever a loan is to be made with a third Power
pledging the local taxes of South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia as
security.
Article 6. The Chinese Government agrees that if the
Chinese Government employs political, financial or military advisers or
instructors in South Manchuria or Eastern Inner Mongolia, the Japanese
Government shall first be consulted.
Article 7. The Chinese
Government agrees that the control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway
shall be handed over to the Japanese Government for a term of 99 years dating
from the signing of this agreement.
Section III
The Japanese Government and the
Chinese Government, seeing that Japanese financiers and the Hanyehping Co. have
close relations with each other at present and desiring that the common
interests of the two nations shall be advanced, agree to the following articles:
Article 1. The two Contracting Parties mutually agree that when the
opportune moment arrives the Hanyehping Company shall be made a joint concern of
the two nations and they further agree that without the previous consent of
Japan China shall not by her own act dispose of the rights and property of
whatsoever nature of the said Company nor cause the said Company to dispose
freely of the same.
Article 2. The Chinese Government agrees that
all mines in the neighborhood of those owned by the Hanyehping Company shall not
be permitted, without the consent of the said Company, to be worked by other
persons outside of the said Company; and further agrees that if it is desired to
carry out any undertaking which, it is apprehended, may directly or indirectly
affect the interests of the said Company, the consent of the said Company shall
first be obtained.
The Japanese Government and the
Chinese Government with the object of effectively preserving the territorial
integrity of China agree to the following special article:
The Chinese
Government engages not to cede or lease to a third Power any harbor or bay or
island along the coast of China.
Section V
Article 1. The Chinese Central
Government shall employ influential Japanese as advisers in political, financial
and military affairs.
Article 2. Japanese hospitals, churches and
schools in the interior of China shall be granted the right of owning land.
Article 3. Inasmuch as the Japanese government and the Chinese
Government have had many cases of disputes between Japanese and Chinese police
which caused no little misunderstanding, it is for this reason necessary that
the police departments of important places (in China) shall be jointly
administered by Japanese and Chinese or that the police departments of these
places shall employ numerous Japanese, so that they may at the same time help to
plan for the improvement of the Chinese Police Service.
Article 4.
China shall purchase from Japan a fixed amount of munitions of war (say 50% or
more of what is needed by the Chinese Government) or that there shall be
established in China a Sino-Japanese jointly worked arsenal. Japanese technical
experts are to be employed and Japanese material to be purchased.
Article
5. China agrees to grant to Japan the right of constructing a railway
connecting Wuchang with Kiu-Kiang and Nanchang, another line between Nanchang
and Hangchow, and another between Nanchang and Chao-Chow.
Article 6.
If China needs foreign capital to work mines, build railways and construct
harbor-works (including dockyards) in the Province of Fukien, Japan shall be
first consulted.
Article 7. China agrees that Japanese subjects
shall have the right of missionary propaganda in China. (DC, 204-6)
Were Japan's requests
reasonable?
Were they any different from the
demands that had been made by the West?
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China’s Reply to the Ultimatum
The
Chinese Government with a view to preserving the peace of the Far East
hereby accepts, with the exception of those five articles of Group V
postponed for later negotiation, all the articles of Groups I, II, III
and IV ... with the hope that thereby all outstanding questions are
settled, so that the cordial relationship between the two countries may
be further consolidated. ... (DC, 206-7) |
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As Yuan’s prestige and popularity
sagged, his own intransigence hardened. His critics were harassed or
silenced under the terms of censorship regulations imposed in 1914 on
all newspapers and other publications; these regulations carried stiff
penalties for anyone printing material “harmful to the public
peace.” To build up additional support for his authority, Yuan
had already begun to reinstitute elements of Confucian belief as
China’s state religion. As president, Yuan assumed the role of
chief participant in important rituals at the Qing Temple of Heaven,
to
which he now drove in an armored car. By deliberately evoking Qing
state religious observances, Yuan took on the trappings of emperor; in
late 1915, Yuan indeed moved firmly in that direction, floating rumors
that people wanted him to revive the institution. By August, official
pressure to make Yuan emperor had taken on national dimensions, and in
November a specially convened “Representative Assembly”
voted — allegedly with the astonishing unanimity of 1,993 votes in
favor and none opposed — to beg Yuan to become emperor. On December
12, 1915, Yuan accepted, inaugurating his new regime as of
January 1, 1916. He placed an order at the former imperial potteries
for a 40,000-piece porcelain dinner set costing 1.4 million yuan. He
also ordered a large jade seal and two imperial robes at 400,000 yuan
each.
Yuan Shikai and his advisers ... believed that
China was yearning for a symbol of central authority transcending the
president and that, therefore, the restoration of the emperorship would
be welcomed. But they had miscalculated. Many of Yuan’s close
political allies abandoned him, and the solidarity of his Beiyang
clique of former military protégés was shattered.
Throughout China there were mass protests matched by open actions in
the provinces. The military leader in Yunnan declared that
province’s independence in December 1915; Guizhou followed in
January 1916, and Guangxi in March. The foreign powers were aloof or
openly hostile to Yuan and did not give him any of the support he
expected. In March 1916, Yuan Shikai responded to the outcries by
declaring that he would cancel the monarchy, but his prestige was now
shattered, and province after province continued to declare
independence of Peking. Yuan died of uremia [a terminal manifestation of kidney failure] — compounded, many
thought, by anger and humiliation — on June 6, 1916, at the age of
fifty-six. (SMC, 271-2)
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The men known as “warlords,” who now
controlled much of China, had a wide range of backgrounds and
maintained their power in different ways. ... No matter whether individual
warlords were cruel or generous, sophisticated or muddleheaded, the
fragmentation of China that was now beginning was to make any further
attempts to unify the country even harder than it had been for those
who inherited the mantle of leadership from the Qing. Nevertheless, a
certain apparent coherence adhered to China’s government because
the warlords in north China never completely destroyed what remained of
the presidency and the premiership. Instead, they placed their own
supporters in these positions so that whatever prestige the offices
preserved would redound back to the warlords themselves. (SMC, 273-4)
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China’s Contribution to World War I
& the Treaty of Versailles
China’s military strength was trivial
compared to that of the European belligerents or of the United States,
which had entered the war on the side of Britain and France in April
1917, but China had one crucial resource that the Allies
lacked — namely, manpower. ... In constant need of new men for the
front, the Allies realized that if Chinese laborers could be used on
the docks and on construction projects in Western Europe, it would free
more European males for active combat. ... The Chinese were given medical
examinations and ... [if] accepted — and about 100,000 made it
through the screening — they were issued dog tags with serial
numbers, which were sealed with metal rivets on bands around their
wrists. (SMC, 275-6)
 After the armistice of November 11, 1918, ended
the war with Germany’s defeat, anticipation in China ran high.
There were triumphant parades in Peking, and an exuberant crowd
demolished the memorial that the Qing had been forced to raise in honor
of the Germans killed by the Boxers. The Peking government was now
headed by yet another Beiyang-faction president and premier; Duan Qirui
had resigned in October 1918, but before doing so had used ... huge
Japanese loans to enhance his own military power and had continued to
build a network of secret deals with the Japanese. The Chinese
delegation to the postwar treaty negotiations at Versailles, sixty-two
members strong, was headed by five capable diplomats who had never been
fully briefed on what to expect. They were greeted at Versailles by the
shattering announcement of the chief Japanese delegate that early in
1917, in return for Japanese naval assistance against the Germans,
Great Britain, France, and Italy had signed a secret treaty ensuring
“support [of] Japan’s claims in regard to the disposal of
Germany’s rights in Shandong” after the war.
As if that were not bad enough, the Japanese
also announced that they had come to secret agreements with Duan Qirui
in September 1918, while he was still premier. These agreements granted
the Japanese the right to station police and to establish military
garrisons in Jinan and Qingdao, and mortgaged to Japan, in partial
payment for its loans to China, the total income from two new Shandong
railroads the Japanese planned to develop. (SMC, 277-8)
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