The Republic of China (1912–1949) was the official designation of the state that succeeded the last imperial dynasty of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). The People's Republic was founded in the hope of establishing a modern state capable of getting rid of the image of the former traditional rule to rise and enter the circle of the international community.
But from the beginning, the Chinese Republic has been plagued by internal conflicts. President Yuan Shikai and others attempted to revive the imperial monarchy, while revolutionary Sun Yat-sen was only able to control his hometown in Guangdong Province, and several groups of warlords competed with each other for power.
The Chinese Patriotic Movement and the People's Republic of China
At the beginning of the twentieth century, China experienced a general crisis and had a population of about 400 million people at the beginning of the twentieth century, 90% of whom lived in the valleys. While agricultural land is in the hands of a handful of feudal lords and military rulers «notables of the valleys», who subject the peasants to forced labor and impose high taxes on them, and in the event that the peasants are unable to pay them, their small plots of land are taken from them.
The Manchu dynasty and the ruling aristocracy owned vast lands and used peasants. Chinese cities have also experienced foreign dominance, opening the door to Western investment. Privileges and guarantees were granted to foreigners. Colonies such as Shanghai sprang up.
Western investments were directed towards mineral extraction, light industry, and railways, and these investments went from $800 million in 1902 to $1,600 million in 1914, of which $600 million was English investment, $200 million, German $2 million, and $219 million. These investments were distributed according to spheres of influence. The railway is a group of lines of multiple affiliations: the South Manchurian line belongs to Japan, and the Himalayan line belongs to France and Belgium.
China's association with Western capitalism led it to enter the war on the side of the Allies in 1917. The penetration of Western capital and the deterioration of the situation of artisanists resulted from competition from the products of modern industry.
The Chinese working class, which was used for interests monopolized by foreigners or in the hands of the Chinese middle class, emerged for a meagre wage. Workers were also constantly fired. Despite their weak organization, they were a social force demanding change.
In the political sphere, China experienced successive crises: in addition to foreign intervention, the country was divided among "feudal military rulers." When the emperor called for a "campaign of internal reform" for modernization, such as a modern army and a Japan-like constitution, he ran into opposition from conservative groups. Secret societies, most famously the Boxer, carried out terrorist acts against foreigners and opposed any reform attempt. The colonial powers used this as a pretext for military intervention in China. Japan's occupation of Chinese territory precipitated the fall of the Manchu dynasty.
Birth of the Chinese National Movement
The opposition against foreign occupation and feudalism was led by the National Kuomintang Party, founded by Sun Yat-sen since 1905.
Born in 1866, Sun Bat Sen studied medicine in the Hawaiian Islands. He lived for a long time in London and then returned home, and in his book Memories of a Chinese Revolutionary, he developed a program that included three main principles:
- The Chinese people are one: first of all, China must be once and for all liberated from the yoke of imperialism... The right of the people to self-determination and to coexist with different nations were fundamental necessities.
- The people are the masters: democratic governance is the only political system accepted by a people who have reached some degree of development, and political equality among citizens is essential.
- Every citizen must put himself at the disposal of the homeland ... This is in order to ensure the happiness of the people, by systematically distributing the country's natural wealth and determining the concentration of capital.
Sun Bat-sen led the 1911 revolution that overthrew the imperial system and replaced it with the republican system, but the feudal powers allied themselves with General Yuan Shi Kai, who had seized power and established a military dictatorship since 1913, opened the country to Japanese expansion, and declared himself emperor in 1915.
After his death in 1916, each military ruler was singled out for his or her sphere of influence, and China was divided into several territories. As the crisis worsened, Sun Pat-Sen's Kuomintang Party established a canton-based provisional government in 1917, with China having northern and southern governments for the duration of World War I.
In the aftermath of World War I, China underwent economic developments as a result of the activity of foreign capital, especially Japanese capital. The Chinese bourgeoisie could not compete with foreign capitalism. A class of intellectuals emerged who graduated from universities. The cultural atmosphere was in favor of the national movement and was manifested in the publication of about 900 newspapers, in addition to the spread of publishing houses and the expansion of schooling. An anti-conservative cultural current emerged. These factors were combined, leading to a national movement.
Following the Treaty of Versailles, which granted Japan the right to dispose of Germany's property and privileges in China, including the conversion of the rich province of Shantung to Japanese surveillance, demonstrations began on May 4, 1919, in Beijing, which quickly spread to other cities, especially Shanghai, and took the form of boycotting foreign interests, and calling for the rejection of tradition for the sake of a Chinese resurrection.
A literary current known as the New Wave emerged, which broke away all relationship with the past and Confucian traditions. Its most prominent members include Li Zhaoshi and Mao Zedong, who helped found the Communist Party of China in 1921 in Shanghai. Mao Zedong was chosen as a member of the central administration of this party.
The founding period of the Chinese Communist Party coincided with Sun Bat-sin pursuing three new policies: support for the Workers' and Peasants' Union movement, alliance with the Communists, and rapprochement with the Soviet Union. He established a powerful army to unify the country. This period was also marked by an alliance of China's two strong parties: the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. However, Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 before the country's unity was achieved.
Communist Party of China and Kuomintang
After the country's unification, Chan Kai-shek organized a campaign against the socialist communists.
After Sun Yat-sen's death, Tchang Kaï-chek, the most prominent member of the Kyu-Min-Teng Party, took command of the Revolutionary Army. He relied on him to seize the north and eliminate the Beijing government in 1928.
Chan Kai-shek feared the development of the power of the communists, who insisted that the national revolution should be transformed into a social revolution. That is why he turned against them since 1928, killing nearly 450,000 communists, workers, peasants, students and intellectuals, a period called the "bloody white terror." Western countries were providing aid to Chan Kai-shek, who allied himself with the big Chinese bourgeoisie.
In the face of these massacres, elements of the Communist Party, who managed to escape, organized the "Long March" between October 1934 and October 1935 towards the northern plateaus. They walked 12,000 kilometres under the bomb of air raids and continuous attacks by Chan Kai-shek's forces. Of the 200,60 participants at the start of the march, only <>,<> communists joined the Shaanxi region. The march was led by Mao Zedong, who passed agrarian reform in each region he visited, which secured him the support of the landless peasants.
Born into a peasant family from Hunan province, Mao Zedong became assistant governor of the Beijing University Library. With the establishment of the May 4, 1919 movement, his interest and work in student activities strengthened. In 1921, he helped found the Chinese Communist Party.
At the request of the Party, Mao Zedong was tasked with organizing the Hunan Province branch. He also wrote a report on Hunan in which he highlighted the revolutionary energies of the peasants and their role in a peasant country like China. He was able to establish a Chinese socialist republic in Shaanxi region with a peasant base.
Chiang Kai-k'salliance with the Chinese Communists
Chan Kai-shek did not care about Japan's occupation of Chinese territory in 1931, but signed an armistice with it to devote himself to eliminating the communists, while the Communist Party demanded that he unite efforts against the Japanese invasion. The Red Army was formed from workers and peasants to achieve agricultural revolution in the liberated areas. The Communists led the resistance against the Japanese invasion, which earned them the support of the masses for their national position, and made them influence some patriotic officers who pressured Chan Kai-shek to change his position in 1936.
In 1937, he halted his campaigns against Mao Zedong's followers, especially when the Japanese invasion threatened his position, and was forced to ally himself again with the Communists to form a front against Japan. The Communists organized guerrilla warfare that crippled the Japanese armies. Mao Zedong Tactic summed up guerrilla warfare by saying:
- When the enemy advances: we retreat
- When the enemy stops: Nanawshah
- When the enemy slackens: we attack him
- When the enemy retreats: we follow him
Taiwan
Chan Kai-shek was forced by Japan's occupation of coastal areas to move his position to an isolated area inland.
The alliance of patriots and communists lasted until the end of World War II in 1946, and Japan withdrew from China after its defeat. A confrontation between the two parties ensued, which ended with the victory of the Communists in 1949 led by Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan, forming the so-called "National Republic of China" and Mao Zedong in mainland China the People's Republic of China.
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