The Republic China notes 2 8 18 PDF

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Notes verbatim from Bendecks total war class. I got an A in the course and the only information used were these notes. They were written very meticulously. ...

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The “Republic” 1. The Rule of Yuan Shikai (1912-1916) a. Problems with the Guomindang i. When Yuan Shikai accepted the provisional presidency, he did not realize his role was much more of a figurehead and that he would have to step down once elections were held. Besides, the true power lay in the premier. ii. Yuan became provisional president on February 13, 1912. Li Yuanhong was the provisional vice president. iii. The Guomindang became an official political party in 1912. b. Song Jiaoren i. Song Jiaoren was a revolutionary who founded the Guomindang party. ii. Song Jiaoren was the natural political leader; he worked with Sun Yatsen, but Sun was not the face of the revolution, he supplied the ideas. iii. They wanted to have elections, with male suffrage of 21 years of age, primary school educated, and could either pay a $2 tax or be worth $5 in property. This amounted to 10% of China or 40 million voters. iv. Elections were due in December. The National Council in Nanjing was expected to transition to a Parliament with a House and Senate in Beijing. v. A provisional constitution was established in March, with local and provincial assemblies established. vi. Elections were held in December and results announced in January 1913. The Guomindang won an overwhelming majority, and Song Jiaoren was appointed Premier. vii. That March, Song Jiaoren was shot while waiting for a train to Beijing to assume his office. Yuan Shikai was responsible and did not want Song to have power. For his part, Song warned others that Yuan was just an opportunist.

viii. Then Yuan Shikai removed local and provincial GMD leaders out of their positions. ix. Sun Yatsen then called for the revolutionary army to rise up and remove Yuan Shikai. x. But Yuan Shikai controlled the Beiyang army, the most powerful, wellequipped, and best trained army. xi. Between July and September, a civil war erupted between the revolutionary army and the Beiyang army. xii. In September, the Beiyang army captured Nanjing. xiii. Yuan Shikai dissolved the GMD constitution, kicked out all the GMD members of parliament, and banned the GMD altogether. GMD members scattered, and Sun Yatsen returned to exile in Japan. c. Li Yuanhong; Duan Qirui i. Parliament was then instructed to vote for a new president. After three votes and multiple bribes to Parliament, Yuan Shikai was elected president for a five-year term. ii. Li Yuanhong was again vice president. iii. Duan Qirui was premier and also minister of war. iv. In 1914, parliament and all of the assemblies were dissolved. A new constitution was written, extending the president’s term to ten years instead of five, and allowed the president to pick a successor. v. Li Yuanhong was named this successor and was still vice president. Duan Qirui was still premier and minister of war. vi. Yuan Shikai did reform China, including economic reforms featuring a central bank and new currency, education reforms including compulsory primary education for men, and judicial reforms aimed at a fair process and prison reform. vii. He wanted to start negotiating with the west, who did not think China had a fair judicial system.

viii. He then put his own men into provincial leadership. In effect, he was militarizing the provincial leadership. His men were loyal to Yuan Shikai, but to no one else. ix. By 1915 he was firmly in power with a new system in place and was recognized internationally. x. In 1915, a specially convened assembly appointed Yuan Shikai emperor. xi. But the country did not want another dynasty. Many were still sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. xii. Even some of Yuan’s own men, including premier and minister of war Duan Qirui, who stepped down. xiii. Yuan Shikai quickly stepped down once the backlash was apparent. But he had just exposed himself for who he was, and his popularity began to decline rapidly. 2. Warlord Era (1916-1928) a. Puyi? i. Yuan Shikai died of kidney failure at 56 years old in 1916. ii. Li Yuanhong was the new president, but he was still a reluctant ruler, he was the only president of the republic to serve for two terms. iii. Li brought back the GMD constitution, again limiting the president’s power to a figurehead. iv. Duan Qirui was brought back and made premier. The premier had the actual power, but he was also still minister of war. v. But the provincial officials who were loyal to Yuan Shikai were now loyal to themselves. They began to rise up, attempting to take Beijing and the rule that came with it. vi. China entered a warlord area, with provincial authorities turning into warlords and fighting amongst each other. vii. In 1917, Sun Yatsen returned to Canton and began rebuilding the GMD in China. By 1919, Sun was recognized as the new head of the GMD. In

1920, he proclaimed a new, nationalist government in Canton. This was an opposition government. viii. Also, a Qing loyalist had tried to put Puyi back onto the throne, but of course this failed. 3. New Culture Movement a. Chen Duxiu & Li Dazhao i. New Youth 1. Many intellectuals came out of Beijing University with a new awareness of problems with China’s culture. They gave way to the New Culture Movement. 2. Chen Duxiu was a dean at the Beijing University. Li Dazhao was the head librarian at the Beijing University. Both were leaders of the New Culture Movement. 3. Li Dazhao would create some of the ideas that would later provide the foundation for the Chinese Communist party, which combined Marxist ideas with Chinese populism. b. Mao Zedong i. Mao Zedong was a member of the movement, but never one of its key intellectuals. ii. But Mao believed the Chinese culture bred weakness. iii. True Confucians used their minds, not their bodies. iv. The New Culture Movement made China act like an old man. In the Confucian system, authority deferred to the eldest male; the youth were not allowed to have an opinion on their own. v. China also needed to change its system of cardinal bonds. Relationships were not anymore reciprocal, but one-sided, with much of the population subjugated by their peers. vi. Mao found that women in particular needed to be freed from the constraints of culture.

vii. Multiple languages were a barrier to national unity. They argued the government needed to adopt a common language, Mandarin. viii. The written script was too complex for many to learn and become literate. The movement argued for a new, simplified script to be made. ix. The Russians, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, began to send support to the New Culture Movement. x. Some western ideas, including empowerment of the individual and good governance spread in China. 4. Nationalism a. WWI i. Nationalism arrived in China on May 4th, 1919. ii. China participated in a non-military capacity on the allied side of WWI, hoping to get Shandong province back, which was controlled by the Germans. iii. Instead, the Japanese forced the Germans out and took Shandong by themselves. b. Duan Qirui i. Duan Qirui made a deal with the Japanese to give them full economic rights to Shandong in return for help against the other warlords. ii. China sent 62 delegates to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 expecting to get Shandong back, but were surprised to find Duan Qirui had already signed off on Japan’s access. c. May 4th Movement (1919) i. On May 4th, 1919 students from Beijing University began to protest, and 3,000 students flooded into Tiananmen Square. ii. The next day, protests grew and spread to other cities. It was the first time the Chinese expressed themselves together. iii. They put pressure on the Paris delegation not to sign the peace treaty, which they followed.

iv. The youth was politicized....