THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 1911-1949

The Revolution

In 1912, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established to replace
the monarchy.[8] The Qing dynasty that preceded the republic had experienced instability throughout
the 19th century and suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism.[13] The ongoing
instability eventually led to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, whose attacks on foreigners resulted in the
invasion by the Eight Nation Alliance. China signed the Boxer Protocol and paid a large indemnity to
the foreign powers: 450 million taels of fine silver (around $333 million or £67 million at the then
current exchange rates).[14] A program of institutional reform proved too little and too late. Only the
lack of an alternative regime prolonged the monarchy's existence until 1912.

The Chinese Republic grew out of the Wuchang Uprising against the Qing government. On 29 December
1911, Sun Yat-sen was elected president by the Nanjing assembly, which consisted of representatives
from seventeen provinces. On 1 January 1912, he was officially inaugurated and pledged "to overthrow
the despotic government led by the Manchu, consolidate the Republic of China and plan for the welfare
of the people".[17] Sun lacked the necessary military strength to defeat the Qing government by force.
As a compromise, the new republic negotiated with Yuan Shikai the commander of the Beiyang Army ,
promising Yuan the presidency of the republic if he were to remove the Qing emperor by force. Yuan
agreed to the deal, and the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Puyi, was forced to abdicate in 1912. Song
Jiaoren led the Kuomintang Party to electoral victories by fashioning his party's program to appeal to the
gentry, landowners, and merchants. Song was assassinated on March 20, 1913 at the behest of Yuan
Shikai.[18]

Yuan was elected president of the ROC in 1913.[13][19] He ruled by military power and ignored the
republican institutions established by his predecessor, threatening to execute Senate members who
disagreed with his decisions. He soon dissolved the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party, banned "secret
organizations" (which implicitly included the KMT), and ignored the provisional constitution. An attempt
at a democratic election in 1912 ended with the assassination of the elected candidate by a man
recruited by Yuan. Ultimately, Yuan declared himself Emperor of China in 1915.[20] The new ruler of
China tried to increase centralization by abolishing the provincial system; however, this move angered
the gentry along with the provincial governors, who were usually military men. Many provinces declared
independence and became warlord states. Increasingly unpopular and deserted by his supporters, Yuan
abdicated in 1916 and died of natural causes shortly thereafter.

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• Sun Yat sen

Yat was a nationalist revolutionary who believed China could only move forward in the early 1900s if the
country became a republic and followed the western ways in industry and agriculture. Unless they did
this, he was convinced they would remain backward by Western standards. He believed in three
principles: nationalism, democracy and socialism. These beliefs were the backbone of the League of
Common Alliance that Sun Yat founded in 1898, which later became Guomindang.

The Warlord Years

Yuan's death in 1916 left a power vacuum; the republican government was all but shattered. This
opened the way for the Warlord Era, during which much of China was ruled by shifting coalitions of
competing provincial military leaders and the Beiyang Government. Intellectuals, disappointed in the
failure of the Republic, launched the New Culture Movement.

In 1919, the May Fourth Movement began as a response to the pro-Japanese terms imposed on China
by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. It quickly became a nationwide protest movement.
The protests were a moral success as the cabinet fell and China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles,
which had awarded German holdings of Shandong to Japan. Political and intellectual ferment waxed
strong throughout the 1920s and 1930s. According to Patricia Ebrey:

"Nationalism, patriotism, progress, science, democracy, and freedom were the goals; imperialism,
feudalism, warlordism, autocracy, patriarchy, and blind adherence to tradition were the enemies.
Intellectuals struggled with how to be strong and modern and yet Chinese, how to preserve China as a
political entity in the world of competing nations."[60]