17 China 1900- 1949, lowe notes

17 China 1900- 1949

Summary of events


China had had a long history of national unity and since the mid seventeenth century has been ruled by Manchu or Ching dynasty
During the 1840 the country moved into a period of foreign interference, civil war and disintegration, which lasted until 1949
In 1911 the last emperor was overthrown and a republic proclaimed
The period between 1916 to 1928 is known as the Warlord Era, a chaos period when many generals took power in different areas
A party called Kuomintang (KMT) that were nationalists was trying to govern China and control the generals that were busy fighting each other, the KMT leader was Dr Sun Yat-sen and after his death (25’), general Chiang Kai Shek.
The Chinese Party was founded in 21’ and at first cooperated with KMT in their struggle against warlords.
After a while KMT seized more and more power and finally they thought they can do the job without the help of the CCP and tried to destroy them.
The leader of CCP escaped the KMT force and fled to build another military base in northern China.
After the WW 2 and the Japanese defeat the CCP and the KMT were still fighting. KMT was supported by democratic USA, but finally in 49’ the communists gained power and Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan
Mao led China until his death in 76’.























17. 1 Revolution and the warlord era

a) background to the revolution of 1911

· China lived isolated and peacefully until the mid eighteen hundreds, when the Europeans came and wanted to take advantage of Chinese trading possibilities.
· Firstly, the British wanted to take profit of the Chinese and then even other European nations did the same thing
· 1894-5 China was defeated in war against Japan and forced to hand over territory. A Chinese uprising against foreign influence, but was defeated by an international army and forced them to pay massive compensation for damage done to foreign property in China.
· In the beginning of the 20th century, many Chinese traveled and were educated abroad, they returned with radial and revolutionary ideas. One of them was Dr Sun, who wanted a democratic state modeled on the USA.

b) the 1911 Revolution

the government tried to respond to the new radical ideas by introducing reforms, promising democracy and setting up elected provincial assemblies
This encouraged the provinces to distance themselves even more from the central government. The revolution began among soldiers in Wuchang in October 1911 and most provinces quickly declared themselves independent of Beijing
The government which ruled behind emperor Pu Yi (5 years old) appealed to a retired general Yuan. Yuan made an agreement with the revolutionaries. This included the end of Pu’s dynasty and that he would become president. With the support of the army, Yuan ruled as a military dictator from 1912 till 1915. He did one mistake, and that was to proclaim himself emperor. Because of this, he lost support of the army, which forced him to abdicate.


c) The Warlord Era (1916-28)

Yuan seemed to be the last person that seemed capable of maintaining unity in China
The country was now disintegrated into hundreds of warlords, each ruling a part with the help of his private army.
Two important things developed:

1) A huge student demonstration began in 1919 in Beijing that protested against the warlords, the traditional Chinese Culture and against Japanese right of taking over Chinese provinces
2) The KMT or nationalist party grew stronger and succeeded to bring the warlords under control





17.2 The KMT, Dr Sun and Chiang Kai Shek


a) The Kuomintang

· The party formed in 1912 under Dr Sun, which hoped for a united China
· Dr Sun lived abroad until 1911 (revolution )
· He wanted to create a modern, united, democratic state
· After the revolution, he set up a government in southern China; he was prepared to cooperate with the communists. During this time he built his own army as well.
· The party had three principles:
1. Nationalism- to rid China of foreign influence and build China into a strong and united power. Abroad China’s power should be built as well.
2. Democracy- China should not be ruled by warlords, but by the people themselves, after they had been educated to equip them for democratic self-government.
3. Land reform- Sun announced a long term policy of democratic reform and distribution of land to the peasants

· Sun gained enormous respect as an intellectual statesman and revolutionary leader, but when he died little progress towards the 3 principles has been made, mainly because he was not himself a general.

b) Chiang Kai Shek


He became leader after Sun’s death
Communist China supported KMT with the hope that they will be friendly towards USSR.
Sheck spent university years in Russia studying the organization of the communist party
Despite of the Russian contacts he was not a communist; in fact he was more right wing than Sun and soon became anti-communist. After becoming party leader he removed all the left wingers, but he continued the KMT alliance with the communists
In 1926 he and CCP set on the Northern March in order to destroy all landlords of central and northern China. Much of the support occurred because the communists promised land.
In 27 Chiang decided that the communists were becoming too powerful in areas where communists were strong, landlords were attacked and land seized
KMT expelled all the communists from their party and launched the purification movement, that killed about 250 000 people, the communists were checked out, the warlords were under control and Chiang was the military and political leader of China
The KMT proved to be a great disappointment for the majority of Chinese, also because he did not achieve the other two principles of the party

17.3 Mao Zedong and the communists


a) Mao and the CCP


· CCP has been officially founded in 21, they consisted mostly of intellectuals and had very little military strength , which explains why it was willing to work with the KMT
· Mao changed the party’s strategy. They would concentrate on winning mass support rather than trying to capture industrial towns where communists have already failed because of the strength of the KMT
· In 1931 Mao was elected as a chairman of the Central Executive Committee and from the on he gradually consolidated his position as the real leader of Chinese communism
· Mao and his supported concentrated on survival as Chiang carried out extermination campaigns against them between 30-34.
· Mao decided that the only way of survival is to break through Chiang’s lines and set up another military base somewhere else
· In October 24 almost 100 000 communists set out on the remarkable march which was to become part of the Chinese legend, the long march. They covered about 6000 miles in 368 days and 20 000 survivors organized a new base
· During the next 10 years the communists continued to gain support, while Chiang and the KMT lost popularity


b) Why did Mao and the communists gain support

1. The Inefficiency and corruption of the KMT government

· They had little to offer in their reform, spent too much time looking after the interests of industrialists, bankers and landowners and made no effective attempts to obtain mass support. This gave Mao the opportunity to gain support


2. There was little improvement in factory conditions

· The laws were not applied, and bribery of inspectors occurred. Chiang did not want to offend his industrial supporters

3. There was no improvement in peasant poverty

· During the 30’s famine was spread in rural areas, but there was plenty of rice in the cities and there were high taxes and forced labor
· The communist land reform was more attractive: they seized the estates of the landlords and distributed it to the peasants and they made sure that every peasant had some land. This policy won support of the smaller landlords and the peasant’s.

4. The KMT put up no effective resistance to the Japanese

· This was a crucial factor
· The Japanese occupied Manchuria and were preparing to take over other provinces in China
· Chiang seemed to think it was more important to destroy the communists rather than to resist the Japanese. He moved into south to attack Mao (36’)
· Chiang was captured by his own troops and told to fresh up relations with CCP and build a national front against the Japanese
· The new alliance brought advantages for the CCP:

a) The exterminations ceased and CCP was secured in in base in Senshi
b) When Japan attacked China 37, KMT retreated westwards, which left the communist in the south undefeated, and leading a guerilla campaign against the Japanese. This made the CCP heroes and gained them much support , by 45’ they had very much support in China


17.4 The communist victory, 1949

a) Victory for the communists was still not inevitable

· When the Japanese were defeated in 45 the KMT and the CCP were became locked in the final struggle for power.
· The US backed KMT and the USSR backed CCP, capturing Manchuria and allowing only CCP inside Manchuria
· In 48 the increasing communist armies were large enough to abandon their guerilla campaign and challenge Chiang’s armies directly
· As soon as they came under this pressure, and after the communists took over Beijing, Chiang and what remained of his forces fled to Taiwan

b) There ere several reason for the CCP triumph
CCP
· The communists continued to win popular support by their restrained land policy, which varied according to the needs of particular areas
· The CCP took the landlords estates and gave them to the peasants, which was a honest and fair affair.
· CCP took advantage of the weaknesses of the KMT
· The communist generals prepared their armies carefully and were more competent tactically then the KMT armies





KMT
· On the other hand, KMT administration was inefficient and corrupt, much of the American aid came into the pockets of the officials
· They caused even inflation through printing much money, which caused hardship for the masses and ruined many of the middle classes loot
· This armies were poorly paid
· Chiang terrorized the local population into submission, something that made him enemies
· Chiang made some tactical blunders