Outline the reasons for the rise of Chinese Nationalism after 1919. Discuss the impact of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) on Chinas relationship with the two new superpowers.

by theenglishfroggy (student)

First Half of 20th Century China

Outline the reasons for the rise of Chinese Nationalism after 1919. Discuss the impact of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) on China’s relationship with the two new superpowers.

Up until the 20th century, China had been ruled almost exclusively by dynasties who managed to build and consolidate a significant empire in eastern Asia. The last of these dynasties was the Qing dynasty. Following the destruction of China’s “treasure fleet” in the 15th century by the Mandarins of the Ming dynasty, China’s trade (which reached all the way to the Eastern shores of Africa) with foreign nations slowly disappeared. By the 19th century, China, which had once been at the forefront of scientific advances in the ancient world, was seen as a backward nation, but still a lucrative market for Western nations to tap into. The British sold opium to the Chinese, who smoked it with tobacco after the practice had been introduced to them by Europeans, and slowly the population became addicted to it. Faced with this, the Emperor took action and suppressed the sale of opium, resulting in the First Opium War (1839 to 1842) which saw the modern British expeditionary force crush the Chinese. From this, the Treaty of Nanking was signed: the first of the unequal treaties. Hong Kong was ceded to the British, low tariff rates were fixed and foreigners were given exclusive rights in China. But further issues between the nations led to the Second Opium War (1856-1859), with France, Russia and the USA getting involved. The war culminated in the treaty of Tientsin treaties opened more Chinese ports to the foreigners, permitted foreign legations in the Chinese capital Beijing, and allowed Christian missionary activity.

The episode of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) also added to the humiliations felt by the Chinese. The Japanese swiftly defeated the larger Chinese army, and imposed a huge amount of repayments. This defeat was extremely embarrassing, as not only was Japan a fellow Asian nation - it was also a former tributary state, once considered to be a subordinate of China. This dealt a major, bitter blow to the Chinese.

This background information reveals the extent of foreign meddling in Chinese affairs before the 20th century. It is important to see that these would lead in large part to the rise of nationalism in China in the start of the century. The unequal treaties humiliated the Chinese, and caused a large amount of resentment for foreigners who often times considered themselves to be superior. The series of defeats at the hands of the West and even against Japan contributed to a strong xenophobic sentiment.
The Chinese despised the missionaries, whom they considered to be manifestations of Western influence and a poisoning of Chinese culture. Christianity was largely incompatible with Chinese beliefs, and often went against Confucianism (the dominant Chinese religion). The concession ports (namely Macau, Tsing Tao and Hong Kong) were painful examples of Western imperialism to many Chinese, who felt like their nation was superior to others.

In an attempt to make up for the gap between the powerful Western nations, China made a serious attempt to modernize itself in the late 19th century, just like Japan had in the 1860s. It had the potential to become similar to the constitutional monarchy in Siam. China, had it remained unified and had developed into a modern nation, could have had the power to contend with Japan for control of East Asia. But things did not work out this way. The Boxer Rebellion interrupted all this. It was an xenophobic, nationalist movement run by the Righteous Harmony Society in China between 1898 and 1901, opposing foreign imperialism and Christianity. The uprising took place against a background of severe drought and economic disruption in response to growth of foreign spheres of influence. Grievances ranged from political invasion ranging back to the Opium Wars and economic incursions, to missionary evangelism, which the weak Qing state could not resist. Concerns grew that missionaries could use the sponsorship of their home governments and their extraterritorial status to the advantage of Chinese Christians, appropriating lands and property of unwilling Chinese villagers to give to the church. These issues culminated in outright violence in the north of China: the Boxers marched on Beijing and put the Foreign Legations under siege. Empress Dowager Cixi gave support to the cause and declared war on the foreign powers, who retaliated by forming the Eight-Nation Alliance, made up of the USA, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria and Germany. The multi-national army defeated the rebellion, and went on to arrest and execute officials who were thought to be supporting the rebels as well as impose another set of huge fines. It was settled: there was no getting rid of the foreigners.

Cixi, who had supported the rebellion, died in 1908 under mysterious circumstances. Assassination remains a possibility, but it has not been confirmed. She was replaced by her nephew, the two year-old Puyi. The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 ended the imperial dynasty as a result of its weakness and its failure to modernize and resist foreign powers. The 6 year old emperor abdicated, and the Chinese Republic was founded. With its first president Sun Yat-Sen and his party, the Guomindang (GMD, KMD, National People’s Party) China had a real opportunity for a proper democracy. However, the chance was denied and the republic was condemned to years of warlord fighting: leaders of certain regions sought to conquer rival regions through warfare. It brought a period of poverty, corruption, violence and political turmoil. However, there were many opportunities for individuals to rise to power (ie. Mao Zedong: from farmer’s son to leader of China is an impressive feat), there was freedom of speech much of the time (no unified censorship policy) and much cultural development. There was a real flourishing during the period, which has not been seen in China since then.

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The final blow to China’s pride was the Treaty of Versailles: even though the Chinese had fought on the Allied side – the victorious side – during the First World War, they were humiliated by the giving of the German possessions in Shandong province to Japan. This triggered the May 4th Movement of 1919. A student union, it was formed in Beijing by over 3000 students in Tiananmen Square who were outraged by the unfair treaty. Protests similar to the one in Beijing sparked all across China in the large cities, notably Shangai, Wuhan and Tianjin, and eventually they resulted in a general strike, leading to the Chinese delegation flat out refusing to sign the treaty. Meanwhile, the students sought to figure out how they could reinvent China. From then on, traditional Chinese values would be challenged, and the students found a new confidence to stand up to foreign intervention. A generation of “May 4th Authors” wrote strongly anti-Confucian works that condemned the old culture which they held responsible for bringing upon them the crisis. ‘Mr. Science’ and ‘Mr. Democracy’, as the students called them, were introduced to China. An emphasis was placed on educating and modernizing the country. Socially, sexuality and individual selfhood were notions that were heavily explored. One might even say it was the original “60s social revolution”, as the Chinese experienced a freedom that was unheard of in even Western countries at the time.

On the other hand, the warlordism seemed to be putting the very idea of a united China at risk. Some of them were exceedingly cruel and brutal, and the continuous fighting was damaging the economy which was already suffering due to droughts, floods and famines. As a result, the death toll ran well into the millions. It was in this time that two groups stood out. These two groups embodied the different nationalist views that were prominent in China. On the one hand, there was the resurrected GMD. On the other side was the Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in 1921 and traced its roots back to the May 4th movement). These two groups started the 1920s working together (as they both received aid from Moscow, perplexingly) but would become each other’s nemesis by the time the decade was over. These two groups sought to establish control and create a unified China, and appealed to those who had nationalist views. They even shared many similar objectives, especially industrialization, centralized government, education, and medical care for the masses to improve hygiene. And yet they fought each other bitterly, often targeting each other in violent massacres (such as the one in Shangai against the Communists in 1927 in which 10000 would die). By 1928, the Nationalist leader Chiang Kaishek’s government came to power in 1928 through an amalgam of military force and popular support of his nationalist ideals..

It is clear that Chinese nationalism was the culmination of a series of events that humiliated China. Many Chinese felt that the country was superior, but it had simply lost its ways and was weakened by the unreliable emperors. The Chinese were very hostile to foreigners who had since the 19th century made the nation’s situation all the more difficult. The May the 4th Movement thus opened a box full of nationalist ideas which had been suppressed and bottled up.

However, the Nationalists’ rule would encounter serious hurdles: in 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria, which understandably angered the Chinese and increased the nationalist tendencies. It became clear the Japanese would continue to move into China progressively as it established itself as a major regional power. None of the foreign nations did anything: the League of Nations was weak, the USA was busy with economic issues, and the USSR was pursuing Socialism in One Country. Chiang resolved that he could not let the Japanese take over any more territory, or the government would collapse as people lost confidence in it – there could be no more humiliations. But the Nationalists knew that Japan was incredibly powerful and had a far superior army, and so hardly concerned themselves with the Japanese. They focused instead on the Communists saying “The Japanese are a disease of the skin; the Communists are a disease of the body”. But, the inevitable happened in 1937: war with Japan broke out again. The Japanese needed to support a growing empire, and China had many resources that Japan needed. But the truth behind the start of the war is that it was probably an accident: neither side actually meant to go to war at the time.

In early July 1937, there were several clashes (especially the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, involving urinating soldiers and whatnot) around Beijing between Chinese and Japanese troops. The new leadership in Japan was indecisive, and the senior commanding Japanese general had had a heart attack which led to his replacement with an inexperienced commander. Faced with these clashes, the action that was to be taken was determined by not the leaders but a running debate between hardliners who wanted to expand and pacifists who were worried about overextending and wanted to avoid conflict. The hardliners eventually won, and so the Japanese sent an ultimatum to the Chinese forces to withdraw from Beijing. The Japanese occupied the city and attack several towns in the area. In Donzhou the Japanese soldiers killed every single person they could find. Reinforcements were moved to northern China to pressure the Chinese, as normally these events would have led to concessions and an armistice. But Chiang couldn’t allow that to happen, and announced that “the limits of endurance had been reached” – the Chinese would fight the Japanese this time. A national conference was held, attended even by the communists (represented by Zhou Enlai). At the same time, Mao in Yan’an (the Communist base after the Long March) declared a policy of ‘total resistance by the whole nation’ (even though the communists controlled just a small part of the country). Even though the Chinese were ill-prepared to fight a war on this scale, Chiang felt like they had no choice.

The Japanese were rather unprepared for a conflict of such a large scale: they had committed only 250,000 men in the north of China for the conflict. But Chiang mobilized his army, and actually went boldly on the offensive, moving in his best equipped army: a German-trained force to capture Shangai where the Japanese had landed. This would turn into a disaster for the Chinese and mark an escalation of the war for the Japanese (proof that Chiang should have read more carefully Sun Tzu’s book) who would devote more resources to the conflict than they could really afford. Between August and November 1937, the Chinese and Japanese fought for control of the city. The battle eventually cost the Chinese more than 250,000 men – and dealt a serious blow to morale as these were the best Chinese troops. The Japanese lost between 40 and 70 thousand men, far more than they had expected. But the Japanese had still managed to gain complete air superiority thanks to their aircraft carriers, and had managed to destroy any attacking capability the Chinese had had. The Chinese withdrew in November, and started to build defensive positions around Nanking.

Following the defeat in Shangai, Chiang and the government fell back to Wuhan, leaving 90,000 troops to defend the city under the command of an opium-smoking ex-warlord, who fled after several days of artillery bombardment. Most troops fled as well, leaving the city virtually undefended. On December 13th, the Japanese entered the city, and the events that followed became known as the Rape of Nanking. The words of this scholar cannot accurately describe the vileness and inhumane practices used in the town. What is certain is that over 300,000 people died in the city, many being tortured in unimaginable ways. Thousands of women were raped, regardless of age. Babies were flung around and caught on bayonets. And to this day, the Japanese have never really fully accepted the horrendous crimes they committed during those hellish 7 weeks. Along with the Holocaust, this event stands out in history as a testament to human brutality and wanton cruelty. Fighting continued during the winter, as the Japanese moved in a pincer movement from the North and from the center towards the city of Wuhan. They suffered their first defeat at the old town of Taierzhuang, losing over 8000 troops. This improved morale for Chinese troops, and showed that with capable leadership they could win battles. But Chiang did not even trust his best generals, and had agents in their headquarters to warn him of any plots.

During 1938, the GMD had support from Stalin, who sent Russian planes and pilots to assist the Chinese army. Nonetheless, in October the Japanese captured Wuhan, and Chiang was again forced to move to Chongqing. Surrender was not an option. The Japanese realized they were over-extended and tried to compensate for this by setting up puppet governments similar to the one in Manchuria in areas like Mongolia, where a Mongolian Prince was installed. In Nanking, an old rival of Chiang from the GMD was placed in control. Despite this, the Japanese kept large occupation forces, who exploited and abused the locals. The war with China sapped Japan of its military capability. When war with the USA and UK broke out in 1941, 34 of the 50 Japanese divisions in the army were located in China. But it had taken just over a year for the Japanese to knock down all of Chiang’s efforts to build a united China. To the northwest were the communists, to the south were the Nationalists and in the east and north were the Japanese occupiers, who merely sought to consolidate their hold on the eastern seaboard. The war soon turned into a series of raids and bombing runs. Meanwhile to the northwest, the Communists attempted to strike back with the Hundred Regiment offensive in 1940, inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese. The Communists lost many more, and the Japanese retaliation was brutal – the ‘Three All’ campaign was launched: “Kill All, Burn All, Loot All”. And relations between the Communists and Nationalists were no better: despite a war with the Japanese, Chiang attacked the New 4th Army, killing thousands, but many guerrilla cells were created as result to fight both the nationalists and the Japanese.

The USA’s entry into the war changed everything. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan started a whole series of offensives all over the Pacific (Singapore, the Philippines…) which stretched their military even more. The US gave aid to the Chongqing Nationalists through Burma, though this was interrupted by a Japanese invasion in 1942. Until 1945, the US would try to fly supplies in over the Himalayas to have the Chinese fight the bulk of the Japanese forces. Along with supplies, the US also provided the Nationalists with an advisor: General Claire Chennault, who advocated the use of airpower to defeat the Japanese. He built up squadrons and with the arrival of the B29 super bombers, he truly was in a position to seriously threaten the Japanese, who had no choice but to retaliate through the Ichigo Offensive. It was their last attempt at defeating the Nationalists, whose armies were full of problems. Chiang was suspicious of his generals, and kept them short of equipment. Appointments to the best equipped units were based on loyalty to Chiang rather than actual competence. Corruption was rampant among officers, who embezzled food and pay (keeping dead men on books to claim their pay). A lot of the troops were malnourished and sick, and were in no position to fight. The Japanese were successful in pushing them back and capturing the crucial airfields, but were stretched to the limits as they suffered defeats against the Americans in the pacific. Nonetheless, the Ichigo offensive had done much harm to Chiang’s prestige. The Nationalists only survived through American aid.

When the war ended, Chiang was thought by all the victors to be the ruler of China – even the USSR accepted him as the legitimate ruler. China was given a permanent seat on the Security Council of the newly founded United Nations, and was being treated as a great power. The foreign concessions had been ended by an international agreement in 1943. Taiwan was given back to the Chinese after having been lost during the First Sino-Japanese War. But the Communists still controlled parts of the country, and had around 900,000 troops (versus the 2.7 million Nationalist soldiers armed by the Americans) and were even back by the Soviets (although half-heartedly). Stalin believed he could work with neutral Nationalists, and had had issues of cooperation with the Communists, whose victory seemed so unlikely.

Even before the war, the Soviets had backed both sides, as China was Russia’s neighbor, and there had been border disputes over certain territories. Both groups even promised the soviets control of territories once they took over. At one point, the soviets had been so discouraged by the Communist party in China that they instructed it to join forces with the Nationalists (which Mao did!). China was also given large amounts of aid to fight poverty and famine in the countrysides which had been ravaged by war.

In August 1945, negotiations between the two parties were organized. Mao only attended under huge pressure from Stalin. The Americans flew him over to Chongqing, but he insisted on travelling with the American ambassador as a guarantee against assassination. He refused to take Chiang’s car when he arrived. While the talks were going on, the Communists moved quickly into Manchuria while the Nationalists moved back into the eastern seaboard. The two generally agreed about multi-party democracy and the need to avoid a civil-war but a proper agreement could not be done. The communists were willing to withdraw from south of the Yangtze river, but refused to cede control of their armies to Chiang. Mao returned to Yan’an in October with nothing accomplished. In November, the Nationalists moved aggressively into Manchuria, while US Marines occupied several important cities (Beijing, Tianjin) to help the GMD take control. The Russians did little to help the Communists: they gave control of a stash of weapons belonging to the Japanese, but at the same time ordered the Communists to withdraw from the cities in Manchuria and to hand them over to the Nationalists. Stalin was worried about the deteriorating relationship with the USA, and wanted to show it that they could still work together. Mao felt betrayed.

Trying to keep the peace between the two, Truman sent General Marshall to China in December of 1945 to mediate a ceasefire in January 1946 which was agreed to by both. Mao conceded the free movement of Nationalist forces, while Chiang was forced to call a Political Consultative Conference to consider the future of China. An amalgam of GMD, independents and Communists took power away from Chiang and began to work on a deal that would be acceptable to everyone. It would involve a coalition government. There would even be a merger of the two armies. But then Chiang intervened – he would not accept parliamentary government, believing that China needed an autocratic government because its history and tradition had made it that way. He convinced the US that he was forced to move his troops into Manchuria in order to avoid the Communists from seizing it. The Communist general Lin Biao counter-attacked by capturing the city of Harbin, but was told to hold his ground and not be aggressive. Mao hoped he could isolate Chiang from the moderates in the GMD and the Americans, but the tensions in Europe allowed Chiang to drag the USA into the conflict. In June 1946, the Nationalists renewed the attack, and from July their forces began an all out assault on the communists in the north. The USA reluctantly went along with it, and half-heartedly threatened to cut off aid but never did. The Americans were seen as the last imperial power, and many Chinese were anti-American, so Chiang was seen as the only friend they would be able to get in China. Marshall finally left in January 1947, having achieved very little.

But the Nationalists suffered defeat after defeat as the Nationalists had managed to alienate much of the northern population by appointing corrupt officials. By 1948, the Communists had gained the upper-hand. The Nationalists lost over half a million of their best troops in Manchuria due to poor leadership once again. Chiang’s insistence on trying to command from far away proved to be his undoing. Chiang and the GMD escaped to Taiwan, aided and protected by the Americans. The issue of Taiwan remains even today an issue between the USA and China. In December 1950, China seized all American assets and properties, totaling $196.8 million.

Mao would not forget the fact that both the Soviets and the Americans had backed the Nationalists. But the Chinese civil-war was for the most part just that: a war between two groups part of a same nation. There was almost no interference from the outside, although Russia did often get in the way of the Communists initially (and even as late as 1949 advised the Communists not to cross the Yangtze – Stalin was not much of a risk taker), while the Americans provided lots of supplies (and 2$ billion in aid) for the Nationalists, it was the Chinese who determined the outcome of the war. Chiang’s embarrassingly poor leadership led to his swift and impressive defeat by the Communists, who emerged as the unlikely victors of a long war. Claims that China was another battleground of the cold war can also be dismissed, as both superpowers largely favored the GMD. Some say Truman should have done more. However the USA was not ready to enter another war abroad when none of its interests had been threatened - public opinion would never agree with such a move. Besides, the USA had a serious lack of trust in Chiang and he would have cost Americans more lives than it was really worth. The Americans and the People’s Republic of China would only meet again in 1972 during Nixon’s visit.

On the other hand, Mao was invited to Moscow to celebrate Stalin’s birthday. There he was kept in a house outside of the city for over a week doing nothing. When he finally met Stalin for a talk, he was yelled at. A lot. So there was some resentment between the two nations, as for some reason Stalin didn’t want a second communist country. But before Mao left, Stalin instructed him to watch Vietnam and Korea, as communist movements there were developing. In 1960, the USSR would cut all diplomatic relations with the Chinese. The dispute between the two powers definitely had its roots in the Chinese civil war.