Nationalists Overthrow Qing Dynasty

1. Nationalists Overthrow Qing Dynasty

2. Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) • Sun Yixian (soon yee.shyahn) was the first great leader of the party. • He was a physician who spent many years in the United States. • In 1912, Sun’s revolutionary Alliance succeeded in overthrowing the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. • The Qing had ruled since 1644. • In 1912, Sun became president of the new Republic of China. • He held the post for just six weeks. He hoped to establish a modern government based on the “Three Principles of the People.”

3. Three Principles of the People • Nationalism- an end to foreign control. • People’s rights-democracy. • People’s livelihood- economic security for all Chinese. • Sun lacked the authority and the military support to secure national unity. • He turned over the presidency to Yuan Shikai (yoo.ahn shee.ky), a powerful general. • He quickly betrayed the democratic ideals of the revolution. • By 1913, he was ruling as a military dictator and his actions sparked military revolts.

4. Revolts • China remained divided and Sun’s Kuomintang powerless. • Civil war broke out and warlords terrorized. • Chinese peasants suffered most. • Roads and bridges fell into disrepair, and crops were destroyed. • Famine took the lives of millions. • This was the situation in China as World War I was beginning.

5. World War I • In 1917, the government in Beijing, hoping for an Allied victory, declared war against Germany • The Treaty of Versailles gave Japan the territories and privileges that had previously belonged to Germany.

6. The May Fourth Movement • Outrage swept the country once the news of the Treaty of Versailles reached China. • On May 4, 1919, over 3,000 angry students gathered in the center of Beijing. • Mao Zedong (mow dzuh.dahng), a young schoolteacher supported the student protestors. • Demonstrations spread to other cities and exploded into a national movement. • These demonstrations showed the Chinese people’s commitment to the goal of establishing a strong, modern nation. • Many young Chinese intellectuals turned against Sun Yixian’s beliefs in Western democracy in favor of Lenin’s brand of Soviet communism.

7. The Communist Party in China • In 1920, small groups of young intellectuals were meeting in Shanghai and Beijing University to discuss Marx’s revolutionary beliefs. • They viewed the Soviet Union under Lenin as a model for political and economic change. • In 1921, a group met in Shanghai to organize the Chinese Communist Party. • Mao Zedong was among its founders. • Sun decided to ally the Kuomintang with the newly formed Communist Party. • Lenin began sending military advisers and equipment to the Nationalists in return for allowing the Chinese communists to join the Kuomintang.

8. Nationalists and Communists clash • After Sun Yixian died in 1925, Jiang Jieshi (Jee.ahng jee.shee), aka Chiang Kai-shek, headed the Kuomintang. • He was the son of a middle class merchant. • Many of his followers were bankers and businesspeople. • Like Jiang, they feared the Communist’s goal of creating a socialist economy. • At first, Jiang put away his differences with the Communists. • Together, the Nationalist forces and the Communists successfully fought the warlords. • Thereafter, he turned against the Communists.

9. Nationalists and Communists continued • The Nationalists nearly wiped out the Communist Party. • Its few survivors went into hiding. • In 1928, Jiang became president of the nationalist Republic of China. • Great Britain and the US both formally recognized the new government. • The Soviet Union did not. • The Communists’ deep seated rage over the massacre erupted in a civil war that would last until 1949.

10. Peasants • Jiang had promised democracy and political rights to all Chinese. • However, he did nothing to improve the life of China’s rural peasants. • Many peasants threw their support to the Chinese Communist Party. • To enlist the support of the peasants, Mao divided land that the Communists won among the local farmers. • The Communists fled to the countryside.

11. Civil War • By 1930, Nationalists and Communists were fighting a bloody civil war. • Nationlaists attacked the Communists repeatedly but failed to drive the out of the countryside. • In 1933, Jiang gathered an army of at least 700,000 men. • They surrounded the Communists and outnumbered them 6 to 1. • In 1934, Communist Party leaders realized that they faced defeat. They fled and began a6,000 mile-long journey called the Long March.

12. The Long March • Over the next year, they kept only a step ahead of the Nationalist forces. • Mao’s Red Army crossed many rivers and climbed over mountain ranges. • They fought several major battles and faced minor skirmishes almost everyday. • They crossed swampland and slept sitting up, leaning back-to-back in pairs, to keep from sinking into the mud and drowning. • The chase lasted more than a year. • About 100,000 people began the march and 10,000 to 30,000 reached safety in northwestern China, beyond the reach of Jiang’s forces.

13. Communists • The communists settled in caves in northwestern China. • Despite the discouraging turn of events, they quickly gained more followers. • Meanwhile, as civil war between Nationalist and Communists raged, Japan invaded China.

14. Japan’s invasion suspends civil war • In 1931, as Chinese fought Chinese, the Japanese watched the power struggles with rising interest. • Japanese forces took advantage of China’s weakening situation. • They invaded Manchuria, an industrialized province in the northeast part of China. • This attack signaled the onset of World War II in Asia. • In 1937, the Japanese launched an all-out invasion of China. • Massive bombings of villages and cities killed thousands of Chinese. The destruction of farms caused many more to die of starvation. • By 1938, Japan held control of a large part of China. • Nationalists and Communists temporarily united to fight the Japanese.