China: from the Qing to the Republic

Modern Chinese history has turned on how to regain sovereignty, end the humiliation of foreign occupation, and bring equality and development. Three groups shaped the debate:

• Early reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who used traditional ideas in new ways to meet the Western challenge.
• Republican revolutionaries such as Sun Yat-sen, inspired by Japan and the West.
• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which aimed to end age-old inequalities and drive out foreigners.

Opium and war. Jesuit missionaries had brought Western astronomy and mathematics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the real shock came in the nineteenth. Britain bought large amounts of Chinese tea, silk and porcelain, but China wanted few Western goods. The East India Company found a way to pay: opium grown in India, sold in China. When China resisted, Britain used force, leading to the First Opium War (1839 to 1842), which badly weakened the Qing.

Reform. Qing reformers tried to build a modern administration, a new army, schools and local assemblies. They feared colonisation: the partition of Poland became a verb, 'to Poland us', and India, which Liang Qichao called 'a country destroyed by a non-country, the East India Company', was a warning. Many felt Confucianism, the teachings of Confucius on good conduct, practical wisdom and social relationships, had become a barrier to new ideas. Students went to Japan, Britain and France; Chinese even borrowed Japanese translations of words like 'justice', 'rights' and 'revolution', since both used the same characters.

The examination system had long been the way into China's ruling elite. Candidates wrote a formal 'eight-legged essay' in classical Chinese; only 1 to 2 per cent passed the first level. Before 1850 there were about 739,000 provincial degree holders for only 27,000 official posts, and the system rewarded literary skill, not science or technology. It was abolished in 1905.

The republic. The Manchu (Qing) empire was overthrown in 1911, and a republic set up under Sun Yat-sen, regarded as the founder of modern China. A doctor from a poor family, educated in missionary schools, he set out Three Principles:

• Nationalism: overthrowing the Manchu, seen as a foreign dynasty, and other foreign imperialists.
• Democracy: establishing democratic government.
• Socialism: regulating capital and equalising landholdings.

The May Fourth Movement. On 4 May 1919, an angry demonstration in Beijing protested against the post-war peace conference, which did not return to China territories seized from it, although China had been on the winning side. The protest grew into a movement that inspired a generation to call for science, democracy and nationalism, simpler written language, an end to foot-binding and the subordination of women, and equality in marriage. Schools, universities (Peking University, 1902) and journalism spread new ideas; the magazine Life Weekly grew from 2,000 copies in 1926 to 200,000 in 1933.

The Guomindang. After Sun's death, Chiang Kai-shek led the Guomindang (National People's Party). He fought the regional warlords and tried to eliminate the communists. He promoted a 'this-worldly' Confucianism but also sought to militarise the nation, and expected women to stay within the household. The Guomindang's base was in the cities, where industrial growth was slow and workers, especially women, were badly paid. It failed because of its narrow social base and limited vision: it ignored the peasantry, never carried out Sun's land equalisation, and relied on military order instead of solving people's problems.