By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
During the recent 4
May 2005 Legislative Council meeting in Hong Kong LAU KONG-WAH started his
speech with "Today
is 4 May, a commemoration day of the anti-imperialism and patriotic movement."
to which TAM HEUNG-MAN added that "on this day 86 years ago, the Chinese people
launched an anti-Japanese movement because it was decided in the Paris Peace
Conference convened after the First World War that the interests held by
Germany in Shandong Province would be transferred to Japan, thus triggering the
May Fourth Movement which had far-reaching impact on China's development."
From Shandong to Versailles: China's participation in
the First World War
One reason for
Chinese eagerness to join the war was the problem of the Japanese invasion, and
especially also in case of the Shandong (Shantung) peninsula. Japan was China's
most threatening and determined enemy. For example why did China enter WWI
in 1917, on the same side as Japan? The reason was strategic as Xu Guogi has recently shown in detail, China had to be part of
the winning team to attend the postwar peace conference on the best possible
footing to represent its interests.1
The Chinese obsession
with international status is the key to understanding this seemingly
contradictory move. In this sense, the "declared" war between China
and Germany was phony because there had been no fighting and Germany was not
the intended enemy. Germany became a victim - or vehicle - in China's
big-picture strategy. Germany was in fact a friend in disguise since it helped
China springboard into the world arena.
Earlier referred to
as a clash of civilizations, the Chinese government sent
laborers to France to help
boost British and French human resources, for example. As early as 1915, a
"laborers as soldiers" scheme had been worked out to link China with
the Allied cause when its official entry into the war was uncertain. Large
numbers of them died near the battlefield. In this light it was illiterate
Chinese peasants who served in the vanguard of China's efforts to establish a
new national identity. Their labor, their sacrifices, and their lives provided
Chinese diplomats in Paris with a critical tool in their battle for
recognition, inclusion on the world stage, and internationalization.
For the first time in
its modern history, China articulated a desire to join the world community as
an equal and took action to do so. By this effort it tried to correct the
near-fatal mistakes made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when it
refused to accommodate the new international system. This time it was the
international system that refused to accept China, but at the Paris Peace
Conference, the Chinese fought back. Their refusal to sign the Treaty of
Versailles marked the first time since the Opium War that China had stood up to
certain European countries and the US now to.
The invitation of the
military governors to Beijing in April 1917 over the declaration of war on
Germany signaled the start of local warlords' intervention in central politics
and the rise of warlordism across China. But if the
that time Prime Minister Duan Qirui, had given birth
to the warlordism (revolution in China), Yuan Shikai had been its midwife.
He had played a
twofold role: First, as father of Chinese military modernization, he had
organized the Beiyang army, instituting a structure
in which personal loyalty rather than the defense of the national interest was
the key adhesive. It can be argued that although the Beiyang
army was founded on the idea of state-building and dealing with outside
threats, it behaved more like a private army than a national one. Its
patronage-based structure explains why this force fell apart so quickly after
the death of Yuan. Second, Yuan's scheme in 1915 to make himself emperor
provided a major impetus to the rise of modern Chinese warlordism.
To understand the link between this scheme and warlordism,
we must address the question of why Yuan wanted to become emperor in the first
place. For an inside and contemporary analysis of the Beiyang
army, see also Wu Qiu, "Beiyang
zhi qi yuan ji qi bengkui".2
Most scholars have
pointed to Yuan's selfish ambition. Without denying the role of that ambition,
I would like to draw attention to other factors as well. One was Yuan's great
interest in making China strong and united. Jerome Chen noted this in his
biography of Yuan, which was generally very critical. According to Chen, Yuan
"wanted a strong China. Strength came from unity; unity from obedience to
him." For Yuan, a polity such as republicanism or monarchy was only a
means toward the ends of national wealth and power. Yuan's conviction that a
strong center was required for modernization, strengthening the nation, and
maintaining order was shared by other political leaders, including Sun Yat-sen, who believed that too much democracy would impede
the "rapid, peaceful and orderly" mobilization of resources."
Liang Qichao, a leading reformer, even advised Yuan to "be the servant in
appearance but the master in reality." To achieve national strength, Yuan
would not hesitate to establish a different polity if he thought republicanism
could not work.3
Thus, when the so
called, Twenty-one Demands, were put forward, Yuan was so outraged that he
immediately ordered all activities regarding the imperial restoration to be
stopped. According to his confidential secretary Xia Shoutian,
who worked closely on that scheme, Yuan stormed, "If I am going to be
emperor, I will not be one under Japanese control!" Xia claimed that this
thinking was not known by outsiders. Only after the Twenty-one Demands
negotiations had ended was the monarchical scheme revived.
After the humiliation
of the Twenty-one Demands, Yuan believed even more that a strong central
government under a strong leader was the only formula to keep China out of
similar trouble in the future. Wellington Koo, who had worked closely with Yuan
before being appointed minister to the United States, explained to the American
Academy of Political and Social Sciences in January of 1916 that the decision
in favor of a monarchy reflected the need for a "government able to hold
the country together, develop its wealth and strength, and help realize the
intensely patriotic aspirations of its people."
As Li Jiannong noted, one of the major justifications for restoration
of the monarchy was that "republicanism does not suit the national
condition ... Unless there is a great change of policy, it is impossible to
save the nation."4
Even John Jordan
noted this rationale. He wrote to Langley, "One driving motive behind the
Chinese is that they will be in a better position to withstand Japanese
aggression under a monarchy than under a Republican form of
government."" Jordan, who was not happy with Yuan's restoration
scheme, still wrote highly of him after his death, calling him "a great
man and a true patriot."5
If Yuan's scheme grew
out of the Chinese desire for renewal, ironically his fall was caused by those
same forces. Among those who opposed Yuan's restoration scheme, considerations
of China's international status were paramount." The main reason Liang
Qichao opposed Yuan's scheme was his conviction that a sudden change of polity would negatively impact China's quest to join the
world community. He argued that the monarchy scheme would derail China's efforts
to attend the crucial postwar peace conference and so provide further
opportunities for Japan to thwart Chinese interests." Liang attacked what
he called Yuan's seven major mistakes, the first being his lack of a modern
concept of the nation-state." To Liang and General Cai E, the first
general to take military action against Yuan, the anti-monarchical war had to
be waged for nothing less than the human dignity of four hundred million
Chinese.6
Liang attached such
importance to the implications of Yuan's scheme that he risked his life to
write an extremely powerful article entitled "How Strange Is This Socalled National Polity Problem!" (Yi zai suowei guoti
wenti), in which he roundly denounced Yuan. Liang
told his daughter, "Unless heaven takes away my pen, I will write and
denounce Yuan and his cronies."7
Liang not only used
his pen, he also joined the military warlords Lu Rongting
of Guangxi and Tang Jiyao of Yunnan. Almost
simultaneously with China's declaration of war on Germany, Duan initiated
military campaigns to suppress the rebellions of the South and reunite China.
Fighting first broke out in September in Hunan province, between Duan's army
and the southern forces. Hunan had declared its independence from Duan's
government, and the government in Guang-dong decided
to provide military support for Hunan's resistance. The fighting in Hunan soon
became a wide-ranging civil war between North and South.
Duan wanted to use
entry into the war as an opportunity to increase his military forces which
would then be available for domestic use. He also saw in the European war an
opportunity to secure loans which could be used for China's reunification.
Since financial support from the United States was not forthcoming, Duan had
allied himself with Japan after the outbreak of the civil war. From August 1917
to January 1918, Duan received a huge number of loans from Japan, the largest
of which was the socalled Nishihara loan. According
to Li Jiannong, Liang Qichao, in his capacity as
Minister of Finance, was directly involved in the loan negotiations. Although
a large amount of the Nishihara loan was expended on the training of an army
for participation in the European war, a considerable part was poured into the
domestic battle.
For Duan, uniting
China under an effective central government was a crucial step toward a proper
Chinese entrance onto the world stage. That he assumed charge of the War
Participation Bureau indicated his intention.
See Li, The
Political History of China, 383, to carry forward his own war participation
policy." In terms of domestic affairs, the Duan government felt compelled
to use authoritarian and military methods to overcome individualism and
political conflict. As Duan told Reinsch on August
22, 1917, "We must first of all establish the authority of the central
government ... This can be done only through the defeat of the opposition. My
purpose is to make the military organization in China national and unified, so
that the peace of the country shall not at all times be upset by local military
commanders."8
In his later years
Duan realized what a disaster having the military intervene in civil politics
had been. He expressed "great regret for his role in it." In his
handwritten will, perhaps speaking from his own mistakes, he wrote that China
would still enjoy a great future if its leaders followed his "eight
Nos." His first "no" was that politicians should not try to
"solve political disputes [by military means] to force through their own
ideas."
Duan's policy must
also be understood in light of the times. Both Yuan and Duan were men of their
era, a time of transition lacking a clear, well-defined political structure and
values, and a well-charted direction. Their policies, and especially their
resorting to military intervention in civilian politics, are understandable in
this light. The warlordism problem had perhaps more
to do with the times than with individuals. After all, it can be traced back to
the imperialism of the late nineteenth century. In fact, Beiyang-style
warlordism, which clearly defined the era of 1916 to
1928, first emerged during the Western incursion following the Opium War, when
Zeng Guofan's Xiang army and Li Hongzhang's
Anhui army were formed in the 1860s to respond to an internal threat caused by
rebellions like those of the Taiping, the Nian, and
the Muslims. The Beiyang army, however, grew in
response to external threats and the drive for national survival. After the
first Sino-Japanese War of 1895, the then governor of Hebei, Yuan Shikai, decided to build a modern Chinese army. In this
sense, the Sino-Japanese War, which prompted the Chinese move toward military
modernization, was directly responsible for the establishment of the Beiyang army. The French, who saw Duan's new post as a
clear sign that he was serious about sending forces to Europe, asked its
Foreign Ministry to attempt to try and hasten the American loan to China.9
The emergence of
militarism in China was deeply connected to the rise of nationalism in the late
nineteenth century. Militarism had wide appeal in China; it had made Japan and
Germany strong, so it might help China to achieve the same. The nationalism of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries directly linked martial
values to national survival and played a critical role in improving the status
of the military.In the context of this broader
nationalist-inspired reassessment of the military," Edward McCord reminds
us, "it would not be unexpected for China's military men to have developed
a nationalist justification for their political interventions. These changing
political circumstances would "in fact drive China's military towards
political action.
These circumstances
introduced a new element into Chinese politics: a promilitary ideology and the
legitimacy of generals in political society. Nationalism was a major force in
Chinese society in the period under discussion, and for reasons outlined above
this turned out to be favorable to Chinese career soldiers. Nationalism,
according to S. E. Finer, "provides the military with a civic religion and
an overriding set of values." It encourages military men to regard
themselves as "the ultimate repositories and custodians of the nation's
values." Finer further explains that highly significant consequences flow
from this point. "First, where nationalism has gripped the masses, the
armed forces tend to become the visible symbol and the pledge of nationhood and
independence and to attract an esteem for that reason. Secondly, nationalism
provides the military with an ideology and possibly even a programme."10
In the Chinese case,
the nation's desire to become rich and powerful could be used by both
politicians and military men to justify intervening in politics when chaos
threatened. In addition to motives of regional, factional, and individual
self-interest, warlords considered the duty of the army to be saving the
nation. This was especially true when external troubles were closely linked to
internal ones. McCord examines the same phenomenon from a different
perspective. He argues that "the underlying cause of warlordism
in China was a crisis of political authority grounded in a lack of consensus in
the early Republic over the organization of political power. Republican
politics was militarized when different political forces turned to the military
to resolve seemingly irreconcilable political conflicts."McCord
points out that "[w] arlordism did not originate
simply in the rejection of legitimate political authority by military
commanders, but rather in the difficulty of defining which authority was
legitimate." He further argues, "The militarization of politics that
resulted from the crisis of early Republican political authority created the
environment essential to the rise of warlordism.11
Whether from Finer's perspective or from McCord's, we can conclude that
the Chinese situation was ripe for military intervention in politics, and the
generals used such slogans as "protect the nation" and "protect
the constitution" as their rallying cry. Finer observes that unlike a
dynastic state in which military loyalty to the state and to a ruler were
synonymous, the nation-state "no longer necessarily" operated in such
a way. "There," he explains, "it must first be demonstrated to
the military that the government they serve is the reason why they should not
regard an alternative government, and even themselves, as more representative
and more worthy of the nation than the government in office; and since their
transcendent duty is loyalty to the nation this may entail a duty to be
disloyal to the government." Under this logic, the military could become,
as Finer calls it, "the insurrectionary army," working for the
liberation of national territory or for the replacement of the social order
with its own ideology. Finer makes it clear that a new state with passionate
nationalism on the one hand and the need for strong central government on the
other was "a sure invitation to military intervention."
Finer's arguments highlight a central controversy in Chinese
political history: Warlords such as Wu Peifu
(1887-1939) and Feng Yuxiang (1882-1948) considered
themselves custodians of the national interest and did not hesitate to use
force to pursue that interest.
Even Sun Yat-sen had relied on warlords to set up a
separate government in southern China in 1917 using the same logic. Only when
he had been ousted by these same warlords did Sun lament, "The most
serious pitfall our country faces is the struggle for power among the warlords
who, in the North as well as in the South, show the same characteristics as
badgers in a lair."
Not every warlord
acted completely from personal ambitions. Some were quite patriotic. Feng Yuxiang is a case in point. Feng had witnessed Japanese
atrocities as a teenager during the Sino-Japanese War, and promised himself
that "if he some day became a soldier he would
fight the Japanese to the death." To instill an anti-imperialist attitude
in his men, Feng held a meeting every May 7 to commemorate Japan's imposing the
Twenty-one Demands and his soldiers and officers all wore belts which bore the
inscription "In Memory of the National Humiliation of May 7."
But above all, the
rise of warlordism was closely linked to the Chinese
political structure and culture. Huge problems in the political system,
especially the endless disputes about constitutional issues, pushed Chinese
politics in a military direction because the only option a politician had for
enacting policies was to solicit military help. Yuan Shikai
had always relied on military forces to enforce his political will and this
left his opponents no choice but to do likewise, as the anti-monarchical war
showed. Under Li Yuanhong, the civil service became
fragmented and docile when faced with military pressure. This compelled Li to
turn to a warlord in mid-1917 in hopes of resolving his seemingly
irreconcilable conflicts with Duan. Parliament was influential but its
importance was secondary since it could be dissolved at any time, legally or
illegally. There was no institutional framework for settling political
disputes, and with no stable constitutional or legal framework, the Chinese
military easily became politicized and politics militarized. Thus, Warlordism thus describes not only a political condition
but a political process.
Japan, however, loved
to see China in trouble and was deeply involved in creating chaos at every
opportunity. Obviously a weak and divided China served Japan's interest
handsomely. Japan's behavior toward Yuan's scheme to restore the monarchy is a
good example. From the very beginning, when China was undergoing transformation
and beginning to pursue an entry into the world community, Japan tried hard to
destroy its unity. This explains why Japan let Yuan think at the outset that it
did not oppose his monarchical ambitions, and then, as soon as the scheme was
in full motion, encouraged and supported his opponents. According to Liang
Qichao's letter to his daughter, Japan made every effort to help Liang join Cai
E's campaign against Yuan. As Liang put it, "The Japanese facilitated my
trip and provided me with much assistance."12
Even after the
failure of Yuan's scheme and his death, Japan continued to work toward China's
domestic instability apparently with the object of bringing about a definite
split between North and South. For instance, Japan supplied Cen Chunxuan, a warlord in the South, with 10,000 rifles and
200,000 dollars for his attempt to make Yunnan Province independent from
Beijing.'" No wonder Jordan reported confidentially that the Japanese
"are masters of the situation in the Far East and are in a position to
cause or avert trouble in China. They consider, and probably have good grounds
for considering, that this [monarchy] movement will meet with opposition in
south China."13
Japan obviously
benefited from the turmoil diplomatically and economically. A weaker and more
chaotic China would need more loans from the outside to function. For example,
to re-unite China and to build a strong central government, Duan had to fight
the regional warlords; but to do so, he needed money to finance campaigns and
raise larger forces. From 1916 to 1918, nine provinces in China experienced
large or small campaigns, and the size of military forces overall increased dramatically.
In 1914 the Chinese national army had 457,000 soldiers. By 1918, the number had
nearly doubled to 850,000. In 1919 it had further increased to 1,380,000.
Accordingly, the military budget had to grow. The Beijing government's military
budget in 1916 was 153 million yuan; in 1918 it was 203 million. Military
expenses posed such a heavy burden that they took more than half of government
revenue. The military budget in 1919 took 80 per cent of the country's
financial income.14
The Duan government, determined
to continue fighting the South, could only look to Japan for the loans it so
desperately needed. By so doing, it fell victim to Japan's intent to
destabilize and control, and sacrificed the national interests and considerable
resources in the process. Lu Zongyu, who was branded
a national traitor during the May Fourth Movement, himself acknowledged that
some of the loans made under the Duan regime were guaranteed against the
forests and mines in Helongjiang and Jilin provinces,
and thus were contracted under "selling the nation" conditions.15
Through these loans,
Duan managed to compromise his long-term goal of joining the European war even
as he endeavored to secure the means to achieve it. By providing loans to
China, the Japanese were able to compel the Duan government to make further
concessions. This strategy was marvelously employed by Japan when in early 1918
it extracted the Sine-Japanese Military Agreement for Common Defense from
Beijing. In late 1917 when the Bolsheviks swept to power in Russia, the
existing order in Asia was changed dramatically. First, the Russo-Japanese
alliance collapsed, and the Russian Revolution presented a new opportunity for
Japan to extend its interest into Siberia. Japan could leverage this into
gaining further control in Manchuria. While Japan was busy preparing its
military expedition into Russia, it was also pressuring China to sign a treaty
giving Japan full control of Manchuria and the Chinese army, using the excuse
of dealing with German soldiers in Russia and preventing the spread of
revolutionary currents from Russia to East Asia.
In early February
1918 when Japan first pressed this issue, China made it clear that if the socalled German threat came at its Russian border, China
would itself manage the situation. Regarding affairs occurring outside Chinese
territory it was admitted that "China may deal jointly with Japan."But Japan pushed hard."' On March 2, the
Chinese Foreign Ministry agreed in principle that China would negotiate with
Japan regarding the joint defense if the latter was really sincere in its
promise that afterwards the Japanese troops within Chinese territory would be
entirely withdrawn." As it did with the Twenty-one Demands, Japan asked
China to keep the discussions and alleged agreements strictly secret. Viscount Motono told Zhang Zongxiang,
Chinese minister to Japan, that "before the joint defense agreement is
made known, we shouldn't disclose anything in words to the Allied countries,
but should wait until such a time when the two countries can jointly confer
with them."
The agreement did not
last long. On January 27, 1921, Japan was compelled to cancel. In mid-May, the
Terauchi Masatake government and Beijing concluded
and signed the joint defense agreements; the army section was signed on May 16,
the naval section three days later. Its provisions enabled Japanese troops to
move freely throughout most of China. To continue receiving its financial
support, the Duan government even agreed that Japan could keep its interests in
Shandong in a secret agreement signed on September 24, 1918.
These secret
arrangements were important for two reasons. First, they sowed the seeds of
China's failure at the Paris Peace Conference regarding the Shandong issue.
Second, the joint defense agreement aroused strong opposition among China's
foreign policy public, especially college students, with nationwide
demonstrations coming as a forerunner of the May Fourth Movement. Indeed, when
the news regarding the secret treaty with Japan leaked out, the Chinese people
immediately protested. Thirty-seven groups in Shanghai alone sent a telegram on
April 23 to the Duan government, declaring their opposition to the alleged
treaty. Many influential social groups including the United Association of
National Commerce and provincial education commissions openly expressed their
dissent. Many societies sent delegates to Beijing to petition the government
directly not to sign the treaty. They all pointed out that such agreements
would only damage China's national interest and claims to sovereignty. Some
protesters felt this was worse than the Twenty-one Demands. Among the
protesters, students were the most active and vocal. Chinese students in Japan
demonstrated, refused to go to class, and many returned to China. Beijing students
organized demonstrations in front of the presidential office, demanding
rejection of the treaty. Students in other places such as Tianjin and Shanghai
also took similar actions. To make their opposition more effective and
influential, the students set up their own organizations such as
"Students' Society for National Salvation," which published its own
magazines Citizens and National Salvation Daily." The zeal and strength of
the students' response to this agreement showed that the May Fourth Movement
did not come out of the blue.
Japan, of course, was
not the only country to meddle in China's internal politics. The United States
also played a role in Yuan's monarchical scheme. As British minister Jordan
wrote, the "American government has a measure of responsibility as it was
one of their eminent citizens who came to China for the express purpose
apparently of starting this movement. " He went on to observe with some
irony: "Strangely enough, one of the American advisers has been called in
to champion the change from republic to monarchy." The American whom
Jordan referred to was Frank Johnson Goodnow (1859-1939), first president of
the American Political Science Association, founded in 1904. Goodnow was at the
time referred to as "the father of American administration" for his
emphasis on the administrative aspect of government."
This eminent scholar
was keenly interested in adapting constitutional provisions to social and
cultural realities. Goodnow believed in Yuan, seeing him as "honestly
desirous of saving his country" and bought Yuan's idea that China could be
saved only by a "practically autocratic government."Having
served as Yuan's constitutional advisor (appointed in 1913) provided Goodnow
with an opportunity to put his theory into practice. In the summer of 1915, at
Yuan's request, he prepared a memorandum on the relative merits of
republicanism and monarchism for China. Goodnow declared that it was "not
susceptible of doubt," that a monarchy "is better suited than a
republic to China" because republicanism did not suit the present
conditions there owing to the country's history, traditions, and social and
economic circumstances.16
Although Goodnow's
argument does not hold water from a historical perspective, Yuan could not have
found a better man. Having the backing of such a distinguished scholar from an
influential republic justified Yuan's move and greatly enhanced the
respectability of his scheme. Yuan underscored the "scientific" basis
of his plan by pointing to Goodnow, and bought a whole page in the Manchester
Guardian to publicize Goodnow's ideas. In the meantime, he arranged for the
Chinese version to be printed and circulated widely in China."17
It is said that
Yuan's presidential office provided every one of its visitors with Goodnow's
article.
Liang Qichao suggested that Yuan's monarchical campaign started with Goodnow's
supposed support of the imperial system, or at least that seemed to be the case
"on the surface." Within less than a week, the main organ to carry
out Yuan's scheme, the Peace Planning Society, had been organized. Yang Du, a
central figure in this society, wrote a long essay entitled "National
Salvation by a Constitutional Monarchy" in April of 1915. There he
strongly argued that a republican government would be inefficient for China. If
China wanted to be rich and powerful, it had to change its polity,
and only a constitutional monarchy could save it. That article did not,
however, attract wide attention. But when Goodnow's article came out, Yang
realized the time to be ripe for carrying out the imperial plan. In its
manifesto, the Peace Planning Society built its case mainly on Goodnow's ideas,
claiming that the "leading political science scholar of the leading
republic," Goodnow, was of the same opinion that a monarchy was a better
form of government than republicanism. The society sent copies of Goodnow's
article to each provincial official and asked them to send delegates to Beijing
to discuss monarchical issues.18 Goodnow tried to distance himself from the Peace
Planning Society and refused to allow further use of his name in support of the
latter's political views. No matter what his original motivation for writing
the memorandum, Goodnow's name and its prestige had been used to great
advantage by Yuan's plotters and the Peace Planning Society.19
Goodnow's role in
Yuan's scheme was crucial and irreplaceable. Certainly, other foreigners had
voiced the same or similar ideas, but no one had received the same degree of
attention or was as influential. If his ideas and actions did not necessarily
represent official American policy, at least Goodnow represented various elite
American groups' interests in China. He had been nominated for his position as
Yuan's advisor by the Carnegie Foundation, at the recommendation of a Harvard
president emeritus. From the perspective of international history, as long as
such a position made an impact, it did not really matter whether it was an
individual initiative or official policy. Goodnow's case shows how
non-governmental organizations, and even individuals, can affect the history
and direction of a country's development. His case also indicates the strong
impact of ideas on policy-making, since Goodnow drew on his expertise to push
his point. This case clearly supports the view that the First World War period
was for the Chinese public an age of innocence, since a single foreigner's idea
widely publicized could so fundamentally affect China's polity and its
development. The fact that Yuan and his cronies fully embraced Goodnow's view
not only reflects Chinese naivete, but also the fragility of the evolving
Chinese political culture.
The United States
government also came to be directly involved in China's domestic affairs. In
early June 1917 the American government proposed to France, Britain, and Japan
that they make identical representations to the Chinese government
"expressing regret for the factional discord that has arisen." The
representation should make it clear to China that "the maintenance by
China of one centrally united and responsible government is of first importance
both to China itself and to the world," that "the entrance of China
into the war against Germany is of quite secondary importance as compared with
unity and peace of China," and that the Allied countries "hope that
wise counsels will prevail and that harmony be restored which is so essential
to China's welfare.20
The Allied countries
gave the American proposal a cold reception. For instance, the French
protested, "It seems indeed excessive and useless to say that we consider
China's entrance into the war against Germany as entirely of secondary
importance."21
If the French
suggestion was an indirect refusal of the American proposal, Britain and Japan
more openly opposed it. Robert Cecil told the American ambassador in London
that he considered China's entry into the war "of very great
importance," that "China's entry would deal a hard blow to Germany in
trade relations after the war," and that he regarded "German fear of
complete commercial isolation as one of the strongest kinds of pressure to
bring peace." On June 14, the British Foreign Office officially responded
to the American proposal by saying that the British government would
"abstain from the step proposed" by the United States. Japan
simply let the United States know that it would not support the proposal.
Even without the
support of other powers, the United States went ahead single-mindedly.
Secretary of State Robert Lansing asked Reinsch to
let his host know that the American government considered Chinese entry into
the war with Germany of secondary importance. Moreover, "the principal
necessity for China," Lansing maintained, "is to resume and continue
her political entity and to proceed along the road of national development on
which she has made such marked progress." Lansing especially directed Reinsch to communicate this message to the Chinese
"leaders of the military party opposing the President."22
Why did the United
States choose this moment to send this note to China and suggest that other
powers do the same? According to the State Department's official explanation,
the major reason was that the United States wanted "China to stay [a]
republic" and was "anxious not to seethe
monarchy restored."
Lansing soon realized
that the American note counseling internal peace in China did not have any
positive result. The Washington Post even termed it a "blunder," and
there is some truth to this characterization. First of all, American good
wishes did nothing to stop the chaos in China. Second, the statement soured
America's relations with the Allied countries, especially Japan. The Japanese
government let the United States government know through official channels that
it was not at all pleased with the step taken by the American government. It promptly
questioned the right of the United States to interfere in Chinese affairs and
reminded the United States that the Japanese commanded the paramount position
in East Asia. Japan also complained that the United States had sent its note to
China without consultation in advance with Japan and other Allied nations.
Given all these problems, The Washington Post commented that "the affair
has left a very pronounced ripple on diplomatic waters." According to the
same article, "Washington officials regarded the whole episode as a
disturbing one, when it became apparent that the incident persists in surviving
the State Department explanation that the whole thing is a misunderstanding
brought about through the publication in Japan of a `bogus note' before the correct
text was received there." Yet, there was no "misunderstanding"
that containing the increasing Japanese influence in China had actually been
the impetus behind the American note. Given the wider global situation -
Germany was out of the picture because of the war; Great Britain, as an ally,
was forced to steer a cautious course; Russia was in revolution, and France
absorbed in the defense of its own dominion - the United States was extremely
concerned that should chaos prevail in China, "Japan might well attempt to
justify her assumption of the prerogative of a special protector."23 It
was imperative that the US do something to stabilize the situation between
Japan and China. Although the United States had good reason to think this way,
its note achieved nothing concrete.
Some Chinese elite
members welcomed the American note and asked for American intervention. Foreign
Minister Wu Tingfang appealed to the United States,
through Reinsch, for support: "In view of the
present dangerous situation and the attitude of the rebellious Tuchuns [dujun], I earnestly request that President Wilson, as the
defender of the cause of democracy and constitutionalism all the world over, be
moved to make a public statement on the subject of the American attitude toward
China and earnestly supporting President Li Yuan-hung [Li Yuanhong]."
After Parliament was dissolved in early June, Wu Jingliang,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Wang Zhengting,
the Vice-president of the Senate, also sent a joint telegram to the American
Congress: It read, "As a nation determined to be governed as a democracy,
we appeal to the American people and their congress for support."24
As with Yuan's use of
Goodnow, and Duan's and Li's turn to the military, Wu's request for foreign
intervention indicates the naivete and inexperience of Chinese politicians at
the time.Germany was also deeply implicated in
Chinese politics. Even as China was debating the war participation issue in the
spring of 1917, Paul von Hintze, the German minister to China, realizing that
China would soon join the war against his country, hired a lobbyist by the name
of Yong Jianqiu, a rich and well-connected merchant
who had close ties to both Chinese high officials and the Germans. Yong, with a
four-million-yuan fee provided by Hintze, was to lobby Duan Qirui
for at least a six-month delay of the Chinese declaration of war on Germany.
Yong did manage to see Duan, but Duan immediately rejected Hintze's plea.25
Evidence also
suggests that Germany provided direct support for Zhang Xun's
scheme to restore the Qing court. The French insisted, "There is much
evidence to show that Zhang Xun worked hand in glove
with the official representatives of Germany." This charge is in
fact confirmed by other sources. According to Zhang Zongxiang,
Germany provided Zhang Xun with a large supply of
weapons and money in 1917. Moreover, Germany let the restorationists know that
it would recognize a restored Qing that was neutral in the European war. The
strongest evidence of German intervention in Chinese politics comes from the
Germans themselves. In his report dated December 20, 1917, to Paul Hintze, Mr. Kuipping, German consul-general to Shanghai, who had
secretly remained in China after it broke off its relations with Germany, wrote
in detail about how his government tried to intervene in Chinese domestic
politics to influence China's German policy. Kuipping,
under instructions from Hintze, established a direct and close relationship
with Sun Yat-sen through an intermediary, Mr.
Schirmer, a former interpreter. Germany provided about two million dollars
between March and August 1917 to Sun for his efforts to sabotage and possibly
overthrow the Beijing government. Cao Yabo, a friend
and partisan of Sun's, acted as intermediary between Sun and the German
consulate general in Shanghai. To please Germany, Sun even volunteered to go to
Japan to lobby pro-German sentiment. Mr. Kuipping
politely asked him not to do so. Later when Sun set up a separate government in
High Chinese expectations for the peace conference met mainly with deep
disappointment.
The Chinese had their
first taste of this at the very opening of the conference when they were
allotted only two seats at the proceedings. When China entered the war, the
Great Powers had promised to treat it as an equal partner at the eventual peace
talks. But in the end, getting two as opposed to the five seats the major
powers held, China immediately felt itself regarded as a third-rate country,
with its faith betrayed." Strong Chinese protests to the decision-makers
at the conference made no difference. To add insult to injury, China was
allowed to participate only three times in meetings held regarding the Shandong
issue despite its stake in the matter. Indeed, the invitation to participate in
the first meeting on January 27 came only about one hour before that meeting
commenced. In its third and last chance to state its case, on April 22, the
Chinese delegation again appealed for fair treatment and justice. But Japan had
the right to sit in almost all sessions, especially when its interests were
concerned. It had the full five seats and was treated as a member of the
"Big Five." More importantly, its claims to Shandong were supported
by Britain, France, and Italy, thanks to the secret arrangements Japan had
concluded with them in early 1917. The attending countries were divided into
three categories. The five principal powers (the United States, Britain,
France, Italy, and Japan) were entitled to five seats; countries such as Brazil
and Belgium, which rendered certain effective aid and assistance in the war
were entitled to three seats; and the remaining members of the allied camp,
considered as the less important countries, would be entitled to only two
seats. China was considered by the major powers to belong to the last category.
When China tried to receive the same level of treatment as Brazil, it was told
that it had provided little positive war aid while Brazil, by patrolling the
south Atlantic with its naval units, had done a great service to the Allied
cause.26
Baron Nobuaki Makino,
a key member of the Japanese delegation, informed the Council of Ten on January
27 that the Japanese government "feels justified" in claiming
"the unconditional cession" of Shandong from Germany. At the April 22
meeting, British prime minister Lloyd George, having admitted that "he had
never heard of the Japanese Twenty-one Demands, let alone the ultimatum"
that Japan presented to China, pressed Koo to choose either to allow Japan to
accede to Germany's right to Shandong, as stated in the treaty between China
and Germany, or to recognize Japan's position in Shandong, as stipulated in the
Sino-Japanese treaties. British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour, with
respect to the Shandong issue, wrote to Curzon that "we were bound to the
Japanese by pledges they had exacted from us when we asked for naval assistance
in the Mediterranean"; and that he was "moved by contempt for the
Chinese over the way in which they left Japan to fight Germany for Shantung,
and then were not content to get Shantung back without fighting for it, but
tried to maintain that it was theirs as the legitimate spoils of a war in which
they had not lost a man or spent a shilling." Balfour told Curzon that his
sympathies regarding Shandong "were entirely with the Japanese." He
argued that China should not be allowed to regain that right which "she
could never have recovered for herself."
The major excuse the
Big Four (Britain, France, Italy, and the United States) used for pressing
China to concede was the treaties China had signed with Japan regarding
Shandong in 1915 and 1918. Even Wilson, an advocate of open diplomacy in his
Fourteen Points, now joined the other powers. At the session of April 22, he
told the Chinese that the war "has been fought largely for the purpose of
showing that treaties cannot be violated," and advised that "it would
be better to live up to a bad treaty than to tear it up."27
When the Chinese delegation
got the news on May 1 that the fate of Shandong had been decided in favor of
Japan without China's participation, the members were devastated. They realized
that "the peace conference is based on might. Right and justice was
defeated by might." In his report to Beijing, Lu Zhengxiang
advised that if China was not allowed to lodge reservations, it should not sign
the treaty. Thus in early May, the Chinese delegation did officially
"register a formal protest with the Council of Three against the proposed
settlement" of Shandong. Stephen Bonsal, who had
first-hand knowledge of the Paris Conference and worked for the American
delegation, recorded on May 4, 1919 what was in the minds of the Chinese
delegation: "We are betrayed in the house of our only friend."
According to Bonsal, the Chinese were particularly
furious with Wilson.28
After May 1, the
Chinese delegation worked extremely hard to revise the peace treaty with
Germany. As a first step, it wanted to formulate provisions for insertion into
the preliminaries of peace with Germany. The Chinese reasserted their desires
to regain the territory, rights, and property originally obtained "either
by intimidation or by actual force, and to remove certain restrictions on
[China's] freedom of political and economic development." They wanted
particularly to include the following provisions:
1. The termination of
all treaties between China and Germany and the opening of Qingdao to foreign
trade and residence.
2. A new treaty of commercial and general relations, based upon the principles
of equality and reciprocity, with Germany relinquishing most-favored nation
treatment.
3. The withdrawal of Germany from the Protocol of September 7, 1901. 4. The
cession to China of German public property in Chinese territory. 5.
Compensation for the losses suffered by the Chinese government and its
nationals.
6. Reservation of the right to claim war indemnities from Germany.
7. Reimbursement of expenses for the internment and maintenance of prisoners of
war.
8. Germany's ratification of the International Opium Convention of January 23,
1912.
This proposal was
bluntly rejected. With this added failure, China tried to insert reservations
on the three articles affecting Shandong. China proposed to write into the
treaty over the signatures of the Chinese plenipotentiaries the words
"subject to the reservation made at the Plenary Section of May 6, 1919,
relative to the questions" of Shandong.
But even Wilson did
not support China's motion for a reservation. For Wilson, any reservation by
the Chinese delegation might set an example that would be eagerly seized upon
by other delegations dissatisfied with decisions on questions of special
interest to them. Wilson particularly had in mind the Covenant of the League of
Nations, which had been objected to in several of its particulars by the Senate
of the United States, and which might provoke reservations from other
delegations such as the Japanese. After this rebuff, China tried to make its
reservation an addendum to the treaty; this too was denied. Next the Chinese
delegation requested that it be given an opportunity to make a declaration on
the signing of the treaty. China would sign the peace treaty if it were allowed
to send to the president of the conference, before the official signing
ceremony, a separate declaration to the effect that the Chinese
plenipotentiaries would sign the treaty subject to the reservation that after
the signing, China would ask for reconsideration of the Shandong question.
Clemenceau, the president of the conference, rejected this proposal
immediately.
Thus the Chinese felt
that "the Peace Conference has denied to the Chinese Delegates the
privilege of making any suggestions," and refused to sign the
treaty, which was described by some Chinese as China's "death
warrant."29
On June 28, all
members of the Chinese delegation decided not to sign the treaty and absented
themselves from the signing ceremony. Many including Wilson were surprised by
the Chinese move. Wilson was "greatly disturbed at the absence of
Chinese." He told Lansing, "That is most serious. It will cause grave
complications."30
In its press release
of the same day, the Chinese delegation stated, "The peace conference
having denied China justice in the settlement of the Shantung question and
having today in effect prevented them from signing the treaty without
sacrificing their sense of right, justice, and patriotic duty, the Chinese
delegates submit their case to the impartial judgment of the world."31
On May 14, Lu Zhengxiang, the head of the Chinese delegation, asked
President Xu Shichang for instructions regarding
whether or not to sign a peace treaty. In his telegram Lu wrote, "I signed
the 1915 treaty [with Japan]. Now if I have any conscience, I shall not sign
the new [peace] treaty ... As public opinion in China is now tremendously
aroused, I am very reluctant to sign [any new treaty] for fear of future
criticism."32
Chinese both in China
and abroad sent thousands of telegrams to their delegation in Paris to express
their strong disappointment with the Great Powers with respect to the Shandong
question, denouncing their decision as unjust and an insult to China, and
opposing the signing of the treaty. After May 4, the Chinese delegation
received about 7,000 such telegrams.
The scholarship on
the period maintains that China experienced total defeat at the postwar peace
conference. Bruce A. Elleman a few years ago argued
that China's failure to get Shandong back at the conference was due to what he
calls the overriding Chinese concern with "losing face." To prove his
point that Wilson did not betray China on Shandong, Elleman
claims that Japan had "an almost unassailable legal position at
Paris" - the six secret treaties it signed with the Allied powers and
China prior to the conference - from which to win Shandong. He declares that
the Chinese should blame themselves, not Wilson, the Japanese, or anybody else
for what happened to them at Paris regarding the Shandong issue.33
Elleman however, fails to realize that the Chinese, and indeed
the American, outcry at Wilson's betrayal focused more on the betrayal of his
own blueprint for a new world order than on his eventual refusal to support
China's claims. Liang Qichao concluded, that for China, "The only one she
could count upon is herself.”
The humiliation the
Chinese suffered in Paris put a damper on China's pursuit of a Western-style
national identity. The Paris Peace Conference, to a great extent, alienated
Chinese intellectuals, many of whom had been exposed to ideas about the decline
of the West generated by the likes of Oswald Spengler. After many months spent
in Europe, Liang realized that both Chinese and Western civilizations had their
problems. He believed that combining the good parts of both of them to make a
new civilization was the best strategy and encouraged the Chinese to use their
higher ‘spiritual’ civilization to salvage the superior Western ‘material’
civilization.34
What happened to
China at Paris directly led to the May Fourth Movement, which declared that the
First World War indicated the collapse of the "second civilization"
(the Western one). Accordingly, he advocated a "third civilization,"
the introduction of socialism to China. Li Dazhao
agreed. He argued that Russia, geographically and culturally situated at the intesection of Europe and Asia, was the only country which
could undertake "the creation of a new civilization in the world that
simultaneously retains the special features of eastern and western
civilizations and the talents of the European and Asian peoples." For Li,
the October Revolution heralded a world in which weak nations would regain
their independence." At this point, Mao Zedong, then just another educated
youth in China, concluded that Russia was now "the number one civilized
country in the world. 137 explanation for China's failure to achieve its
rightful place in the world of nations."
Interestingly enough,
even in this search for a new means to define its position in the world, the
Chinese still followed the international trends and the West. After all,
socialism is a Western idea. Moreover, interest in socialism was a global
phenomenon in the wake of the Great War. The American people in 1919 were
"eagerly urged into what are called socialistic experiments." Arif Dirlik clearly notices the
shared experience China had with the rest of the world. He wrote that for
Chinese intellectuals socialism already appeared "as a rising world tide
in the aftermath of World War I, as was dramatized in the worldwide
proliferation of revolutionary social movements of which the Russian revolution
was the most prominent." The emergence of a Communist movement in China,
according to Dirlik, "resulted from a
conjuncture of internal and external developments. In 1918-19, socialism
appeared as a world political tide, nourished by the successful October
Revolution in Russia, labor and social revolutionary movements in Europe and
North America, and national liberation movements in colonial societies that
found inspiration in socialist ideas."
In other words, even
though China now refused to follow the West wholeheartedly and was determined
to discover a new direction for developing its national identity, it remained
motivated by a strong sense of internationalization and the expectation of
playing a role in larger world affairs.
Thanks to China's
refusal to sign the Treaty of Versailles at Paris, China and Germany signed a
new treaty in 1921. This Sino-German treaty was the first equal treaty China
signed with a major power after the Opium War.35
Henry T. Hodgkin, who
was secretary of the National Christian Council of China and a close observer
of China in the 1920s, wrote: This may seem strange when one remembers German
aggression in Shantung and the fact that Germany and China have been on
opposite sides in the Great War. It is due in part to the fact that Germany has
been treated by her conquerors in a way that makes China feel a deep sympathy,
a sort of fellow-feeling. China and Germany were both wronged by the Treaty of
Versailles; both are suffering because might has overstepped the bounds of
right ... Germans are now in China on equal terms with the Chinese. Even though
the change has not been of Germany's seeking, it has helped greatly in the
reaction of feeling.36
1. Guogi, China and the
Great War, 2005, p.12.
2. The origins of the Beiyang
and its collapse, in Lai Xinxia, ed., Beiyang junfa (Documents on the Beiyang warlords) Shanghai.
3. For details on this point, see Jerome Chen, Yuan
Shih-Kai, Stanford University Press, 1972, 164, 201, 210.
4. Li, The Political History of China, 309.
5. Edward Friedman, Backwards toward Revolution: The
Chinese Revolutionary Party, University of California Press, 1974, 169, 78.
6. Jindai shi ziliao, Materials of Modern History,
Beijing, 1978, 152.
7. Zhang Pinxing, ed., Liang
Qichao jiashu , Family Letters of Liang Qichao,
Beijing, 2000.
8. Reinsch, An American Diplomat
in China, 293.
9.
See Martel to Stephen Pichon, January 2, 1918, "Le President du Conseil et
Ministre de la Guerre au Ministre des Affaires etrangeres," Quai d'Orsay,
1918-1929, Chine, xL: 3; and xi.: 5-6.
10. S. E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the
Military in Politics, London,1976, 189-91.
11. Edward A. McCord, "Warlords against Warlordism: The Politics of Anti-Militarism in Early
Twentieth-Century China," Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 4 , 1996,: 797-99.
12. Liang Qichao to Liang Sishun,
March 12, 1916, in Zhang, ed., Liang Qichao jiashu
,The family letters of Liang Qichao, 234.
13. Jordan to Langley, October 20, 1915, PRO,
wo350/13/101.
14. For details, see Huang Zheng, Chen Changhe, and Ma Lie, Duan Qirui yu wan xi junfa (Zhengzhou shi: Henan renmin chubanshe: Henan sheng xinhua shudian faxing, 1990), 163-64.
15. Lu Zengyu, Wushi zishu , Memoir of the
fifty-year-old man, pp. 18-19.
16. Dr. Goodnow's Memorandum to the President,"
US Department of State, ed., FRUS, 1915, 53-58.
17. Li Xisuo and Yuan Qing,
Liang Qichao zhuan Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993, 340-41; the full text of his memorandum
was published in the Peking Daily News on August 20, 1915.
18. Xie Benshu,
Yuan Shikai yu Beiyang junfa ,Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang Warlords,
Shanghai, 1984, 70.
19. A Statement by Dr. Goodnow," The Peking
Gazette, August 18, 1917.
20. American Ambassador to French Foreign Minister,
June 6, 1917, Quai d'Orsay, NS, Chine, cxxxvi: 54-55.
21. French Foreign Minister, telegram to French
Ambassadors in Washington, London, Tokyo, Rome, and Minister in Peking on June
8, 1917, Quai d'Orsay, NS, Chine, cxxxvi: 65.
22. The Washington Post, June 9, 1917.
23. The Washington Post, June 17, 1917.
24. China Press, July 27, 1917. For the Chinese
parliament, see Guan Meirong, Wu jingliangyu
rninchu Guohui, Wu Jingliang and the Parliament in Early Republican China,
Taipei, 1995.
25. See,Yong Dingcheng, "Jun huo maiban Yong Jianqiu de yisheng" (Life of Arms and Munitions Merchant Yong Jianqiu), in Wenshi ziliao xuanji (Selected materials
on literature and history) (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1981). This was
confirmed by Hintze's reports to the German Foreign Ministry; see Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amts, Bonn, Hintze report, July 3, 1917, x18024
China No. 9, A24099.
26. For details on China's seat issue, see Wellington
Koo Memoir, Chinese Oral History Project, Columbia University, Wellington Koo
Memoir, microfilm, reel 1, is.
27. Wensi Jin, China at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, NY: St.
John's University.
28. S. Bonsai, Suitors and Supplicants: The Little
Nations at Versailles, 239.
29. The Diplomatic Association, "China at the
Peace Conference," Far Eastern Political Science Review, Canton, August
1919, p.141.
30. "Memorandum by the secretary of state, the
signing of the treaty of peace with Germany at Versailles on June 28th,
1919," Department of State, ed., FRUS, the Paris Peace Conference, 1919,
u: 602.
31. Chinese Patriotic Committee, New York, July, 1919,
in National Archive, State Department Records relating to the Political
Relations between China and other States, 7-185/m341/roll 28/793.94/963.
32. Guang, Lu Zhengxiang zhuan, Biography of Lu
Zhengxian, Taipei, 1966, p.113.
33. Elleman, Wilson and
China: A Revised History of The Shandong Question, 2002, 49-50, 94-96, 107-08,
149-51, 170-71.
34. Li Huaxing and Wu Jiayi, Shanghai, 1984, 731.
35. For a good study on Sino-German relations in this
period, see William C. Kirby, Germane and Republican China, Stanford University
Press, 1984.
36. Henry T. Hodgkin, China in the Family of Nations,
London, 1923, 168.
For updates
click homepage here