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The relatively short time span from 1927, after the Nationalists’ creation of the Nanjing Government, to 1937, at the start of the Sino-Japanese war, makes it difficult to evaluate that government.  Today, there are mixed views. 

During a portion of that same time span, Japan tried to solidify their physical and international control of Manchuria.  Protective and restive about their position, Japan sought to expand its empire further into China. That inevitably forced a confrontation with the Nationalist led Nanjing Government. 

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Beginning in 1927, Mao Zedong and Zhu De grew the Communist Red Army from a small force of maybe 5,000 troops to over 250,000 troops by 1933. Despite the progressive antagonism and military attacks by the Nationalist forces, the communist learned to recruit for their party primarily from the peasants and the farmers.  They even formed a State within a State called the Chinese Soviet Republic.  It existed mostly in the southeast regions of China.  There the Chinese communist party and the Red Army grew. 

The Chinese Civil War started with the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927 and pitted the communist against the Nationalist.  The war would last intermittently until almost 1950.   After numerous attempts to destroy the communists by Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist forces, the Red Army and the communists escaped the southeast region of China.  The Long March, as it is called, ended in 1935. It relocated the army and the communists several thousand miles to Shaanxi Province located in northwest China. 

After the Xian Incident in late 1936, the Guomindang (Nationalists) and the communist agreed to a temporary truce to form the second united front.  Its purpose was to the fight the ever increasingly aggressive Japanese encroachment into China. 

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If the 1920 decade was not enough drama, stay tuned for the even more dramatic 1930s.  The decade tested the new Nationalist government in Nanjing, its leader, Chiang Kai-shek, and China. Internationalism was tossed.  Ever so visible with Japan’s aggression toward China.  Beginning in 1931 with the Mukden Incident Japan began its campaign to seize complete control of Manchuria.  Eventually renaming the region Manchukuo and intending to push farther into China. 

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The new National government in Nanjing begins.  For most of its existence it was led by Chiang Kai-Shek and his Guomindang cadre.  Many parts of China were united for the first time since 1916.  It was an uneasy unity facing many challenges both immediately and in the future. 

Chiang Kai-Shek would eventually emerge as an autocratic, powerful, and dynamic leader.  He would face great challenges.  Some of those were economic and political as well as from Japan, warlords, and the Chinese Communist Party.

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There were many reasons for the Peking (Beiyang) government’s failure.  Its fecklessness led to the organization and planning of the massive nationalist campaign in China in the 1920s. Its goal was to unify China and expel or neutralize foreign intrusion and interference.  Russia ironically played a large role. 

Through the merger of the Guomindang Nationalists and the Communists, the government in Peking was cast out.  Chiang Kai-Shek emerges during this period as a key leader.  He led the Nationalists in the Northern Expedition to establish a new government in Nanjing in 1928. Later he expelled the Communists from the new government and the Guomindang. 

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The May 4, 1919, demonstrations (or revolution, as it is referred to sometimes) opened a public discourse in China over the nation’s past and future direction.  It was partially precipitated by the betrayal China received from the Paris Peace Conference.  The Chinese nationalist and communist movements, so prevalent in the next decade, can probably trace their roots to the iconic May 4th event. 

The multi-national Washington (D.C.) Naval Conference in late 1921 and early 1922, tried to address the Chinese frustrations as well as the Pacific-Asia hegemony issues and balance.  Several key treaties and understandings came out of the conference.  Among those were the return of Shandong Province to China.  Also, the geo-political concept of internationalism became a central focus.  Naval armament quotas and limits in the region were another focus.  

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After Yuan Shikai’s death in 1916, the next twelve years pitted regional warlords against each other for control of the national government.  This period of time is known as the Beiyang Warlord Era.  

China only had limited involvement in World War I.  Japan used the war’s distraction to strengthen and gain her foothold in China.  The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, ended the fighting in Europe.  During the negotiations China had discovered it had been betrayed by the western nations, Japan, and her own leaders.

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Spring of 1912, and Yuan Shikai is the first president of the Republic of China.  He was given considerable powers, and quickly moved to consolidate it. The newly elected legislative assemblies, both national and provincial, were new political concepts to China.  Whether or not any of this new concept would work depended on many factors and time.   The Nationalists, or Guomindang, were the dominant political party.  They soon, however, found themselves in dispute against the president, Yuan Shikai.  By 1914, he had dissolved the national and local legislatures.  In 1916, he sought to appoint himself an emperor.  That was quickly abandoned after strong and determined opposition. 

By 1915, world war was consuming the world’s attention. China declared her neutrality.  She had her own issues dealing with Japanese aggression in China.

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The roughly forty-year period, between the fall of the imperial Qing Dynasty to the inauguration of the People’s Republic of China, is a complex, confusing, and ambiguous era in the history of China.  The era is defined by powerful and violent foreign influence in China and intense and violent Chinese nationalism. 

I begin this episode near the end of the Qing Dynasty and the ushering in of its replacement the Republic of China in 1912.   The early key protagonists in this story are Yuan Shikai and Dr. Sun Yat Sen.  It was a portentous and unclear beginning for the new Republic.

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This series will cover the roughly 40-to-50-year period of Chinese history.  It will cover the waning years of the imperial Qing Dynasty to the inauguration of Communist China and the Chinese Nationalist resettlement on Taiwan.  A fascinating and complex period of time.

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