China

China The world's most populous country, characterized in the nineteenth century by relatively weak, bureaucratic rule at the centre. The government relied on the power of local landlords to collect taxes from a mass of poor, and often propertyless, peasants, who made up over 80 per cent of the population. In marked contrast to Europe, a sharp increase in population (1800: 300 million; 1880: 450 million) was not accompanied by improvements in agricultural productivity through more efficient farming methods. There was no industrialization, either. Most commerce was subject to state monopoly, so that enterprising urban commercial classes largely failed to develop. Given the lack of mechanical innovation in economics and the military, it was relatively easy for foreign powers to force the Imperial Court into allowing them to occupy bridgeheads such as as Hong Kong or Macao, from which they could penetrate the Chinese market.

Protest against this humiliating domination by foreign powers led to the Boxer Rebellion in 1899–1901. While the Imperial Court was, eventually, moved to carry out some reforms, such as the abolition of the ancient, Confucian civil service exams, most reform proposals were vetoed by the Empress Dowager, Cixi. Incensed by the corruption and impotence of the Imperial Court, the growing poverty in the countryside, and the foreign intrusion into a country with an unrivalled cultural and political heritage, nationalist groups began to form.

Most of these united behind Sun Yat-sen, who directed the republican movement from exile abroad, until the Wuchang Revolution of 1911. Sun was elected President, but retired in favour of Yuan Shikai, who had been instrumental in persuading the last Emperor, Pu Yi, to abdicate, and who commanded the country's strongest military forces. Instead of consolidating the newly established Republic of China, however, Yuan made himself Emperor, exiling the Republic's other leaders, including Sun. After Yuan's death in 1916, Sun struggled to reunite the disorientated republican movement. Central power degenerated in a country where local power was more determinant than ever, in the era of warlords. Sun began to realize that he could only gain authority over China by refashioning his political force, the Guomindang (KMT), and its military counterpart, the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), in order to break the power of the landlords nationwide. He reorganized the KMT along Leninist lines, with the active help of Comintern. He was also happy to accept the help of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), founded in 1921. Sun died in 1925.

By contrast, Sun's successor, Chiang Kai-shek, was never able to unite all the disparate wings of the nationalist, republican movement behind him. Chiang had a promising start, as he set out to unite the country under the KMT in the Northern Expedition in 1926, which reached Beijing in 1928. In 1927, Chiang committed the fundamental error of dividing the movement by seeking to annihilate the CCP. This became a fundamental source of weakness to his National government, which he established in Nanjing in 1927. The area under his control never extended beyond around one-third of China. Substantial areas, around Jianxi in 1931–4, and Yan'an 1935–47, were subject to CCP control. His obsession with overcoming the CCP deflected his attention from Manchuria, where in 1932 the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Chiang's continuous warfare meant that, despite considerable economic and infrastructural reforms, the KMT government suffered from chronic budget deficits and inflation, as government expenditure on warfare reached more than 70 per cent of its total budget. The KMT government also failed to establish a permanent popular base. Chiang continued to rely heavily on landowners and warlords for military and financial support, which rendered him unable and unwilling to carry out any major, albeit much-needed, social reforms. By contrast, the CCP gained considerable administrative and military experience at its base in Jianxi. Almost annihilated during the Long March, under the leadership of Mao Zedong it established a mass peasant membership, mainly through successful land reforms and strict party discipline.

As both movements agreed to cooperate against Japanese aggression, for which purpose they created a United Front in 1937, Communist influence spread inexorably from their base in the north, while Chiang's forces bore the brunt of the Japanese military onslaught of the Sino-Japanese War. Cooperation between the KMT and the CCP effectively ended in 1943, while the United Government formally fell apart in 1945. The two sides clashed in the Chinese Civil War, at the beginning of which around one million Communist soldiers faced three million KMT troops. Despite early KMT victories, Chiang fought a losing battle, as those areas that came under the control of his troops remained loyal to the Communist cause. By contrast, as inflation and mismanagement reached new, unprecedented peaks, Chiang lost the support of important sections of society in his own areas, such as the commercial classes in the towns. After the victory of Huai-Hai, the KMT government collapsed. Chiang and his troops retreated to Taiwan, where they maintained a KMT government waiting to return to the mainland. Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

China, People's Republic of; Taiwan