China

Things happened, and the rest is history

1. 01

   The fall of the Qing and the Republic of 1912

   Event

   What happened

   On 10 October 1911 an army uprising at Wuchang begins the Xinhai Revolution, and province after province declares independence from the Qing court. On 1 January 1912 Sun Yat-sen is sworn in at Nanjing as provisional president of the Republic of China. On 12 February 1912 the child emperor Puyi abdicates, and Yuan Shikai, who commands the strongest army, becomes president.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The Qing had been weakened by the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion and defeat by Japan in 1895. Yuan Shikai used the presidency to build personal power. He suppressed the Nationalist party and in 1915 and 1916 tried to make himself emperor, which failed. After he died in 1916, the central government lost control and the warlord era began, lasting until the late 1920s.

   Sources

   1. BookFairbank, John K., and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
   2. BookPlatt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. New York: Knopf, 2012.
2. 02

   The May Fourth Movement and the founding of the Communist Party

   Event

   What happened

   On 4 May 1919 thousands of students in Beijing protest the Paris peace settlement, which hands German rights in Shandong to Japan. The protest grows into a wider movement of strikes and debate about science, democracy and reform of Chinese culture. In July 1921 the Chinese Communist Party holds its first congress in Shanghai, with Soviet encouragement.

   ↓ The rest is history

   May Fourth intellectuals turned many young Chinese toward new political ideas, including Marxism. In 1923 the Soviet Union began to support both the Communists and Sun Yat-sen's Nationalists, who formed a united front. Mao Zedong was among the early members of the party. The alliance later broke apart violently, and the two parties became the main rivals for the country.

   Sources

   1. BookChow, Tse-tsung. The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.
   2. BookSchwartz, Benjamin I. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951.
3. 03

   The Northern Expedition and the 1927 split

   Event

   What happened

   In 1926 the Nationalist army under Chiang Kai-shek sets out from Guangzhou on the Northern Expedition against the warlords. In April 1927 Chiang turns on his Communist allies in Shanghai, and many Communists and labour activists are killed. In 1928 his forces take Beijing, and the Nationalist government, based at Nanjing, is recognised abroad as the government of China.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The split began the civil war between Nationalists and Communists. Surviving Communists withdrew to rural bases, notably in Jiangxi. Chiang's government made real gains in the Nanjing decade of 1927 to 1937, but it never fully controlled the country. Mao's rural strategy, based on peasants rather than city workers, took shape in these years.

   Sources

   1. BookFairbank, John K., and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
   2. BookEastman, Lloyd E. The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927-1937. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
4. 04

   The Long March

   Event

   What happened

   In October 1934 the main Communist force breaks out of its Jiangxi base, which Nationalist armies have encircled. Over about a year it marches thousands of kilometres through the south-west and west, suffering heavy losses. At the Zunyi meeting in January 1935 Mao Zedong gains a leading role. The survivors reach northern Shaanxi in late 1935, and the party later settles at Yan'an in early 1937.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Only a small part of the original force arrived, but the march became a founding story of the Communist movement. Yan'an, the party's headquarters from 1937, gave it a secure base where Mao built his authority and ideas. Japan's full invasion in 1937 then shifted the contest. The Communists and Nationalists formed a loose second united front against Japan, though they kept fighting each other at times.

   Sources

   1. BookSun, Shuyun. The Long March. London: HarperCollins, 2006.
   2. BookSnow, Edgar. Red Star over China. London: Victor Gollancz, 1937.
5. 05

   The Civil War and the People's Republic

   Event

   What happened

   After Japan's surrender in 1945, fighting between Nationalists and Communists resumes, and full civil war begins in 1946. In the Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin campaigns of late 1948 and early 1949 the Communist People's Liberation Army destroys much of the Nationalist field army. Nanjing falls in April 1949. On 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China from Tiananmen in Beijing.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Historians point to Nationalist inflation, corruption and military losses, and to Communist discipline and rural support, as reasons for the result. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan in December 1949. The status of Taiwan remains a disputed question. The new government quickly carried out land reform and joined the Korean War in late 1950.

   Sources

   1. BookWestad, Odd Arne. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
   2. BookSpence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012.
6. 06

   The Great Leap Forward and the famine

   Event

   What happened

   In 1958 Mao launches the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to raise industrial and farm output rapidly through large people's communes and local steel production. Farmers are pulled from fields, and officials report inflated harvest figures. Grain procurement stays high, and a severe famine follows from 1959 to 1961.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Estimates of excess deaths vary widely, from well over ten million to around forty-five million, and the figure is debated. Weather played a part, but most historians stress policy failure and a political system that discouraged honest reporting. At the Lushan meeting in 1959, Defence Minister Peng Dehuai was purged for criticising the campaign. Mao's standing fell afterwards, and his wish to regain it is often seen as one background to the Cultural Revolution.

   Sources

   1. BookDikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine. London: Bloomsbury, 2010.
   2. BookYang, Dali L. Calamity and Reform in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
7. 07

   The Cultural Revolution

   Event

   What happened

   In May 1966 the Communist Party leadership issues a circular that launches the Cultural Revolution. Mao calls on young people to attack supposed bourgeois and revisionist elements, and Red Guard groups form in schools and universities. Senior leaders including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping are removed. Violence, persecution and factional fighting spread, and in 1968 the army restores order and millions of students are sent to the countryside.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Many people were killed, imprisoned or driven to suicide, and schools and universities were disrupted for years. The decade is conventionally dated 1966 to 1976. It ended after Mao died on 9 September 1976 and the Gang of Four were arrested in October. In 1981 the Party officially called the Cultural Revolution a disaster, while also criticising Mao's role.

   Sources

   1. BookMacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
   2. BookWalder, Andrew G. China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
8. 08

   Deng Xiaoping and economic reform

   Event

   What happened

   At the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in December 1978, the Party leadership, in which the returned Deng Xiaoping is increasingly influential, shifts the Party's focus to economic modernisation. Farm households are allowed to farm land under contract, and in 1980 special economic zones open at Shenzhen and other coastal places. State control over prices and enterprises is loosened step by step in the 1980s.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Farm output rose quickly in the early 1980s, and exports and private business grew in the following years. Growth lifted several hundred million people out of extreme poverty, though it also brought inequality and environmental damage. Political control stayed with the Communist Party, and the 1989 Tiananmen protests were suppressed. By the 1990s China's coastal provinces had become major centres of manufacturing and export.

   Sources

   1. BookVogel, Ezra F. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
   2. BookNaughton, Barry. The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.
9. 09

   Mao and the swim in the Yangtze

   Popular belief

   The legend

   Mao Zedong is said to have swum nearly fifteen kilometres down the Yangtze at Wuhan in July 1966, at the age of 72, in a record time. The story presents him as vigorous and tireless, just before the Cultural Revolution begins.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Mao did swim in the Yangtze at Wuhan in mid-July 1966, and the event was publicised heavily, including with photographs and a news film. The reported distance and speed were not credible as an athletic record, since the river current carried him along. Most historians treat it as a staged political display, aimed at showing that he was fit and still in command after the Great Leap Forward. Mao had also written a poem about swimming the Yangtze in 1956.

   Sources

   1. BookMacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
   2. BookSpence, Jonathan D. Mao Zedong. New York: Viking, 1999.
10. 10

    Deng's cat and the 'black cat, white cat' saying

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Deng Xiaoping is widely quoted as saying that it does not matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. The line is taken as the motto of China's market reforms.

    ↓ The rest is history

    Deng did use a proverb of this kind, which he took from Sichuan, in the early 1960s, when he spoke about restoring farm output after the famine. It was used against him during the Cultural Revolution as evidence of his supposed capitalist tendencies. The saying is often placed in the reform era of the 1980s, but it belongs earlier. In the 1980s and 1990s he spoke more often of seeking truth from facts.

    Sources

    1. BookVogel, Ezra F. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
    2. BookEvans, Richard. Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993.
11. 11

    The Last Emperor and the boy in the palace

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Many people picture Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as a boy who was simply put out of the Forbidden City in 1912 and then forgotten. In this view the empire ended cleanly with his abdication.

    ↓ The rest is history

    Puyi, born in 1906, was allowed to keep his title and live in the Forbidden City's inner court after the abdication of 1912. He was briefly restored to the throne in a failed coup in July 1917 and was expelled from the palace in 1924. Japan later made him head of the state of Manchukuo, as emperor from 1934. After years in Soviet and then Chinese custody he was released in 1959 and lived as a private citizen in Beijing until his death in 1967.

    Sources

    1. BookPuyi, Aisin-Gioro. From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
    2. BookBehr, Edward. The Last Emperor. New York: Bantam Books, 1987.
12. 12

    The Little Red Book as China's scripture

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that Mao's Little Red Book was a sacred text that every Chinese person had to carry and recite, and that it was the only book allowed during the Cultural Revolution.

    ↓ The rest is history

    Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was compiled in 1964 under Lin Biao for use in the army, and it was soon distributed widely, with printings in the hundreds of millions in the later 1960s. Carrying and reciting it was common during the Cultural Revolution, and it was a mark of political loyalty. Other books were not all banned, though many old books were destroyed or restricted, and the range of what could be published narrowed sharply. Its use declined after Mao's death in 1976 and Lin Biao's fall in 1971.

    Sources

    1. BookLeese, Daniel. Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
    2. BookMacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.