Chinese Revolution

At issue: Political control of China

Date: October, 1911-January, 1912

Location: Beijing and the Chinese provinces

Combatants: Qing Dynasty forces vs. revolutionaries

Principal commanders: Qing/rebel, General Yuan Shikai (1859–1916); Rebels, Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), Huang Xing (1871–1916)

Principal battle: Hankou

Result: The end of dynastic government and the establishment of the Republic of China under the leadership of Yuan Shikai

Background

The collapse of dynastic China in 1912 resulted from decades of domestic upheaval and foreign incursions that the Manchu Qing Dynasty could not adequately resolve. A population explosion during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries substantially reduced the people’s standard of living, and the Opium Wars of the 1840’s and 1850’s left China defeated and impotent in its relations with the West. The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) nearly toppled the dynasty and caused the deaths of 20 million to 40 million people. Lesser rebellions and further foreign incursions finally forced China’s elite, both Manchu rulers and Chinese intellectuals, to rethink political, intellectual, social, and economic relationships, which had been founded on Confucian principles as interpreted by the elite. However, until China’s stunning defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), reform efforts remained modest. Thereafter, a heated debate ensued that divided intellectuals into three broad positions: conservatives who wanted no substantive change; various assortments of reformers; and revolutionaries. Of these, reformers wanted some form of constitutional monarchy whereas revolutionaries demanded the overthrow of dynastic government and the establishment of a republic. The principal revolutionary was Sun Yat-sen, a physician who had been educated in Hawaii and Hong Kong, whose Tong Meng Hui, or Revolutionary Alliance, had few funds and even less organizational cohesion. The alliance, composed largely of students returned from Japan or the West, depended on overseas Chinese for cash and on secret societies for “military” operations.

Between 1907 and the outbreak of the revolution in 1911, three forces worked to undermine Qing rule. First, alliance member Huang Xing led several unsuccessful uprisings. Second, alliance members penetrated the Chinese army and gained considerable support. Third, provincial political and business leaders clashed with the central government over the creation of constitutional government and the right of Chinese, not foreigners, to finance new railroad construction.

Action

When the Qing government resolved to nationalize all railroads in May, 1911, provincial elites protested, and in October, a revolt broke out in Sichuan province. The alliance then planned a uprising in Wuhan, which occurred prematurely owing to a bomb explosion in its Hankou headquarters on October 9, 1911, leading to the outbreak of revolution the next day. The Qing government brought Yuan Shikai out of forced retirement and made him governor general of Hunan and Hubei. Yuan had been instrumental in the creation of a modern Chinese military, from the forming of the Newly Created Army in 1895, the New Army in 1902, and what became the Northern Army that same year. He had also put down the Reform Movement of 1898, as well as supported major reforms when they became officially sanctioned. Much of the Qing army remained loyal to him after his removal from office in 1909, a fact the Manchu court fully realized. Being the indispensable man, he demanded complete control of the military, legalization of the revolutionary groups, and a promise that the court would establish constitutional government by 1912. Only when his demands were met did he move against the insurgents in Wuhan with his Northern Army and contain them. Meanwhile, as provinces declared their independence, Sun returned from the United States, and the alliance proclaimed him “provisional president.” Ultimately, the Manchu emperor abdicated and turned over power to Yuan with instructions to form a republican government and unite with the alliance.

Aftermath

The downfall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China pitted Yuan, who was in Beijing and controlled the military, against Sun Yat-sen, who was in Nanjing and had little force at his disposal. Sun relinquished his claim to power in return for Yuan’s promise to preserve constitutional government. Yuan violated that pledge and governed autocratically. When he died in 1916, the nation descended into rule by warlords, many of them Yuan’s generals. Sun worked to reunify the country under his party, the Nationalist Party, or Guomindang (Kuomintang), but died in 1925. The assignment was partially completed in 1927 by his protegé, Chiang Kai-shek, and in 1949, the Communists finished the task.

Resources

Chen, Jerome. “A Footnote on the Chinese Army in 1911–1912.” Toung Pao 48 (1960): 425–446.

Esherick, Joseph W. Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

The Last Emperor. Fiction feature. Columbia Pictures, 1998.

MacKinnon, Stephen R. Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shih-k’ai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901–1908. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Reynolds, Douglas R., ed. China, 1895–1912: State-sponsored Reforms and China’s Late Qing Revolution: Selected Essays from Zhongguo Jindaishi (Modern Chinese History, 1840–1919). Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.

Rhoads, Edward J. M. China’s Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, 1895. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975.

Young, Ernest P. “Yuan Shih-k’ai’s Rise to the Presidency.” In China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900–1913, edited by Mary C. Wright. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968.