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Taiping Rebellion
It lasted from 1850 to 1864 between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom under Hong Xiuquan. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was an oppositional state based in Tianjing, they wanted to initiate a major transformation of society. Hong Xiuquan led an army that controlled a significant part of southern China, then expanding to command a population base of nearly 30 million people. It was part religious and part political reform movement. -
Manchu Dynasty
By the beginning of the 20th century, there was a feeling that the ruling Manchu dynasty should be overthrown so that China could be Westernized and democracy introduced. The political weakness of the Manchu dynasty intensified with the death of the Emperor and the succession of a two-year-old boy: Pu Yi in 1908. -
Double-Tenth Revolution
This revolution began when the government lost control of the military; soldiers in Wuchang revolted and rebellion spread quickly. Most provinces then declared themselves independent of Beijing. This caused the impact of imperialism, anti-foreign sentiment and political weakness. -
Sun Yixian (GMD)
Sun’s party reformed as the Guomindang (GMD) in 1912, and declared itself a parliamentary party. He wanted to modernize China by adopting Western political and economic methods.
Sun put together his ideas for the future of China in the form of ‘the Three Principles of the People’:
• Democracy
• Nationalism
• People’s Livelihood
It is argued that Sun agreed to Yuan Shikai’s rule in order to avert the possibility of China descending into civil war. -
May Fourth Movement
Students led a mass demonstration in Beijing against the warlords, traditional Chinese culture and the Japanese. They protested against the Treaty of Versailles which had given to Japan Germany’s former concessions in Shandong province.
The significance of this movement was that it was dedicated to the change and the rebirth of China as a proud and independent nation. -
Communist Party of China
The CCP was founded. Initially, its membership was mainly intellectuals, and it had no real military strength. It was due to this weakness, and some shared aims, that the CCP agreed to work with the GMD.
GMD: Nationalists
CCP: Communists -
First United Front
Both the GMD and the CCP wanted to unify China. They agreed to get rid of the warlords, and in 1922 they formed the First United Front. Jiang was not a communist so he stop the alliance with the communists. Jiang was now determined to act on the first of the Three Principles and attempt to unify China by putting an end to the warlords’ power. -
Northern Expedition
It was a way for communists and the GMD to crush the warlords of central and northern China. In 1927, the GMD and the communists captured Hangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing and Beijing in 1928. The United Front destroyed the power of the warlords, and the GMD announced that the new capital and seat of government would be Nanjing. -
GMD attacks the CCP
The GMD and the CCP unification was only a friendship of convenience. The GMD carried out the ‘purification movement’ (about a quarter of a million people were killed). Despite attempts to resist the CCP was very nearly crushed by the end of 1927. -
Shanghai Massacre
Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek attacked the CCP.
After the Northern Expedition Jiang expelled all communists from the GMD, and his attacks on the communists reached a peak in Shanghai in the ‘White Terror’ in April 1927.
