Overview of Chinese History from 1911 - 1949

For those of you who
are just starting

to learn about the
history of China

in the first half
of the 20th century,

it can be a little
bit confusing.

So the goal of this video is
really to give you an overview,

to give you a scaffold, of
the history of the first half

of the 20th century in China.

So as we go into
the early 1900s,

you have the end of imperial
dynastic rule in China.

This is a big deal.

China has been ruled
by various dynasties

for multiple thousands of years.

But as you get into the
1900s, the dynastic rule,

in particular the Qing Dynasty,
was getting weaker and weaker.

It had suffered at the
hands of the Japanese

during the first Sino-Japanese
War at the end of the 1800s.

There was growing discontent
amongst the opposition

that the dynasty,
that the emperors,

were not modernizing
China enough.

Remember, this is
the early 1900s.

The rest of the world was
becoming a very, very modern

place.

China in the 1800s had suffered
at the hands of Western powers

who were essentially exerting
their own imperial influence

in China.

Many people felt that this
was because China was not

as modernized
economically, politically,

technologically as
it needed to be.

And so you fast-forward to 1911.

You have what is known as
the Wuchang Uprising, which

led to the overthrow
of the Qing dynasty.

By 1912, a Republic of China
was established in Nanjing.

So Nanjing right over here
was where it was established.

Beijing was, of course, the
seat of dynastic rule in China.

And the first
provisional president

of the Republic of China was Dr.
Sun Yat-sen, right over here.

And he actually did not
directly participate

in this final
uprising that finally

led to the overthrow
of the Qing dynasty.

He was actually in Denver at
the time, Denver, Colorado.

But he was a leading or one of
the leading figures in the run

up to this uprising, one
of the leading figures

who was providing
opposition and had tried

multiple times to
overthrow the dynasty.

Now along with Sun Yat-sen,
he was essentially in cahoots

with Yuan Shikai, who was a
general in the old dynasty.

And he has his own
fascinating history.

And Sun Yat-sen struck
a deal with Yuan Shikai,

who was very
politically ambitious.

Yuan Shikai said, hey, if I
can get the emperor Puyi, who

was the last emperor of China,
if I can get him to officially

abdicate, I want to
become the president.

So Sun Yat-sen agrees to this.

So Yuan Shikai
becomes the president

of the Republic of China.

But that wasn't enough for him.

He declares himself
emperor in 1915,

which you could imagine did
not make many people happy

because they were tired
of having emperors.

And by 1916, he abdicates
and he passes away, actually.

And this actually
begins a period

of extremely fragmented
rule for China.

Even under imperial rule,
the Chinese military

was not one consolidated body.

The military was controlled
by various warlords

in various regions that all
had allegiance to the emperor.

Once you have Yuan Shikai
abdicating and then dying

in 1916, and even
prior to that, when

he declared himself
emperor, people

did not want to pledge
allegiance to Yuan Shikai.

And so you had what is known
as the beginning of the Warlord

Era in China.

And this is a fragmented
period where you did not

have any centralized leadership.

This map over here shows
kind of the rough picture

of what the Warlord
Era looked like.

Each of these regions
were controlled

by a different warlord
who was in charge

of a different military.

When this was going on
during the Warlord Era,

especially as we go back
to the early '20s, in 1921

in particular, Sun
Yat-sen hasn't given up.

He goes to the
south in Guangzhou

and sets up, essentially,
a revolutionary government,

essentially a desire
from there to try

to consolidate power in
China again and reestablish

the Republic of China.

So he goes there.

But unfortunately he passes
away in 1925 from cancer.

And the hands or the power of
the movement that he started,

which is now being referred
to as the Kuomintang-- Let me

write that down.

Essentially, the
power there passes on

to Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek.

And Chiang Kai-shek,
the reason why

we say the power
essentially goes to him

is because he was in
control of the major part

of the military forces
of the Kuomintang.

And this is essentially the
very nascent early stages

of what would essentially
be the Chinese Civil

War because in the period from
1921 until Sun Yat-sen's death,

you actually had a
lot of collaboration

between the Chinese
nationalists, the Kuomintang,

and the Soviet Union, and
the Chinese Communist Party.

They were trying to
collaborate in order

to think about how
China would unify.

But then once Sun Yat-sen dies
and the power of the Kuomintang

essentially goes into the
hands of Generalissimo Chiang

Kai-shek, he starts
to consolidate power.

And right from the
get-go, he doesn't

antagonize the communists.

But by 1927, he's
starting to consolidate,

he's starting to merge
these various factions

in the rest of China.

So he's able to
consolidate power.

But he also starts to
go after the communists.

So Chiang Kai-shek,
by '27, also starts

to go after the communists.

And the communists
are saying, hey, we

are the ones that really
represent the spirit of what

Sun Yat-sen represented,
while the Kuomintang

under the leadership of Chiang
Kai-shek said, no, no, no.

We represent what Sun Yat-sen
represented when he first

established the
Republic of China.

And so in 1927, you have the
beginning of the Chinese Civil

War.

This is when the Kuomintang,
as part of its efforts

to consolidate
power, not only tries

to consolidate power
of the warlords,

but also goes after
the Communist Party.

Now while all of
this is happening,

as we get into the early
1930s, Japan once again

is trying to exert its
imperial, its military,

might on the Chinese mainland.

They had already
captured Formosa,

which is now known
as Taiwan, and Korea

during the first Sino-Japanese
War at the end of the 1800s.

And then in 1931, the Japanese
start to encroach on Manchuria.

And this would essentially
become a multi-year occupation

and infiltration of
Japan into China.

And this continues all
the way until 1937,

when it becomes an
official all-out war

between the Japanese
and the Chinese.

And I have a map
here that shows kind

of the maximum Japanese
control over this period.

And so in east Asia between
the Chinese and the Japanese,

World War II was really just
part of the Sino-Japanese War.

The Japanese had
already encroached

on the mainland of China
well before World War

II had officially begun.

Now while all this
is happening, Japan

is encroaching into Manchuria,
in 1934, you have to remember,

the Kuomintang, the Nationalist
Party under Chiang Kai-shek

is going after the communists.

And in 1934, he almost
has them, or he does.

The communists are
nearly defeated.

They're surrounded by
the Nationalist Party.

And this becomes what
is a fairly famous event

in Chinese history, the
famous Long March, where

the Chinese Communist
Party, their military,

is marched through
extremely tough terrain

all the way to the
northwest of China.

So this right over here is
a map of the Long March.

The Chinese Communist Party
seemed to be on the ropes

here in 1934.

And it was during
this Long March

that Mao Zedong really started
to exert and show leadership.

The leadership during
this Long March,

during this retreat to
the northwest of China,

is really what allowed Mao
Zedong to eventually take

control of the Chinese
Communist Party.

Now as we fast forward, we know
that the Sino-Japanese War--

you could view this as one
theater, eventually, of World

War II-- eventually the
US goes in on the side

of the Allies against
Japan after Pearl Harbor.

And then in 1945,
you have the attacks

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
with atomic weapons,

which essentially ends
the Pacific theater.

It's defeat for Japan, and
Japan has lost World War II.

And at this point,
full-scale civil war

between the two parties
break out again.

The Civil War started in 1927,
and then it kept continuing.

But then once there was a common
enemy in Japan that was clearly

aggressively trying to take
over more and more of China's

people, resources, exert
its imperial influence,

then you had the two parties
kind of go into a low-grade war

and say, hey, we need
to fight these Japanese.

But once World War
II ended in 1945,

once the Japanese were
defeated, then you

had full-scale
civil war break out

again between the
Chinese Communist

Party and the Kuomintang.

And this is probably one of the
biggest comebacks in history.

This was the Chinese Communist
Party that in 1934 and 1935

looked like they
were on the ropes.

They were forced into,
essentially, retreat.

They were able to come back.

And in 1949-- and
there's a lot of theories

as to why they were
able to pull this off.

That they were able to get
much more of the support

from the rural population.

They were more savvy about
getting support generally

than the Kuomintang.

But we could talk about
that in a future video.

But by 1949, they
were able to defeat

Chiang Kai-shek
and the Kuomintang,

force the Kuomintang
to retreat to Taiwan,

establish government in Taiwan.

And ever since then, you
had the establishment

by the Chinese
Communist Party in 1949

of the People's
Republic of China.