The Fortunes of the Chinese Republic (1912-1919).

1. Revolutions and Reactions.

The Chinese Republic is now in the throes of another civil war. Just at present there are two governments in China. The one is the established Government at Peking in the North, the other the rebel Government at Canton in the South. The Northern Government is the one recognized by the Powers and has been an associate of the Allies in the war against Germany since August 14, 1917. It is this Government that is one of the fourteen states represented at the Congress of Versailles, and that has been a signatory to the draft of the constitution of the League of Nations announced by President Wilson on February 14, 1919. But the authority of the Peking Power is not acknowledged as legitimate by the constitutionalists of Young China.

Ever since the illegal dissolution of parliament to which President Li Yuan-hung was forced to assent under a coup d'état of General Chang Hsun on June 13, 1917, they have been in open revolt against it. The resistance of the constitutionalists at first took the form of representations to Peking to reconvoke the dissolved parliament. On the failure of the repeated representations to bring about a parliamentary regime, the five rich and populous provinces of the South, viz., Kwang-tung, Kwang-si, Yunnan, Kwei-chow and Sze-chuen declared their complete independence from the jurisdiction of the North. In seven other provinces, such as Hu-nan, Hu-peh, Fu-kien, Shan-tung, Ho-nan, Shen-si and Che-kiang, constitutionalist armies are masters of large portions of territory and have the moral support of numerous cities and districts. The most powerful portion of the Chinese navy also is on the side of the constitutionalists. It is on behalf of this recalcitrant Government with headquarters at Canton that Wu Ting-fang, Tang Shao-yi, Sun Yat-sen and five others have appealed to the Powers for recognition, in their capacity as Administrative Directors. The Government in Canton has convened a parliament which has been in session since August 6, 1918. The objective of the "Constitutionalist Provinces and Forces of China" is not a separation or secession but the establishment of a legally constituted parliamentary government for all China.

The present civil war is the sixth in the series of revolutions and reactions (or rather the seventh, if we count the puèrile interlude of the Manchu restoration of July 1-12, 1917, as a serious political event) that have marked the politics of Young China since the bomb explosion at Hankow on October 10, 1911, and the establishment of the republic with Sun Yat-sen as provisional president and General Li Yuan-hung as vice-president on December 30 of the same year. The first revolution (Oct. 10, 1911—March 10, 1912) may be taken to have been formally complete with the inauguration of Yuan Shih-kai as provisional president on March 10, 1912, the decision to maintain the capital at Peking and not to transfer it to Nanking, and the adoption of the provisional constitution drawn up by the provisional National Assembly (the "Advisory Assembly") at Nanking, generally known as the Nanking Constitution.

The second revolution (July—August 1913) was directed against Yuan Shih-kai's conclusion of the five-power-loan without the assent of the first Parliament that had been convened on April 7, 1913, and other arbitrary measures. It broke out at Hukow in Kiang-si Province, and at Nanking, Shanghai and Canton. The radicals organized in the Kuo-ming Tang party were responsible for the movement. It was speedily suppressed, however; and General Huang Hsing, Sun Yat-sen and other rebel leaders had to escape to Japan and America.

The first reaction, under the republican regime, had been in evidence in Yuan's attitude towards the Nanking Constitution, and subsequently towards the measures of the first Parliament. It took final form on November 4, 1913, when after his election on October 10 as full president for five years Yuan "purged" the parliament of the radical Kuo-mings (306 Representatives out of the total 596, and 132 Senators out of the total 274). The first Parliament was thus put "in commission" owing to the lack of quorums that needed the presence of half the members in each House, and finally abolished by the president on January 10, 1914, with the support of the "moderates".

The coup d'état of November 4, 1913, left Yuan the de facto dictator of China for two years and ultimately matured in the plan, secretly manoeuvred by himself, for the formal establishment of an imperial monarchy. Yuan officially accepted the throne on Dec. 11, 1915, under the title of Hung Hsien or "glorious constitutionalism." It was against this projected empire that the third revolution broke out on Xmas 1915 in Yun-nan and Kwei-chow under the leadership of moderates or conservative progressives of the Chinpu Tang party such as "Scholar" Liang Chi-chiao and General Tsai Ao. Yuan was compelled to cancel the empire-decree on March 22, 1916; but the revolution continued to spread from province to province leading to the declaration of independence by each, and really came to an end only with the sudden death of Yuan on June 6, the election of Li Yuan-hung (the General of the first revolution) as president, and the convocation of the second Parliament, which was really the old Parliament of 1913, on August 1, 1916.

The second reaction began in May 1917, over the question of finally declaring war against Germany, diplomatic relations having been broken off on March 14, 1917. General Tuan Chi-jui, as Premier, attempted to coerce the parliament to vote in favour of war, and was therefore dismissed by the president for want of people's confidence in him. Once out of the Cabinet, however, Tuan secretly instigated the military governors of the provinces to declare their independence of the Peking Government. Furnished with this cue they forthwith demanded the reappointment of Tuan, and marched upon the capital in militant expedition. Practically a prisoner within the city, President Li was pressed by the militarists under General Chang Hsun to order, against the law as embodied in the Nanking Constitution, the dissolution of parliament on June 13, 1917.

The revolt of the provinces and the strangling of parliament were followed by another reaction consisting in Chang Hsun's restoration of the Manchu boy-emperor to the throne on July 1. But the monarchy was abolished in less than two weeks through the patriotic move, among others, of General Tuan who "could not bear to see the destruction of the republic without stretching out a helping hand," although after his dismissal he had "resolved," as he said, "not to participate in political affairs." The farce of the restoration made confusion only worse confounded. All authority came to be concentrated in the hands of Tuan, the hero of the hour. He managed to have himself reappointed premier, restored the militaristic regime that had led to his dismissal, and illegally declared war against Germany on August 14, 1917. It is to this unconstitutional rule of the Cabinet without a parliament that the Southern Government at Canton has been in armed opposition for about two years since the summer of 1917.

2. North and South in Chinese Politics.

The most characteristic feature of these civil wars or revolutions and counter-revolutions is that invariably they take the form of an ultimatum issued from the provinces upon the Central Government, and this is followed immediately by declarations of their independence. This modus operandi is the procedure as much of the republicans and constitutionalists as of the reactionaries and militarists. Nothing could be a more natural method in China, as the provinces of today have but inherited the virtual home-rule of the old regime. In normal times these local governments were to all intents and purposes independent of one another without the links of co-operation. They had, besides, no real touch with the supreme authority except only in the payment of "tribute". The mountainous provinces like Yun-nan, Kwei-chow and Sze-chuen are, moreover, all but inaccessible. Further, they are inhabited by semi-savage tribes who were never fully conquered either by Chinese arms or by Chinese culture. Owing to this incomplete assimilation and ineffective "Sinification" these frontier provinces were perpetual storm-centres in pre-republican days. And these are the areas that were generally selected by ambitious viceroys or chieftains who wanted to measure their strength with the Sons of Heaven at Peking.

Altogether, then, the Chinese empires were, practically speaking, Staatenbunden, i.e., loose federations of free nationalities and autonomous states, except during short intervals under masterful organizers of the Kanghi the Manchu or Tai-tsung the Tang type. The self-sufficiency and decentralization of the provinces were not confined only to the administration of justice and collection of taxes. During the last days of the Manchus the provinces appear to have behaved even as separate military-naval units. Thus, for instance, in the Korean War (1894-95), the Nanking naval establishment acted almost as if it were indifferent to the fortunes of the northern fleet that was facing the Japanese navy. Automatically, therefore, the Chinese state tends to crumble down like a house of cards as soon as there is an acute misunderstanding between the local rulers and the central head.

This is an inherent constitutional weakness of China. It is due certainly to the vast size of its territory and the consequent distance of the local centres from the metropolis. The Central Government as a rule naturally finds it hard to cope with the disruptive centrifugal tendencies created by this physical reason. And the difficulty is further enhanced by the absence of funds or sinews of war. The deficit in the treasury has been a chronic disease with the authorities at Peking. Any military actions of a sustained and serious character have thus been rendered well nigh impossible on their side. These are the fundamental facts of Chinese polity that explain the quick and spontaneous division of China into North and South with the slightest hitch in the course of affairs.

The strategic advantage in the position of recalcitrant provinces is therefore the first postulate of China's internal politics, and the success of malcontents and rebels an almost foregone conclusion. The general situation from the standpoint of the Supreme Government on all occasions of revolutionary outbreak can be gathered from two of the three abdication-edicts promulgated by the Empress Dowager on Feb. 12, 1912. One edict says that, separated as the North and South are by great distances, the unwillingness of either side to yield to the other can result only in the continued interruption of trade and the prolongation of hostilities. If, however, renewed warfare were to be indefinitely maintained, says the third edict, the general condition of the country might be irretrievably ruined, and there might follow mutual slaughter among the people. Here is a confession of incompetency on the part of the powers that be, the admission of military unpreparedness that dare not bring the unruly forces to bay. In the selfsame way has the de facto government in China had systematically to come down to compromise in the face of a tolerably strong opposition, just as in the industrial strikes of Europe and America the employers have invariably to acknowledge defeat and submit to the demands of the organized labor force.

Whenever, therefore, there is a denomination or class or party in China sufficiently powerful to challenge and defy the established government, it has only to seek its fulcrum at a place far from Peking, e.g., in the frontier provinces, be it in Sze-chuen or Yunnan or Shen-si or Shan-tung. Even before the event of Oct. 10, 1911, we find serious political disturbances breaking out in these out of the way regions. It is such areas that furnished the theater for the great Taiping Rebellion (1850-64), the Mohammedan revolts under Suleiman (1855-1878) and Yakub Beg (1866-77), and the Boxer upheaval of 1900.

The South may of course be presumed to be, as it indeed is, comparatively enlightened and progressive, as Macao the Portuguese port in Kwang-tung has been in touch with modern European commerce and culture for a longer period than the other ports opened since the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. It is also not an accident that Kang Yu-wei, the spiritual father of Young China, and Sun Yat-sen, the out-and-out radical, and several other constitutional agitators and anti-monarchist republicans have come from Canton and the South. But the leadership of the South in the events of the past seven years is not to be exclusively interpreted as an expression and proof of its modernization as contrasted with the medievalc obscurantism of the North. It is, as has been indicated, the greatness and glory inevitably thrust upon it by physiography, ethnology, provincial separatism, laissez faire or imperial impotence, and financial bankruptcy of the central governments. It is not always safe or legitimate, therefore, as is usually done, to identify the South with liberalism, reform or republicanism, and the North with monarchism, Manchuism and militarism.

3. Min Kuo (Republic) Triumphant.

Among the kaleidoscopic changes in the political fortunes of Young China we have to count two attempts at monarchic regime. The first is that of Yuan Shih-kai who during the latter half of 1915 was systematically "manufacturing the will of the people" in favor of changing the republic into a monarchy. On November 11, 1915, the "administrative council" or "council of state" composed of his henchmen was in a position to announce that out of 2043 votes 1993 were for the immediate enthronement of Yuan. Accordingly, in "deference to the will of the people" the empire was sanctioned by the president or rather emperor-elect on December 11. The second monarchic counter-revolution is the farcical July restoration of 1917. It was the disorder and turmoil in the country owing to the revolt of the northern provinces under the inspiration of Tuan Chi-jui and the eventual abolition of the second Parliament that enabled General Chang Hsun to raise the Manchu boy to the throne.

Both these attempts failed ignominiously. Yuan was completely humiliated, crushed, and literally killed by the combined opposition of the nation. The "Yun-Kwei revolt" was indeed conducted by moderate leaders of the Chinpu Tang party like Liang Chi-chiao and General Tsai Ao, but it had the backing also of the Kuo-ming radicals like Sun Yat-sen and General Huang Hsing, who since the failure of 1913 had been political refugees in Japan and the United States, of General Li Yuan-hung the staunch republican, whom neither the threats nor the enticements of the monarchists could influence in favor of Yuan's contemplated dynasty, as well as of Kang Yu-wei, the veteran constitutionalist and "China's modern sage." Even the province of Sze-chuen which was under the rule of Yuan's most dependable friend joined the confederacy of the rebel provinces on May 6, 1916. This event is most significant as Yuan had already cancelled the empire-decree (March 22). The triumph of the Chinese Min Kuo (republic) was decisive and thorough.

Similarly did Chang Hsun's coup of the Manchu restoration fall disastrously before the united front of the entire nation. Liang came forward once more as the Milton of the armed resistance against the nullification of the republic. And the trumpet-call of this scholar, "moderate" though he be, summoned on to a common platform all the factions that had been mutually opposed. The North advanced to co-operate with the South; even General Yuan, the militarist detested by liberals and legalists, came to the aid of the parliamentarians, because, as he said, "he has had a share, however insignificant, in the formation of the Chinese Republic." The restoration was treated as a national disaster. To a far greater extent than Yuan's dictatorship and projected empire-building, it brought to a head the nebulous and subconscious political tenets of all parties and individuals, whether liberals' or conservatives, self-seekers or patriots, autocrats or those working for the inauguration of the reign of law.

Monarchy appears in this way to have been finally rung out from the political psychology of Young China. It is committed for good to the nurture and development of the republic. The vital urge of Chinese politics lies now, therefore, in the struggle over the constitution. Indeed, it is the constitutional issue that has been the real core of all dissensions and fights since the promulgation of abdication-edicts and the inauguration of Yuan as provisional president in 1912. Nay, this constitutional struggle, of which the most recent phase is embodied in the manifesto of Wu Tingfang (August 1918) is the result of an evolution the beginnings of which are to be seen in the decade or so preceding the revolution itself.

4. Constitutional Agitation under the Manchus.

The pre-revolutionary struggle was naturally focussed upon the establishment of parliamentary institutions such as might act as checks on the one-man-rule of the monarch. The St. John the Baptist of Chinese, constitutionalism is Kang Yu-wei, the "modern Confucius", editor of News for the Times, and he succeeded in becoming for a few months the "guide, philosopher and friend" of Emperor Kwang Hsu (1875-1908). It is to Kang's studies in modern history and comparative politics, especially the British constitution and the Meiji (enlightenment) era of New Japan that the twenty-seven Imperial reform-edicts of July 1898 owed their inspiration. The reform movement succumbed, however, through the coup of the Empress Dowager. Kang and his foremost disciple Liang Chi-chiao had to escape with a price on each head.

But the signs of the times were unmistakable after the failure of the Chinese Boxers in 1901 and the success of Japan in the Russian War. So in 1905, a commission was sent to Europe under the presidentship of Prince Tsai-tse (cf. Japanese Prince Ito in 1882) to study the conditions for a representative government suited to the problems of China. This commission was followed in 1908 by the Imperial promise of a parliament to be convoked in 1917. In 1909 were constituted the first Provincial Assemblies of China, and on October 3, 1910, the Imperial Assembly or Senate of two hundred members (one hundred being drawn from the Provincial Assemblies) also sat in Peking for the first time. The agitation of these two new bodies proved to be powerful enough to wrest from the Crown the promise that the first parliament would be called in 1913 and not so late as 1917.

It was at this stage of China's constitutional experience that the bomb explosion at Hankow on the Yang-tsze, which was to be the signal for the subversion of the monarchy, took place on Oct. 10, 1911. The monarch tried to save the situation for the Crown on Nov. 3, 1911, by issuing the "Nineteen Articles", which provided, among other items, the parliamentary control over the budget, the Cabinet's responsibility to parliament, and limitations on the power of the Emperor by the constitution. Had these articles been acceptable to the rebels, Chinese politics would have taken the same course as those of Young Persia since 1906 and of Turkey, since 1908. But within a month of the rising in Wuchang zone fourteen provinces declared their independence. Their delegates met quickly at Nanking in convention and proclaimed China a republic on December 30. The officers and representatives of the monarchy had no mind or might to put up more than a feeble or sham resistance to what they accepted as a fait accompli.

It was therefore easy to force an edict from the Empress Dowager on February 12, 1912, to the effect that "the hearts of the majority of the people are in favour of a republican form of government." "From the preference of the people's hearts," the edict went on to say in conformity with the teachings of Mencius, "the will of heaven can be discerned. How could we then bear to oppose the will of the millions for the glory of one family! Therefore, observing the tendencies of the age on the one hand, and studying the opinions of the people on the other, We and His Majesty the Emperor hereby vest the sovereignty in the people and decide in favor of a republican form of constitutional government." The first phase of the struggle over a constitution was thus brought to a successful end.

5. The Struggle over the Constitution in Republican China.

Constitutionally speaking, then, the revolution came only to give a fillip to the movement that had been set on foot in 1898 or rather in 1905. It did not take China by surprise. The Throne being abolished, the leaders of Young China have proceeded since then to the reorganization of a crownless state on a popular basis. The parliament that was to have been called in 1913 by the Crown happened to be anticipated by the Convention of Nanking (December 30, 1911), that gave way to the Advisory Assembly on January 28, 1912. This assembly prepared the provisional constitution at Nanking, inaugurated Yuan Shih-kai as provisional president (March 30) and later moved on to Peking (April 29). It was finally replaced by the First Parliament which sat on April 7, 1913.

The first constitutional struggle in republican China was waged over the group of unparliamentary politics that arose through the dictatorship of Yuan Shih-kai. As provisional president, he made the loan transaction with five powers (including Japan but excluding the United States) to the value of £25,000,000 without the sanction of the Parliament. As Yuan was backed by the Powers, the bankers did not hesitate to grant the loan though the Parliament protested against it as illegal and declared it null and void. Subsequently, as full president, Yuan dissolved the national parliament on January 10, 1914 as well as the provincial assemblies and local associations (March 1). Backed by the political wisdom of Dr. Goodnow, the American adviser, he created in their place a constitutional compact conference, and this recommended laws directly calculated to make the president a virtual despot and leave the legislature a mere automaton of non-entities.

It was through the substantial support of the Powers that Yuan Shih-kai's "tyranny" could get a firm footing. As they were interested solely in the security of the funds supplied by their nationals, their connivance at Yuan's unconstitutional measures was more than mere diplomatic non-intervention. It was tantamount to aiding and abetting their protege and vassal in his own sweet will. Here was a repetition of the old story of the Stuarts trampling down the rights of the English people with the French despot Louis XIV's "degrading insult and more degrading gold". The European War also for a time contributed to the strengthening of Yuan's single-handed rule by removing from it the public opinion of the world that was absorbed in more vital international issues. But as Japan's Twenty-one Demands (January 18—May 7, 1915) on China after the victory at Tsing-tao would have deprived the Europeans and Americans of their lion's share in the control of Far Eastern politics, they could not by any means remain long indifferent to Chinese affairs. They hastened to do all they could under the circumstances to pose as the friend of China and exploit her as a tool in their own anti-Japanese interests. Yuan's "patriotic" resistance to Japanese overtures received formidable support from the nations in whose eyes the success of Japan, the only free Asian state, means a loss to Eur-American world-domination. Especially interested were the diplomacies of Great Britain and the United States; and unluckily for Chinese democracy, they served to consolidate Yuan's grip over the people.

Exigencies of foreign politics having thus rendered his position impregnable from an unforeseen angle, Yuan ventured on playing the trump-card and risking a "world-dominion or downfall" on a single stake. He launched the monarchy propaganda in the summer of 1915 and was almost on the point of carrying it through when the opposition of the nation manifested itself in a revolution that swept away the whole system of arbitrary rule. In this instance, at least, Japan has stood for liberalism and constitution in China, for the anti-Yuan movement was hatched and matured by Young China's leaders as guests of the Japanese people.

The second group of unparliamentary politics in the Chinese republic consists in the problems that have arisen through the autocratic methods of the premier, General Tuan Chi-jui. It is the extremely idealistic advocacy of legal and constitutional procedure on the part of the Kuo-ming radicals that is responsible for the opposition to Tuan's regime which has forced China into the war against Germany. Evidently all the Kuo-mings are not opposed to the war itself like Kang Yu-wei, Sun Yat-sen and Tang Shao-yi. But though several of them are pro-war like the Chin-pu Tang moderates headed by Liang Chi-chiao, the extremists have dared risk a regular armed revolt with the only object of vindicating the constitution. "No pains have been spared time and again," as Wu Ting-fang's manifesto states, "to make clear that the sole aim of the constitutionalist movement is to uphold the law and constitution and the sole claim is the restoration of the dissolved parliament. If the order for reconvocation be issued today there will be peace tomorrow." This is an interesting phase in Young China's political development. At Canton are united not only the liberal thinkers of the South but constitutionalists from every part of China. Similarly Peking is the headquarters of all reactionaries, Northern as well as Southern. The issue is not between province and province or North and South but constitution and arbitrary rule.

In the first place, China's declaration of war against Germany on August 14, 1917, is considered unconstitutional by the Canton Government as it was done without the sanction of a parliament rather after a parliament had been forcibly abolished. The "militarists" at Peking are being further charged by the seceding constitutionalists with the misuse of funds set free by the remission of Boxer Indemnity payments (a concession in return for China's joining the allies), the selling and mortgaging of the "richest mines, the stable revenues and the most profitable railways," the revival of the opium traffic, the negotiation of important conventions with foreign powers in which the nation is committed to grave undertakings of unknown extent without parliamentary sanction, and the absolute refusal to publish the contents of the conventions and allay the misgivings of the people in spite of the universal demand. But the position of the Peking Government is unassailable for the time being as it is in alliance with the Entente Powers and the United States in order to make the "world safe for democracy". From the standpoint of the Canton politicians, therefore, it is foreign influence, if not intervention, that has mainly contributed to the present constitutional interregnum in China.

Like the "eleven years' tyranny" of Charles I, both these instances of unconstitutional rule in republican China are marked by the negation and overthrow of parliament. The only period of smooth parliamentary government was that under President Li Yuan-hung from August 1, 1916 to June 13, 1917. By May it had finished drafting the permanent constitution that is to take the place of the provisional Nanking Constitution, but before it could be formally adopted, came the crisis. Curiously enough, in each instance, the reactionary elements, viz., Yuan and Tuan, have had the support of foreign powers, some of whom at least are democratic and liberal in their own home politics. The republicans of Young China have thus had before them the same double opposition, domestic and foreign, to contend with as the constitutionalists or Majlisists of Young Persia. Not less remarkable is the strange coincidence that like the liberals, reformers or democrats of the Near East and the Middle East looking up to autocratic Germany as the inspirer of their political programs, the republic of the Far East should have found a friend in need in the homes of Imperial Japan, bossed, as it was, by such "blood and iron" premiers as Katsura and Terauchi.

P.S. While the book is going through the press, there are still two governments in China, the northern being declared unconstitutional, illegal, and null and void by the southern which came into being in the summer of 1921. In view of the International Conference convened by the United States in November of the same year to discuss among other things the questions of the Pacific and the Far East, the southern government presided over by Sun Yatsen, the veteran hero of all revolutions, sent a petition to President Harding demanding that its own representatives should have the exclusive right to be present at Washington and speak for all China. But following the precedent at Versailles the U.S. found it convenient to recognize the old representatives of the North. And evidently, so far as making a show is concerned, Wellington Koo, China's senior delegate at the Conference, succeeded in producing quite a fine and respectable impression.