20th Century China | IB - Wyatt's Notes

The Qing Dynasty, which had ruled China since 1644, collapsed under the combined pressures of foreign imperialism, internal rebellion, and failed reform.

The term “Century of Humiliation” refers to the period from the First Opium War (1839–1842) to the founding of the PRC (1949), during which China suffered a series of military defeats and imposed unequal treaties.

• Treaty of Nanking (1842): Ceded Hong Kong to Britain, opened five treaty ports, and imposed an indemnity of 21 million silver dollars.
• Second Opium War (1856–1860): Led to the destruction of the Summer Palace and further concessions.
• Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895): China ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan, following defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. This demonstrated the failure of the Self-Strengthening Movement.
• Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901): The anti-foreign uprising was suppressed by an eight-nation alliance, resulting in the Boxer Protocol and a further indemnity of 450 million taels of silver.

• Self-Strengthening Movement (1861–1895): Attempted to adopt Western military technology while preserving Confucian values. The slogan “Chinese learning for substance, Western learning for application” captured its conservative approach.
• Hundred Days’ Reform (1898): Emperor Guangxu, influenced by reformers Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, attempted sweeping modernisation. Empress Dowager Cixi staged a coup, placing the emperor under house arrest and executing six leading reformers.
• New Policies (1901–1911): After the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing court belatedly introduced reforms including the abolition of the civil service examination (1905) and plans for a constitution. These came too late to restore credibility.

• Sun Yat-sen’s Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) promoted three principles: nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood.
• The Wuchang Uprising (10 October 1911) triggered a cascade of provincial declarations of independence from Beijing.
• The Qing abdicated on 12 February 1912, ending over 2,000 years of imperial rule.
• Sun Yat-sen was provisional president but ceded power to Yuan Shikai, the commander of the Beiyang Army, in exchange for Yuan’s role in securing the abdication.

Key Term: Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People — nationalism (overthrowing Manchu rule and ending foreign imperialism), democracy (constitutional government), and people’s livelihood (land reform and state control of key industries).

Yuan Shikai’s death in 1916 left a power vacuum. China fragmented into territories controlled by regional military commanders.

• The Beiyang government in Beijing was recognised internationally but lacked authority beyond its immediate military supporters.
• Warlords derived revenue from opium, taxation, and foreign loans, perpetuating instability.
• The May Fourth Movement (4 May 1919) was a student-led protest against the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred German concessions in Shandong to Japan rather than returning them to China. This catalysed intellectual radicalism and the spread of Marxism.
• The CCP was founded in July 1921, with Chen Duxiu as its first General Secretary and Soviet advisers providing organisational support.

Key Term: Warlordism — the fragmentation of centralised political authority into regional military fiefdoms, where loyalty was personal rather than institutional, and power was maintained through military force.

• Sun Yat-sen, frustrated by Western indifference and Japanese imperialism, accepted Soviet aid and adopted the policy of alliance with the CCP.
• The KMT was reorganised along Leninist lines with Soviet advisers, notably Mikhail Borodin.
• The Northern Expedition (1926–1928) was a joint KMT-CCP military campaign to unify China under KMT rule.
• Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, and Chiang Kai-shek emerged as the KMT leader.

On 12 April 1927, Chiang launched a violent purge of CCP members in Shanghai, with help from the Green Gang criminal organisation. Thousands of communists and suspected sympathisers were killed. The purge extended to other cities, effectively destroying the CCP’s urban organisation.

Key Term: White Terror — the violent suppression of communists by the KMT between 1927 and the late 1930s, involving mass arrests, executions, and the destruction of CCP labour organisations.

• Chiang established the national government in Nanjing.
• Economic modernisation: construction of railways, expansion of the banking system, the New Life Movement promoting Confucian values and public hygiene.
• Limited land reform: Chiang relied on landlord support and failed to address rural poverty.
• The Encirclement Campaigns (1930–1934): Chiang launched five military campaigns against CCP base areas in Jiangxi. The fifth campaign succeeded through a strategy of blockhouses and economic blockade, forcing the CCP into the Long March (1934–1935).

Key Term: The Long March — a strategic retreat of approximately 9,000 km by the First Front Army of the CCP from Jiangxi to Yan’an. Of the roughly 80,000 who began the march, approximately 7,000 survived. It cemented Mao Zedong’s leadership of the CCP.

• Japan’s invasion of Manchuria (1931) and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo.
• The Marco Polo Bridge Incident (7 July 1937) triggered full-scale war.
• The Nanjing Massacre (December 1937–January 1938): Japanese forces killed an estimated 200,000–300,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war.

• The Xi’an Incident (December 1936): Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and forced him to agree to a Second United Front with the CCP against Japan.
• The alliance was always fragile. The CCP used the war to expand its base areas and recruit peasants, while the KMT bore the brunt of conventional military fighting.

• Mao’s doctrine of protracted people’s war: avoid decisive battles, harass the enemy through guerrilla warfare, and build popular support through land reform and local governance.
• The Yan’an Rectification Movement (1942–1944) consolidated Mao’s ideological authority within the CCP.

• Approximately 15–20 million Chinese died, the majority civilians.
• The war devastated the KMT’s military capacity and economic base.
• The CCP emerged significantly strengthened in terms of organisation, territory, and popular support.

• The Chongqing Negotiations (August–October 1945) produced a ceasefire agreement, but both sides were preparing for war.
• US mediation efforts, including the Marshall Mission (December 1945–January 1947), failed to prevent conflict.

• Initial KMT successes: Chiang captured major cities including Yan’an (March 1947).
• By 1948, KMT overextension, corruption, and hyperinflation had eroded morale.
• The Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin campaigns (1948–1949) resulted in decisive CCP victories, destroying the KMT’s best armies.
• The CCP crossed the Yangtze in April 1949. Nanjing fell on 23 April; Shanghai fell on 27 May.
• Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT government retreated to Taiwan.

1. Land reform: The CCP’s distribution of land to peasants secured massive rural support.
2. KMT corruption: Widespread graft and the economic collapse of the gold yuan destroyed urban support.
3. Military strategy: Mao’s flexible combination of conventional and guerrilla tactics exploited KMT vulnerabilities.
4. Popular legitimacy: The CCP’s discipline and organisational capacity contrasted with KMT demoralisation.
5. Soviet support: The USSR provided captured Japanese weapons and logistical assistance in Manchuria.

• Mao proclaimed the PRC on 1 October 1949 in Tiananmen Square.
• The People’s Democratic Dictatorship was defined by the alliance of workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and national bourgeoisie under CCP leadership.

• Confiscation and redistribution of landlord property.
• Estimated 1–2 million landlords and “class enemies” killed in violent mass campaigns.
• Transformed rural power structures and secured peasant loyalty to the CCP.

• Mao’s campaign to rapidly industrialise China through collectivisation and backyard steel production.
• The result was the Great Chinese Famine, with an estimated 15–55 million deaths — the deadliest famine in human history.
• The campaign demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of ideological rigidity and the suppression of dissenting information.

Key Term: Commune system — the reorganisation of agricultural production into large collective units (people’s communes) where private property was abolished, meals were communal, and labour was directed by party cadres.

• Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to reassert his authority after the failure of the Great Leap Forward.
• Red Guards, mobilised by Mao, attacked the “Four Olds” (old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas).
• Intellectuals, teachers, and party officials were publicly humiliated, imprisoned, or killed.
• An estimated 500,000 to 2 million people died.
• The Cultural Revolution deepened factional divisions within the CCP and caused widespread destruction of cultural heritage.

Key Term: Red Guards — mass organisations of young radicals, primarily students, mobilised by Mao to attack perceived enemies of the revolution and destroy remnants of traditional Chinese culture.

• After Mao’s death (September 1976) and the arrest of the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping emerged as the paramount leader by 1978.
• The Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee (December 1978) marked the shift toward economic reform.
• Key policies: decollectivisation of agriculture, establishment of Special Economic Zones (Shenzhen, 1980), opening to foreign investment, and gradual market liberalisation.
• The principle of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” allowed economic pragmatism within the framework of CCP political control.

• China’s GDP grew at an average rate of approximately 9.5% per annum from 1978 to 2010.
• Hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty, the largest reduction in poverty in human history.
• Political reform was minimal: the CCP maintained its monopoly on power, as demonstrated by the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests (June 1989).

The history of 20th-century China connects directly to several IB Paper 2 topics:

• Topic 2 — Causes and Effects of Wars: The Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.
• Topic 3 — Authoritarian States: Mao’s China as a case study of authoritarian rule and state terror.
• Topic 4 — Movements for Social Change: Land reform, the role of peasants, and the Cultural Revolution as radical social transformation.
• Topic 5 — Cold War Superpower Tensions: The Sino-Soviet alliance and its collapse; China’s role in the broader Cold War.

• Mao as liberator vs Mao as tyrant: Western historiography has oscillated between viewing Mao as a revolutionary who liberated China from imperialism and feudalism, and as a dictator responsible for tens of millions of deaths. The opening of Chinese archives and the work of historians such as Frank Dikotter (The Great Famine, The Cultural Revolution) have strengthened the latter interpretation.
• The CCP’s legitimacy: Some historians argue that the CCP’s legitimacy rests primarily on economic performance since 1978. Others contend that revolutionary legitimacy — the CCP’s role in ending the Century of Humiliation — remains foundational.
• Was the CCP’s victory inevitable? Revisionist historians emphasise contingent factors (KMT corruption, Japanese invasion, Soviet intervention) rather than presenting the CCP’s triumph as historically determined.

flowchart TD
    A[20Th Century China] --> B[Key Concepts]
    A --> C[Core Principles]
    A --> D[Practical Applications]
    B --> E[Fundamental definitions]
    C --> F[Design patterns]
    D --> G[Real-world usage]

China’s twentieth century is like watching a river change course multiple times — the Qing collapse, warlord fragmentation, civil war, Mao’s revolutionary transformation, and Deng’s market reforms represent not a straight line but a series of violent pivots. Each pivot was driven by the failure of the previous system: the Qing could not modernise, the warlords could not unite, the KMT could not govern, and Mao’s collectivism could not feed the population. The CCP’s genius was learning from each failure — Mao’s Great Leap Forward killed millions, and Deng’s reforms were explicitly framed as correcting Mao’s mistakes. The through-line is a civilisation wrestling with how to modernise without losing its identity.

Assuming the CCP’s victory was inevitable: Revisionist historians emphasise contingent factors (KMT corruption, Japanese invasion, Soviet support) rather than presenting Communist victory as historically determined.

Confusing the Nanjing Decade with stability: While the KMT achieved nominal unification, it faced ongoing challenges from warlords, Communists, and Japanese aggression. The period was far from stable.

Forgetting the human cost of Mao’s policies: The Great Leap Forward caused 15-55 million deaths. The Cultural Revolution caused 500,000-2 million deaths. These aren’t abstract numbers — they represent real human suffering.

• Cold War: Cold War geopolitics shaped the 20th century
• Authoritarian States: Authoritarian regimes are key case studies
• Causes and Effects: Wars have profound causes and effects