Republican China and Imperial Japan

At a glance

The theme on the map

46 events in this theme

1. 1911 – 1912Xinhai Revolution and the Founding of the Republic of China

   Beginning with the Wuchang Uprising, revolution spread until the Republic of China was founded and the Qing fell. Over two thousand years of imperial rule ended, and China’s first republic was born.

2. 1912 – 1932Taishō Democracy

   Under the Taishō Emperor (1912–1926) a democratic current spread in Japan, as the movement to protect constitutional government and the idea of minponshugi pressed for party government and universal suffrage.

3. 1913 – 1916Yuan Shikai’s Dictatorship and the Warlord Era

   Having taken over the provisional presidency, Yuan Shikai crushed the Nationalist Party and tried to make himself emperor; after his failure and death China fell into an age of rival regional warlords.

4. 1915Japan’s Twenty-One Demands

   Having seized Germany’s leasehold in Shandong during the First World War, Japan presented Yuan Shikai’s government with twenty-one demands for rights in Shandong, southern Manchuria and elsewhere, and forced it to accept most of them.

5. 1915 – 1923New Culture Movement

   Gathered around Chen Duxiu’s New Youth, intellectuals raised the banner of “democracy and science”, attacked Confucian ethics and launched a literature in the vernacular language people actually spoke.

6. 1918Rice Riots of 1918

   As rice prices soared, riots that began in the summer of 1918 among women of fishing villages in Toyama spread across Japan, bringing down the Terauchi cabinet and bringing in Hara Takashi’s party cabinet.

7. 1919March First Movement

   Beginning on 1 March 1919 with the reading of a declaration of independence, demonstrations spread across the country. It led to the founding of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

8. 1919Founding of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea

   After the March First Movement, on 11 April 1919, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was founded in Shanghai, the first Korean government to adopt a democratic republic. In September it merged the several provisional governments.

9. 1919May Fourth Movement

   When the Paris Peace Conference decided to hand Germany’s former rights in Shandong to Japan, Beijing students demonstrated in front of Tiananmen on 4 May 1919, and an anti-imperialist, anti-warlord movement spread nationwide.

10. 1919 – 1931"Cultural Rule"

    After the March First Movement the new Governor-General Saitō Makoto proclaimed "cultural rule". The military police gave way to a civil police and Korean newspapers were allowed, but the real aim was to cultivate collaborators and divide the nation.

11. 1919 – 1935Uiyeoldan (Heroic Corps)

    Kim Won-bong founded the Uiyeoldan at Jilin in Manchuria to destroy key Japanese institutions and assassinate officials.

12. 1920 – 1934Plan to Increase Rice Production

    To cover Japan’s rice shortage, Japan planned to raise rice output in Korea. More rice was shipped to Japan than the increase in production, and Korean food supplies worsened.

13. 1921Founding of the Chinese Communist Party

    In July 1921 thirteen delegates met in the French Concession of Shanghai and, with Comintern support, founded the Chinese Communist Party, choosing Chen Duxiu as its leader.

14. 1923Great Kantō Earthquake and the Massacre of Koreans

    On 1 September 1923 a great earthquake and fires struck Tokyo and Yokohama, leaving over 100,000 dead or missing. In the chaos rumours that “Koreans are rioting” spread, and vigilantes, soldiers and police massacred large numbers of Koreans.

15. 1924 – 1927First United Front

    In 1924 Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Party adopted the policies of “alliance with the Soviet Union, admission of communists, and support for peasants and workers”, letting Communists join as individuals, and founded the Whampoa Military Academy to prepare to overthrow the warlords.

16. 1925Founding and First Arrests of the Korean Communist Party

    The Korean Communist Party was founded in secret in Seoul, but in November the Sinuiju incident exposed it and many members were arrested under the Peace Preservation Law.

17. 1925Peace Preservation Law

    Japan extended to Korea its Peace Preservation Law punishing groups that sought to change the national polity or deny private property. It became a tool against both socialism and the independence movement.

18. 1925Japan’s General Election Law

    In 1925 the Katō Takaaki cabinet abolished the tax qualification and gave the vote to all men aged 25 and over. In the same year it passed the Peace Preservation Law to suppress socialism and independence movements.

19. 1926 – 1928Northern Expedition

    In July 1926 the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek marched north from Guangzhou to destroy the warlords; in 1928 it took Beijing, and with Zhang Xueliang’s submission China was formally unified.

20. 1927 – 1931Singanhoe

    Uncompromising nationalists and socialists joined to found the Singanhoe, the largest legal national organization of the colonial period.

21. 1927Shanghai Coup and the Nanjing National Government

    On 12 April 1927, in the middle of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek violently purged Communists and labour organizations in Shanghai, and on 18 April set up a National Government in Nanjing. The First United Front was broken.

22. 1931Korean Patriotic Organization

    To revive the stagnant Provisional Government, Kim Gu organized the Korean Patriotic Organization in Shanghai to carry out armed attacks.

23. 1931 – 1932Manchurian Incident

    On 18 September 1931 Japan’s Kwantung Army blew up a section of the South Manchuria Railway at Liutiaohu near Shenyang, blamed Chinese troops, and launched an offensive that occupied most of Manchuria within six months.

24. 1932 – 1933Korean Independence Army at Ssangseongbo and Daejeonjaryeong

    Ji Cheong-cheon’s Korean Independence Army, allied with Chinese forces, defeated the Japanese at Ssangseongbo, Sadohaja, Donggyeongseong and Daejeonjaryeong in northern Manchuria.

25. 1932 – 1945Founding of Manchukuo

    On 1 March 1932 Japan’s Kwantung Army set up the puppet state of Manchukuo with its capital at Changchun (Xinjing), installing the last Qing emperor Puyi as chief executive; in 1934 Puyi became emperor.

26. 1932Yun Bong-gil's Attack in Hongkou Park

    Korean Patriotic Organization member Yun Bong-gil threw a bomb onto the platform at the celebration of the emperor’s birthday and the Shanghai victory in Hongkou Park, killing and wounding Japanese commanders.

27. 1932May 15 Incident

    On 15 May 1932 young naval officers stormed the prime minister’s residence and killed Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, bringing the era of party cabinets to an end.

28. 1933The Lytton Report and Japan’s Withdrawal from the League of Nations

    When the League of Nations, drawing on the Lytton Commission’s report, refused to recognize Manchukuo and called for the withdrawal of Japanese troops, Japan gave notice in March 1933 that it would leave the League.

29. 1934 – 1935Long March

    Driven from its base at Ruijin in Jiangxi by Nationalist encirclement campaigns, the Communist Red Army walked about 12,000 km over a year from October 1934 to northern Shaanxi; along the way Mao Zedong took the leadership.

30. 1935Korean National Revolutionary Party

    The Uiyeoldan, the Korean Independence Party, the Korean Revolutionary Party and others formed the National Revolutionary Party in Nanjing, the fruit of the drive for a single party in China proper.

31. 1936February 26 Incident

    On 26 February 1936 young officers of the army’s Imperial Way faction seized central Tokyo with about 1,400 troops and murdered senior ministers in an attempted coup. After its suppression the rival Control faction took over and military dominance of politics was entrenched.

32. 1936Xi’an Incident

    On 12 December 1936 Chiang Kai-shek was detained in Xi’an by his own commanders, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, who pressed him to stop fighting the Communists and turn against Japan. Mediation by the Communist Zhou Enlai won Chiang’s release, paving the way for the Second United Front.

33. 1937 – 1945Policy of Making Koreans Imperial Subjects

    Having launched the war with China, Japan proclaimed "Japan and Korea as one body" and tried to turn Koreans into loyal imperial subjects, forcing them to recite the Oath of Imperial Subjects, worship at Shinto shrines and bow toward the imperial palace.

34. 1937 – 1945Second Sino-Japanese War

    A clash at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beiping on 7 July 1937 became the occasion for Japan’s full-scale invasion of China. China resisted for eight years through the United Front; from 1941 the war merged with the Pacific War, ending with Japan’s surrender in 1945.

35. 1937 – 1941Second United Front

    When the war with Japan broke out, the Nationalists and Communists joined hands again in September 1937 to form an anti-Japanese national united front; the Red Army was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army.

36. 1937 – 1938Nanjing Massacre

    After capturing Nanjing, capital of the Republic of China, on 13 December 1937, the Japanese army spent several weeks massacring prisoners and civilians and committing rape, looting and arson.

37. 1938 – 1945National Mobilization Law and Wartime Exploitation

    Japan enacted the National Mobilization Law and drew Korea’s people and materials into its wars of aggression at will, taking rice and even brassware and sending young people to battlefields and factories.

38. 1938 – 1942Korean Volunteer Corps

    With support from the Chinese Nationalist government, Kim Won-bong founded the Korean Volunteer Corps at Hankou, the first Korean armed unit in China proper.

39. 1940 – 1945Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

    In 1940 Japan proclaimed a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere binding Japan, Manchukuo, China and Southeast Asia, claiming to liberate Asia from Western imperialism; in reality it was a slogan for conquest and domination to secure resources for war.

40. 1940Founding of the Korean Liberation Army

    Settled in Chongqing, the Provisional Government founded the Korean Liberation Army under Commander-in-Chief Ji Cheong-cheon; the Korean Volunteer Corps joined it in 1942.

41. 1941Attack on Pearl Harbor

    Japanese naval aircraft made a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. America entered the war, which spread across the Pacific (the Pacific War).

42. 1943Cairo Declaration

    The leaders of the United States, Britain and China met in Cairo and declared that Korea would become free and independent in due course, the first international pledge of Korean independence.

43. 1945Liberation of Korea

    On 15 August 1945 Japan's surrender ended its rule over Korea. US and Soviet troops moved in on either side of the 38th parallel.

44. 1945Surrender of Japan

    Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender by radio on 15 August. The instrument of surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, ending the Second World War.

45. 1946 – 1949Chinese Civil War

    After Japan’s surrender, full-scale civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists resumed in 1946. Having won over the peasants through land reform, the Communists triumphed in three great campaigns in 1948–1949, and the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan.

46. 1949Founding of the People's Republic of China

    Victorious in the civil war, the Communist Party proclaimed the People's Republic in Beijing. The Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan.

Key people

• Chiang Kai-shek1887 – 1975

  Leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party who unified China through the Northern Expedition and led the Nanjing government through the war with Japan; after losing the civil war he moved to Taiwan and ruled the Republic of China there

• Kim Gu1876 – 1949

  Known as Baekbeom; founded the Korean Patriotic Organization and led the Liberation Army as Chairman of the Provisional Government

• Mao Zedong1893 – 1976

  Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party who won the civil war and founded the People’s Republic in 1949, and launched the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

• Zhou Enlai1898 – 1976

  First premier of the People’s Republic of China (1949–1976), long in charge of diplomacy, who arranged Nixon’s 1972 visit

• Kim Won-bong1898 – 1958

  Leader of the Uiyeoldan, the National Revolutionary Party and the Korean Volunteer Corps; Deputy Commander of the Liberation Army

• Sun Yat-sen1866 – 1925

  Leader of the Chinese revolution who led the Tongmenghui under the Three Principles of the People and became provisional president of the Republic of China after the Xinhai Revolution

• Inukai Tsuyoshi1855 – 1932

  Party politician who led the movement to protect constitutional government and became prime minister (1931–1932) as Seiyūkai president; murdered in his residence by young naval officers in the May 15 Incident

• Chen Duxiu1879 – 1942

  Founder of the magazine New Youth who led the New Culture Movement under the banner of “democracy and science”, then helped found the Chinese Communist Party and became its first leader

• Kim Kyu-sik1881 – 1950

  Envoy of the New Korea Youth Party to the Paris Peace Conference, later Vice-Chairman of the Provisional Government

• Saitō Makoto1858 – 1936

  Third and fifth Governor-General of Korea, who proclaimed "cultural rule" after the March First Movement

• Zhang Xueliang1901 – 2001

  Son of the Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin who joined the Nationalist government after Japanese officers killed his father; in the 1936 Xi’an Incident he detained Chiang Kai-shek to demand resistance to Japan

• Ji Cheong-cheon1888 – 1957

  Commander of the Korean Independence Army in the joint Korea–China campaigns and Commander-in-Chief of the Liberation Army