May 4th Movement

[Greg.D.]

On this day in 1919, students in Beijing organized and protested in Tiananmen in response to global events that were affecting China.

 

From Wiki:

 

On the afternoon of May 4 over 3,000 students of Peking University and other schools marched from many points to gather in front of Tiananmen. They shouted such slogans as "Struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home", "Do away with the 'Twenty-One Demands'", and "Don't sign the Versailles Treaty". They voiced their anger at the Allied betrayal of China, denounced the government's spineless inability to protect Chinese interests, and called for a boycott of Japanese products. Demonstrators insisted on the resignation of three Chinese officials they accused of being collaborators with the Japanese. After burning the residence of one of these officials and beating his servants, student protesters were arrested, jailed, and severely beaten.

 

World War I had just ended and China was squeezed by the Japanese, USA, dying monarchy, Russian communists, warlords and choosing between tradition and science. The failure at Versailles was the moment the U.S. lost China and marked the radicalization of Mao. Sad!

 

The May Fourth Movement served as an intellectual turning point in China; it was a seminal event that radicalized Chinese intellectual thought. Western-style liberal democracy had previously had a degree of traction amongst Chinese intellectuals, but after the Versailles Treaty (which was viewed as a betrayal of China's interests), lost much of its attractiveness. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, despite being rooted in moralism, were also seen as Western-centric and hypocritical.

 

Many in the Chinese intellectual community believed that the United States had done little to convince the imperialist powers (especially Britain, France, and Japan) to adhere to the Fourteen Points, and observed that the United States itself had declined to join the League of Nations; as a result they turned away from the Western liberal democratic model. Marxism began to take hold in Chinese intellectual thought, particularly among those already on the Left. It was during this time that communism was studied seriously by some Chinese intellectuals such as Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao.

 

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

 

The May Fourth Movement in Chinese History

To understand the May Fourth Movement, we must first understand its ideological roots.

 

Protestors from Peking University march down the road in Beijing on May 4, 1919. IC

 

Quote

If we want to understand the significance of what happened 100 years ago, we must start by placing it in historical context. When people today refer to the May Fourth Movement, they don’t simply mean the events that took place on that fateful day, but rather a broader cultural and ideological current, one which saw the political awakening of China’s young, growing student population and an intellectual attack on the foundations of traditional Chinese culture. Only by expanding our field of vision can we trace the legacy of May Fourth through the last 100 years of Chinese history — and understand its true impact.

 

It began on the afternoon of May 4, 1919, when over 3,000 students from universities and colleges around Beijing assembled in front of Tiananmen in the central part of the city. The students’ anger was fueled by China’s humiliating treatment at the Paris Peace Conference that followed World War I, and they came brandishing posters and shouting slogans like “Protect China’s Sovereignty!” “Return Qingdao!” and “Punish the Traitors Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu!”

 

Scholars have estimated that as many as 3,000 of the Chinese laborers who served on the Western front with the Allied forces in World War I died before returning home, and as many as 30,000 may have died serving on the Eastern front. Yet despite China’s crucial role, the United States, Britain, and France ignored the Chinese delegation’s protests and transferred Germany’s colonial concessions in China, including the eastern port city of Qingdao and the surrounding province of Shandong, to Japan.

 

When news of this arrangement made it back to China, outrage quickly spilled onto the streets. The students demanded their government refuse to sign the peace treaty and punish the officials involved for having betrayed China’s national interests.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from Lei's Real Talk

How likely will another June 4th pro-democracy movement erupt in China?