The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen to protest the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles decision to allow the Empire of Japan to retain territories in Shandong that had been surrendered by the German Empire after the Siege of Tsingtao in 1914. The demonstrations sparked nationwide protests and spurred an upsurge in Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization, away from cultural activities, and a move towards a populist base, away from traditional intellectual and political elites.
The May Fourth demonstrations marked a turning point in a broader anti-traditional New Culture Movement (1915–1921) that sought to replace traditional Confucian values and was itself a continuation of late Qing reforms. After 1919, a traditional model linking education with responsibility for cultural and political affairs remained influential among young people. They opposed traditional culture but looked abroad for cosmopolitan inspiration in the name of nationalism and were an overwhelmingly urban movement that espoused populism in an overwhelmingly rural country. Many political and social leaders of the next five decades emerged at this time, including those of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Background
Oxford University historian Rana Mitter observed that the "atmosphere and political mood that emerged around 1919 are at the center of a set of ideas that has shaped China's momentous twentieth century." The Qing dynasty had disintegrated in 1911, marking the end of thousands of years of imperial rule, and ushered a new era in which political power nominally rested with the people, but Confucianism still had a profound influence on social and political relations. After the death of President Yuan Shikai in 1916, China became dominated by warlords who were concerned with building political power and rival regional armies. The government in Beijing could do little to counter foreign influence and control. Chinese Premier Duan Qirui's signing of the secret Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement in 1918 enraged the Chinese public when it was leaked to the press, and sparked a student protest movement that laid the groundwork for the May Fourth Movement. The March 1st Movement in Korea in 1919, the Russian Revolution of 1917, continued defeats by foreign powers and the presence of spheres of influence further inflamed Chinese nationalism among the emerging middle class and cultural leaders. The news of the March 1st Movement influenced many different Chinese intellectuals and students to look at this Movement more carefully. What these intellectuals saw was an example of a mass resistance against imperialism. This scale of protest has contributed to a growing nationalist sentiment in China. Inspiring many similar forms of political out speak and mobilization.
Leaders of the New Culture Movement blamed traditional Confucian values for the political weakness of the nation. Chinese nationalists called for a rejection of traditional values and the adoption of Western ideals of "Mr. Science" (賽先生; 赛先生; Sài xiānsheng) and "Mr. Democracy" (德先生; Dé xiānsheng) in place of "Mr. Confucius" in order to strengthen the new nation. These iconoclastic and anti-traditional views and programs have influenced China's politics and culture to the present day.
Twenty-One Demands
The twenty-one demands were a set of proposals presented by the Ōkuma Shigenobu government to the Yuan Shikai administration in hopes of expanding Japanese power in China. The demands consisted of a variety of economic and territorial provisions. These included the expansion of Japanese interests in southern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia, in addition to the confirmation of Japan's seizure of German ports in China's Shandong province.
In early 1915, Japan's submission of the twenty-one demands were revealed to the Chinese public, causing an outbreak of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, particularly in the Chinese press. The twenty-one demands ultimately added fuel to the rising tensions between the two countries, playing an important role in triggering the impending May Fourth Movement.
Shandong Problem
China had entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente in 1917. Although that year, 140,000 Chinese laborers were sent to the Western Front as a part of the Chinese Labor Corps, the Treaty of Versailles ratified in April 1919 awarded rights to the German territories in Shandong to Japan. The representatives of the Chinese government put forth the following requests:
- Abolition of all privileges of foreign powers in China, such as extraterritoriality
- Cancelling of the Twenty-One Demands
- Return to China of the territory and rights of Shandong, which Japan had taken from Germany during World War I.
The Western allies dominated the meeting at Versailles, and paid little heed to Chinese demands. The European delegations, led by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, were primarily interested in punishing Germany. Although the American delegation promoted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the ideals of self-determination, they were unable to advance these ideals in the face of stubborn resistance by David Lloyd George and Clemenceau. American advocacy of self-determination at the League of Nations was attractive to Chinese intellectuals, but their failure to follow through was seen as a betrayal. This failure of diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference created what became known as the "Shandong Problem".
Protests
May 4, 1919
On the morning of May 4, 1919, student representatives from thirteen different local universities met in Beijing and drafted five resolutions:
- To oppose the granting of Shandong to the Japanese under former German concessions.
- To draw and increase awareness of China's precarious position to the masses in China.
- To recommend a large-scale gathering in Beijing.
- To promote the creation of a Beijing student union.
- To hold a demonstration that afternoon in protest to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
On the afternoon of May 4, over 4,000 students of Yenching University, 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", "Give Qingdao back to us!", "do away with the Twenty-One Demands", and "don't sign the Versailles Treaty".
Protestors 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 residences of these officials and beating some of their servants, student protesters were arrested, jailed, and severely beaten.
Participants
On May 4, 1919, a group of Chinese students began protesting the contents of the Paris Peace Conference. Under the pressure, the Chinese delegation refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The original participants of the May Fourth Movement were students in Paris and Beijing, who joined forces to strike and take to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the government. Some advanced students in Shanghai and Guangzhou joined the protest movement as it progressed, gradually forming a wave of mass student strikes across China. In June 1919, the Beijing government carried out the "June 3" arrests, in which nearly 1,000 students were arrested. However, this did not suppress the patriotic student movement, instead further angering the Chinese public and increasing revolutionary sentiment. Workers and businessmen across the country went on strike in support of the students' movement, marking the entrance of the Chinese working class into the political arena.
With the emergence of working-class support, the May Fourth Movement developed to a new stage. The center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai, and the working class replaced students as the main force of the movement. The Shanghai working class staged a strike of an unprecedented scale. The growing scale of the national strike and the increasing number of its participants led to a paralysis of the country's economic life and posed a serious threat to the government in Beijing. The working class took the place of the students to stand up and resist. The support for this movement throughout the country reflected the enthusiasm for nationalism and national rejuvenation, which was also the foundation for the development and expansion of the May Fourth Movement. Benjamin I. Schwartz added, "Nationalism which was, of course, a dominant passion of the May Fourth experience was not so much a separate ideology as a common disposition."
During the May Fourth era, pledges of celibacy were a means through which participants resisted traditional marriage and devote themselves to revolutionary causes.
Expansion
On May 5, students in Beijing as a whole went on strike and in the larger cities across China, students, patriotic merchants, and workers joined protests. The demonstrators skillfully appealed to the newspapers and sent representatives to carry the word across the country. On the morning of May 6, students from Shanghai gathered at Fudan University in response to the events in Beijing. By the evening, meetings and special committees were held at various campuses in Shanghai, and telegrams were sent to the Beijing government in the name of the 33 representatives of different campuses in Shanghai to express their protest. Over the next few days, the movement grew in size. Students in Shanghai began striking at the end of May. During this time, disagreements arose within the protesters about the intensity of the protests, but the protests as a whole were seen to be intensifying.
On June 3, police in Beijing arrested a large number of students. To express their disapproval to it, businessmen and workers in Shanghai joined the strike. The center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai. Chancellors from thirteen universities arranged for the release of student prisoners, and Cai Yuanpei, the principal of Peking University resigned in protest. Although at this point the event was defined as a multi-class protest action, overall it was still a student-led movement.
Newspapers, magazines, citizen societies, and chambers of commerce offered support for the students. Merchants threatened to withhold tax payments if China's government remained obstinate. In Shanghai, a general strike of merchants and workers nearly devastated the entire Chinese economy. On June 12, the general strike ended because under intense public pressure, the Beijing government dismissed Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu that had been accused of being collaborators with the Japanese. Nevertheless, students continued to express their protest against the content of the Versailles Peace Treaty by organizing rallies and other events at that time, and organized the National Student Union. Finally, Chinese representatives in Paris refused to sign the Versailles Treaty: the May Fourth Movement won an initial victory which was primarily symbolic, since Japan for the moment retained control of the Shandong Peninsula and the islands in the Pacific. Even the partial success of the movement exhibited the ability of China's social classes across the country to successfully collaborate given proper motivation and leadership.
Significance
Scholars rank the New Culture and May Fourth Movements as significant turning points, as David Der-wei Wang said, "it was the turning point in China's search for literary modernity", along with the abolition of the civil service system in 1905 and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1911. The challenge to traditional Chinese values, however, was also met with strong opposition, especially from parts of the Kuomintang. From their perspective, the movement destroyed the positive elements of Chinese tradition and placed a heavy emphasis on direct political actions and radical attitudes, characteristics associated with the emerging Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Two of the CCP's founding members, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, were leaders of the movement. The CCP viewed it more favorably, although remaining suspicious of the early phase which emphasized the role of enlightened intellectuals, not revolution. Li and Chen were the most influential promoters of Marxism in China during the May Fourth period. In its broader sense, the May Fourth Movement led to the establishment of radical intellectuals who went on to mobilize peasants and workers into the CCP and gain the organizational strength that would solidify the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
During the May Fourth Movement, the group of intellectuals with communist ideas grew steadily, such as Chen Tanqiu, Zhou Enlai, Chen Duxiu, and others, who gradually appreciated Marxism's power. This promoted the sinicization of Marxism and provided a basis for the birth of the CCP and socialism with Chinese characteristics.