May 4th Movement

Question 1

M4 background - WW1

Answer 1

• China had sent 140,000 labourers to work on Western Front (2000 died)
• Tokyo had done no fighting but pledged navy support if it was needed in 1917

Question 2

M4 background - Nishihara loans

Answer 2

• Anhui clique warlord Duan Qirui
• to fund military campaigns
• 8 loans, total of 145 million yen
• Japan received confirmation of its claims to the former German Kiautschou Bay concession in Shandong Province, control of the railways in Shandong Province, and additional rights in Manchuria

Question 3

M4 background - Treaty of Versailles

Answer 3

April 1919

German concessions in Shangong given to Japan as per article 156

Question 4

M4 - protests

Answer 4

• Merchants threatened to withhold tax payments if China’s government remained obstinate
• unity of workers, students and intellectuals indicated the beginning of a credible and important nationalist movement
• In Beijing, 3,000 students protested in the foreign legation quarter on 4 May
• 100,000 **workers went on strike in Shanghai in early June **and Japanese goods were boycotted
• within a month protests had spread to 20 provinces and demonstrations and strikes occurred in over 100 towns and cities

Question 5

M4 impact - Communism

Answer 5

• People like Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao shifted more to the Left and were among the leading founders of the 1921 Communist Party of China
• Movement twenty years ago marked a new stage in China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism. – Mao
• Mao’s claim that May Fourth marked the moment when the proletariat took command of the Chinese revolution was utter nonsense. – Fenby
• Dr. Sun Yat-sen criticized these May Fourth intellectuals for corrupting morals of youth

Question 6

M4 New Culture Movement characteristics

Answer 6

Rejection or at least questioning of Confucianism

• Simplified script for the spreading of literacy
• Discussion of Western Political an ethical systems and values

Question 7

NCM histo

Answer 7

Headed by young intellectuals and adopted by students, the movement sought to articulate a new cultural identity for China…[It was an] intellectual renassiance.” Ryan

• The new enthusiasts did not much care what form of government was adopted so long as it did something to restore China - Fitzgerald

Question 8

M4 resolution

Answer 8

The tensions were only eased after the government released student prisoners, sacked several key ministers and instructed its negotiators in Europe not to sign the Versailles treaty.