Nationalist Government pre-war grievances - workers, intellectuals, sovereignty

Question 1

NG workers economic

Answer 1

• traditional handicrafts and domestic enterpriseswere estimated to provide around 70 per cent of added value in manufacturing.
• number of workers in modernfactories was still only 1 . 5 - 2 million.
• Unemployment and destitutionincreased in Canton, Wuhan and Beijing.
• Falling prices caused by Japanese competition exacerbated the situation
• in parts of southern China, the cost of labour dropped by 70 per cent between 1930 and 1934.
• wages fell to only 6 per cent of the market price forfinished goods.

Question 2

NG workers rights

Answer 2

• regime’s readiness to leave theregulation of labour to the underworld won it a large degree of industrial peace, at heavy cost to the workers
• Instead of eight weeks’ maternity leave with pay, women got an average of $18 with no time off
• regime was keen to avoid the rise ofleftist trade unions, and preferred ‘yellow unions’ run by co-operative underworld labour bosses among unskilled workers
• Legislation to cut the working week, guaranteeholidays and limit the slice of wages taken by labour contractors was ignored or turned into a dead letter

Question 3

NG intellectuals general

Answer 3

• The gulf between the regime and intellectualspropelled progressive thinkers and writers into opposition
• 1929 and 1935, 458 literary works were banned for slanderingthe authorities, encouraging the class struggle or constituting ‘proletarian literature’
• A draconian press law was introduced in 1930.
• Film directors were told that their work should be 30 per cent entertaining and 70 per cent educational

Question 4

NG intellectuals New Life Movement

Answer 4

• launched on 19 February 1934
• attempt at national moral rejuvenation through discipline and traditional values; to ‘create a citizenry that was self-aware, politically conscious, and committed to the nation’
• • social decency, honesty, right conduct, self-respect
• 96 ‘rules’ detailed a wide range of ‘offences’ e.g. spitting in public, having permed hair

Question 5

New Life Movement failure

Answer 5

• given the challenges China faced, particularly from Japan, it seemedglaringly beside the point to order skirts to be lengthened
• Officials went on enjoying the ‘wine, womenand gambling’ forbidden by the growing list of prohibitions.
• As the North China Daily News observed, ‘the NewLife Movement would have its best chance of success if, like charity, it could begin at home
• nowhere do the masses regard us with good will.’ Chiang

Question 6

NG dictatorship

Answer 6

• Chiang and his associates selected the bulk of delegates to a Party Congress in March 1929, which decreed that the KMT should practise ‘political tutelage’ on behalf of the people until the end of 193 5.

Question 7

NG Confucian Fascism

Answer 7

o Chiang’s chief adviser – General Hans von Seeckt

• o 1935: ‘Can fascism save China? We answer: yes. Fascism is now what China most needs.’

Blue Shirts

• swore an oath to advance Chiang’s supreme leadership by any means including violence – 14,000 by 1935
• Dai Li (‘the Chinese Himmler’) – headed
• o Nationalists claimed that 24,000 Communists and 155,525 left-wing sympathisers were arrested and ‘reformed’ between 1927 & 1937; Communists that 300,000 were murdered by GMD

Question 8

NG sovereignty positive

Answer 8

• hinesediplomats were posted to Europe, Washington and Latin America, and sat in international bodies.

§ Western claims dissolved, 20/33 concessions returned

§ China part of League of Nations

Question 9

NG Tanggu agreement

Answer 9

- 3 1 May 1 9 3 3

• , Japan called for the removal of Chinese troops froman area of 115,800 square miles, containing 6 million people
• price for not attacking Beijing
• channel for Japanese goods to enter China,either smuggled or paying very low import duty and undercutting domestic products
• cost Nanjing $ 8 million a monthin lost duties

Question 10

NG Mukden incident

Answer 10

• September 18, 1931 Japan took China’s 3 northeastern provinces
• 9 March 1932 he independentstate of Manchukuo was formally inaugurated to rule Manchuria
• Japan now controlled all Manchuria’s lines, minerals andports, and fertile agricultural areas, which were the world’s biggest producer of soya beans.
• For the KMT leadership, agreat patriotic crusade to recover Manchuria might all too easily get out of hand, creating the kind of mass movement it distrusted and coming under the influence of the left and regional barons.

Question 11

Mukden incident reaction

Answer 11

• Shanghai, 50,000 demonstrators demanded death for anybody who traded with the enemy.
• “set people against him” Sun Shuyun
• Japanese goods were boycotted
• imports fell by 40 per cent in the last four months of 1 9 3 1 and by 90 per cent in 1932

Question 12

Mukden incident effect on population

Answer 12

• Japanese teachers moved into secondary schools.
• farmers were compelled to join co-operatives controlled by the invaders
• thegentry was instructed to raise ‘peace preservation’ forces trained and led by Japanese officers
• Japanese army advisers were sent to work with district magistrates