On May 4, 1919, Chinese university students protested against the Treaty of Versailles, which granted former German territories in the region to the Japanese. Demonstration led to Chinese cultural renewal.” This is China’s last chance in its life and death struggle. We solemnly swear today, together with all our compatriots: China’s territory can be occupied, but it cannot be surrendered! The Chinese people may be massacred, but they will not surrender! Our homeland is facing destruction. Rise up, brothers!”
In the rebellion in central Beijing, 3,000 students distribute flyers in Tiananmen Square, a place that would still be the scene of other student demonstrations, many years later.
Young people want to shake the country
The students were determined to arouse resistance in the country against the Treaty of Versailles, which had granted Japan the former German colonial territory. And resistance against the government itself, which intended to sign the treaty. They marched through the city and many were crying at the edge of the sidewalk. They crossed the diplomats’ quarter and broke into the house of the Minister of Transport and head of the state bank, a Japanese sympathizer. And they shouted: “Down with the traitors!”
Japan took advantage of the turmoil of World War I in Europe to seize control over a large part of China’s eastern Xantung province. It was the port city of Tsingtao and its environs, a territory that Germany had occupied in 1898 and subsequently leased for 99 years.
After Germany was defeated in World War I and US President Woodrow Wilson enunciated his 14 points of people’s right to self-determination, the Chinese were optimistic that Japan would return that territory. The Chinese delegation at the Versailles peace conference had great popular support, especially students, but to no avail.
China was not a colony like India, Indonesia or Vietnam; but since the mid-19th century, foreign powers have gradually occupied attractive parts of its territory, such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. Many Chinese felt humiliated, like a “half colony”. The abolition of the millennial empire in 1911 did not contribute to the situation.
everything was different
The demonstrations of 4 May and the following weeks were not politically successful. Despite this, May 4, 1919 is among the best-known dates in 20th-century Chinese history: nothing is as it was before.
The day is a symbol of China’s rush into modern times. And this enthusiasm of student demonstrations was preserved throughout the 1920s. The Fourth of May Movement, as it would later be called, was thirsty for every new thing coming from the West.
At the time, both the Communist Party of China and the Chinese anarchists emerged. Also modern Chinese literature had its origin with the Fourth of May. It was called “new literature” – and what was new was considered good. One of the most important magazines of the time was called “New Youth”.
The young intellectuals of the Fourth of May made a radical settlement with the traditional and with the old, as had never happened before, nor would happen later. They saw in this millenary mold the real cause of China’s weakness and backwardness. In 1919, the New Youth wrote:
“We believe that the natural sciences and pragmatic philosophy are indispensable conditions for the progress of our present society, and that superstition and speculation must be abolished. We believe that respect for the personality and rights of women are absolutely essential for the progressive evolution of our current society.”
even new names
Subservient women, respect for parents: suddenly, Confucian values no longer prevailed. The family was out of fashion, even surnames were not wanted, as writer Chang Yiping recalls:
“I knew a young man who replaced the three characters in his name with ‘He-You-I’. And at Peking University, at the entrance to the Faculty of Philosophy, I once met a friend who was accompanied by a girl with short hair. I asked him, ‘What is your last name?’ She looked at me in astonishment and shouted: ‘I don’t have a last name!’ There were also those who wrote their father a letter that read: ‘From that day onwards, I will no longer consider you my father. We are all friends with equal rights’.”
Subsequently, most Chinese considered all this ridiculous. A few years later, Mao Zedong envisioned China’s own path to communism. It was no longer possible to simply copy the foreigner. China was increasingly closed off from the outside.
Also Mao Zedong was at Peking University in 1918 and 1919. As a librarian.
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