Revolutionary movements in China in the early 1900s were rooted in the idea that China had become increasingly weak and needed a radical change to maintain its territorial integrity and national pride. In the late 1800s, China was beset with incursions into its own land and into peripheral states that had recognized Chinese dominance. The Russians expanded into Manchuria and Chinese Turkestan, the French colonized Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) and established a protectorate over Cambodia, and the British took Burma. Britain, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, and Belgium gained spheres of influence in China itself. China was also humiliated by the treaty that ended its war with Japan in 1895. In addition to paying a substantial indemnity and having to allow the establishment of Japanese ports in its territory, defeated China was forced to cede control of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan and to acknowledge the victor's authority over Korea. These developments led to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, during which many foreigners were indiscriminately killed with the complicity of the dowager empress Tz'u-hsi. The rebellion ended in disaster for China, as more than 19,000 Russian, British, German, French, American, and Japanese troops invaded China and captured Peking (now Beijing). With the embattled Ch'ing, or Manchu, Dynasty in a particularly vulnerable position, the revolutionary movement led by Sun Yat-sen gained popular support. In October 1911, when Sun was in the United States, the revolution began in the city of Wuhan. In 1912 China was declared a republic and Sun was named head of the provisional administration. The regent for the last Manchu emperor, the child P'u-i, announced the emperor's abdication on February 24, ending 267 years of Manchu rule—and the 2,000-year-old imperial system—in China. |