THE MAY 4TH MOVEMENT IN CHINA, 1919 Term Paper

On the afternoon of 4 May 1919, 3,000 students assembled in Peking’s Tiananmen Square near the Gate of Heavenly Peace to protest the decision of the Versailles Treaty ending World War I to give Japan control of the former German colonial possessions in China’s Shandong province. The students had assumed that because Germany had been defeated, China would take control of Shandong province. They were indignant that Japan, the country that in 1915 levied the infamous Twenty-one Demands giving Japan economic monopolies in China, was again violating Chinese sovereignty.

To protest the Treaty of Versailles, the students decided to march from Tiananmen to the foreign-legation quarter of Peking and present their grievances to the Western powers. Armed riot police intervened, killing one student and arresting hundreds of demonstrators. Yet, the students did not lose heart. They continued the protests, so that each day more students and even senior faculty from Peking National University joined the demonstrations. By June 1919 the Chinese government was so shaken by the protests that it refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

Not only did the protesters denounce the Treaty of Versailles, but they also called for a more relaxed social model and attacked the strict Confucian social hierarchy that promoted filial piety (the obligatory respect for elders) and a patriarchal society. Furthermore, they advocated that spoken vernacular Chinese, not the highly stylized classical Chinese, become China’s national language. The protesters also demanded that women be admitted to universities and free to marry whom they chose, and that female foot-binding be outlawed.

Although initially directed at foreigners, May 4th-style demonstrations spread to 200 cities and quickly became a comprehensive reform movement affecting China well beyond the summer of 1919. Intellectuals such as the famous short-story writer Lu Xun, the vibrant female poet Ding Ling, and the Columbia University trained philosopher Hu Shih enthusiastically joined the protests and repeatedly wrote of May 4th throughout their distinguished careers. Political leaders such as communists Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek were also inspired by May 4th’s idealism and social reforms.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Investigate Sino-Japanese relations during the period 1895 to 1919 and write a paper examining how young Chinese viewed Japan during that time.
2. On 4 May 1989, China held elaborate commemorative celebrations marking the seventieth anniversary of the May 4th demonstration. As a research project, analyze their style and significance. In what ways were they connected to the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989? Use James A. Miles, The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray (see Suggested Sources).
3. Discuss why the Chinese considered the Twenty-one Demands Japan made in 1915 to be “infamous.”
4. In June 1998, President Clinton visited Peking University and invoked the name Hu Shih, one of the leaders of May 4th, to remind Chinese students of the importance of this scholar and reformer. Read Hu Shih’s The Chinese Renaissance (see Suggested Sources) and write a report on his views of early twentieth-century China.
5. The May 4th movement gave special emphasis to women’s rights, especially to the anti–foot-binding leagues’ efforts to end that practice. What success did reformers have over the next three decades in their efforts?
6. The poet Ding Ling is but one of many writers who found inspiration in the idealism of the May 4th movement. Read some of her poetry (see Suggested Sources) and write about her life as a dissident poet.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Northern Expedition in China, 1926–1928” (#16), “Mao Zedong’s ‘Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, March 1927’” (#17), “Mao Zedong and the Long March, 1934–1935” (#25), “The Rape of Nanking, 1937” (#28), and “The Victory of the Chinese Communist Party, 1949” (#46). Search under Sun Yat-Sen, mandate system, and Anglo-Japanese Alliance. SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Chiang Kai-shek. China’s Destiny. Translated by Wang Chung-hui. New York: Da Capo Press, 1976. A view of May 4th by the leader of the Guomindang (Nationalist Party).

Ding Ling. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Edited by Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. A representative anthology of one of twentieth-century China’s major female writers.

Hu Shih. The Chinese Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. A scholarly appraisal by one of May 4th’s leading intellectuals.

Mao Tse-tung. “The May Fourth Movement.” In Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works. 5 vols. New York: International Publishers, 1955, 3: 9–12. Mao’s analysis of how the movement connected with Marxism.

Secondary Sources

Bergère, Marie-Claire. Sun Yat-sen. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. A fresh treatment of the effects of May 4th on one of the most important leaders of the Chinese Republic.

Cho Tse-tsung. The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. This remains the definitive study of the event.

———. Research Guide to the May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China, 1915–1924. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. The starting place for all research. This annotated bibliography is a supplement to the author’s classic study of May 4th.

Miles, James A. The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. A useful summary of political and social conditions before and after Tiananmen.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980. New York: Viking, 1981. Chapter 5 is focused on the principal insurrectionists who took part in May 4th. The remainder of the book shows the influence of the May 4th movement on modern China.