TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA ISSN: 1521-5385 ...

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA ISSN: 1521-5385 Published by The Ohio State University Press © 2009 by Twentieth-Century China Editorial Board All rights reserved. Twentieth-Century China is a refereed journal. It is the affiliated journal of The Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China (HSTCC). Chief Editor: James Carter, Saint Joseph’s University Managing Editor: Margaret Ryan-Atkinson, Saint Joseph’s University After reading the “Notes to Contributors” and other announcements at the end of this issue, please contact the following with submissions questions: Professor James Carter History Department, Saint Joseph’s University 5600 City Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131 USA http://www.sju.edu/academics/cas/resources/20thcenturychina/ For questions on subscriptions and back issues, contact: The Ohio State University Press 180 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road Columbus, OH 43210-1002 USA E-mail: [email protected] EDITORIAL BOARD Geremie R. Barmé (ANU), Morris L. Bian (Auburn), Parks Coble (Nebraska), Robert Culp (Bard), Prasenjit Duara (Singapore), Christina Gilmartin (Northeastern), Bryna Goodman (Oregon), Christian Henriot (Université Lumière-Lyon 2-CNRS), Jeffrey C. Kinkley (St. John’s), William Kirby (Harvard), Huaiyin Li (University of Texas-Austin), Kubo Toru (Shinshu), Elizabeth Perry (Harvard), R. Keith Schoppa (Loyola), Susanne WeigelinSchwiedrzik (Vienna), Wen-hsin Yeh (UC-Berkeley), Ernest P. Young (Michigan), Peter Zarrow (Academia Sinica) Issues are published in November and April of each academic year. Current subscription rates are as follows: Individuals—$30; Institutions—$60; Full-time Students—$15. Make checks payable to: “Twentieth-Century China, The Ohio State University Press.” Regarding preferential rates for HSTCC members, please see the announcements at the end of this issue. Calligraphy on the cover by Yan Bo. Twentieth-Century China is funded through subscriptions. Additional support is provided by The Saint Joseph’s University College of Arts and Science and the James and Bernadette Nealis Program in Asian Studies

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CONTENTS Editor’s Note

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ARTICLES

Shao Dan Chinese by Definition: Nationality Law, Jus Sanguinis, and State Succession, 1909-1980

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Juan Wang Imagining Citizenship: The Shanghai Tabloid Press, 1897-1911

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Justin Tighe From Borderland to Heartland: The Discourse of the North-West in Early Republican China

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Ja Ian Chong Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Foreign Intervention and the Limiting of Fragmentation in the Late Quing and Early Republic 1893-1922

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Twentieth-Century China disclaims any responsibility or liability for statements of fact or opinion expressed by contributors.

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BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO: FOREIGN INTERVENTION AND THE LIMITING OF FRAGMENTATION IN THE LATE QING AND EARLY REPUBLIC, 1893-1922 JA IAN C HONG, HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ABSTRACT This article examines why and how persistent political fragmentation existed alongside continued centralization in late Qing and early Republican China. By analyzing new archival material and existing scholarship, the piece argues that external intervention helped preserve the viability of a single Chinese state even as the same phenomenon also spurred ongoing fractionalization. Because major powers’ governments generally saw China as an area of secondary strategic import, they tried to avoid armed conflict over the polity and seek accommodation. Since outside powers diverged in their objectives, they settled on sponsoring indigenous partners, notably various militarists as well as the Chinese Nationalists, to sustain a degree of central government rule alongside substantial regional autonomy. In reconsidering the effects of foreign intervention, this article engages the discussion on political consolidation in the late Qing and early Republic, and suggests that overly stressing integration or division tends to present incomplete accounts of the issue. INTRODUCTION The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been. —Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi).1 What is remarkable about China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is that it held together. Given the various internal and external pressures, the polity appeared to be heading toward complete and utter disintegration. Population expansion, a series of rebellions and natural disasters, and an erosion of central government capabilities pushed at the seams from within.2 From without, foreign 1

Guanzhong Luo and Moss Roberts, Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel, Abridged ed. (Beijing; Berkeley: Foreign Languages Press; University of California Press, 1999), 3. 2 Philip A. Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002); Ergang Luo, Huaijun zhi (Records of the Huai Army) (Hong Kong: Xianggang shudian, 1973); Ergang Luo, Lüying bingzhi (Military Records of the Green Standard Army) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju: Xinhua shudian Beijing faxingsuo faxing, 1984); Ergang Luo, Wan Qing bingzhi (Military Records of the Late Qing) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997); Ergang Luo, Xiangjun xinzhi (New Records of the Hunan Army) (Yonghe: Wenhai chubanshe, 1983); Franz Michael, “Regionalism in Nineteenth-Century China. Introduction,” in Li Hung-Chang and the Huai Army: A Study in

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powers looked set to partition the Chinese polity just as they did everywhere from Africa to Southeast Asia—this was, after all, the high age of imperialism. The question, then, is how the late Qing and early Republic maintained sufficient political unity to provide the foundations for the later development of a centralized, sovereign Chinese state in spite of these pressures. The key to China’s resilience against complete fragmentation between the end of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth lay in the nature of external competition over and intervention into the polity. That the foreign governments most active in and around China generally saw it as an area of secondary import, and not worth a major armed conflict, gave the various outside powers a stake in seeking settlements among themselves. This brought simultaneous external financial, economic, and even military backing for central governments as well as various regional administrations, a dynamic that kept the Chinese polity whole even as it deepened fractures across the country. By highlighting the role of foreign actors in holding China together even as they simultaneously fostered growing fractiousness, this article takes seriously the multifaceted characteristics of external intercession into domestic politics. In doing so, I forward a perspective that locates the development of the modern Chinese state more fully within the global context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.3 That external intervention helped hold China together did not exclude it from contributing to the breakdown in central government rule. The peculiarities of major power competition over the Chinese polity produced two countervailing forms of pressure. On one hand, major powers like Germany, Japan, Russia, and France extended financial aid, military assistance, and political support to various local actors within their respective regions of interest in efforts to exclude rivals from these areas. This gave local political agents the wherewithal to stand up to the central government, whether it was under the Qing court or a militarist clique. On the other hand, largely British and American attempts to avoid disadvantaged access vis-à-vis the other great powers brought attempts to shore up central government rule through the provision of economic as well as political backing to those in power at the capital. To examine the nature of political integration and disintegration in China, I focus on the years from 1893 to 1922. This choice lies in an understanding that the period between the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War and following the conclusion of the 1921 Washington Conference represents a high-water mark for the fracturing of the Chinese polity. This was despite the major powers’ formal commitment to Chinese sovereignty in the Nine Power Treaty concluded during the Washington Conference. In trying to look at the Chinese polity as a whole, I recognize that I am trading off important nuances underscored by excellent scholarship on various Nineteenth Century Chinese Regionalism, ed. Stanley Spector (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964). 3 See William C. Kirby, “The Internationalization of China: Foreign Relations at Home and Abroad in the Republican Era,” The China Quarterly, no. 150 (1997).

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regions of China.4 However, such an approach provides an opportunity to explore general configuration of governance, authority, and rule across China during the late Qing and early Republic. I see centralization and fragmentation in terms of the consolidation of authority in addition to the ability to concentrate as well as accumulate capital and coercion.5 “SEMI-COLONIALISM” AND THE LIMITS OF FRAGMENTATION The process of fragmentation that began late in the eighteenth century intensified in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries6 Despite such pressures, central government authority remained intact, albeit highly circumscribed. This continued existence of a central government, however nominal, runs counter to arguments about the division of China common in the popular understandings about the late Qing and early Republic. After all, if disintegrative forces were so powerful, how and why did much of the Chinese polity avert collapse into several distinct states? REGIONAL FRAGMENTATION AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY To address the host of political, administrative, military, fiscal, and foreign policy problems buffeting its rule, the Qing imperial court looked increasingly toward regions and provinces to help bear the burden for reforms since the midnineteenth century. The Qing court hoped that the decentralization of matters ranging from military reform to revenue extraction and even suppressing rebellions could provide the central government some relief from the financial obligations associated with governance. 7 Such devolution of administration to regional and provincial

4

See for instance, Edward Allen McCord, The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Hongyuan Zhu, Cong Bianluan dao junsheng: Guangxi de chuqi xiandaihua, 1860-1937 (From Rebellion to Military Province: Guangxi's Early Modernization) (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1995). 5 Here, I draw from Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, Ad 990-1990 (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990); Max Weber, “The Nation State and Economic Policy,” in Weber: Political Writings, ed. Max Weber, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1-28; Max Weber, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” in Weber: Political Writings, ed. Max Weber, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 309-69. 6 See Kuhn; Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 1-36, 211-25; Luo, Huaijun zhi; Luo, Lüying bingzhi; Luo, Xiangjun xinzhi; McCord, 17-45; Michael; Tu-ki Min et al., National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Elizabeth J. Remick, Building Local States: China During the Republican and Post-Mao Eras (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 29-32, 35-37. 7 Lizhong Hu and An’gang Dai, Wan Qing shi (History of the Late Qing) (Xianggang: Zhonghua shuju (Xianggang) youxian gongsi, 1998), 400-05; Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, 124, 114-35; Luo, Huaijun zhi; Luo, Lüying bingzhi; Luo, Xiangjun xinzhi; McCord, 80-118;

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officials benefited the provinces and regions more than the imperial government in Beijing. Even though these reforms aimed to save the empire, the fact that regions and provinces were growing in their independent ability to enact and execute policy also laid the groundwork for the erosion of central government rule during the early twentieth century. Reforms from the nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries consequently brought a rise in regional and provincial autonomy over various aspects of governance. By the turn of the twentieth century, most regions and even individual provinces were managing their local tax bases.8 Indeed, local collections of the land tax provided the bulk of revenues for regional and provincial governments both during the late Qing as well as in the early Republican eras.9 Apart from land excises, local regimes could also independently raise so-called emergency taxes such as the 評債 pingzhai or 攤款 tankuan to supplement their income.10 Notably, although tax remittances to Beijing from some of the richer provinces continued on-and-off, especially before 1911, this was a vestige of central authority and did not represent any direct ability to coerce regional regimes or local populations from the capital.11 Michael; Philip Richardson, Economic Change in China, C.1800-1950 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 88-89. 8 Phil Billingsley, “Bandits, Bosses, and Bare Sticks: Beneath the Surface of Local Control in Early Republican China,” Modern China 7, no. 3 (1981): 267-71; Prasenjit Duara, “State Involution: A Study of Local Finances in North China, 1911-1935,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, no. 1 (1987): 132-58; McCord, 17-45, 80-118, 61-204, 72-74; Remick, 32-35, 37-39; Hans J. van de Ven, “Public Finance and the Rise of Warlordism,” Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 4 (1996): 829-68. 9 Hsi-sheng Ch’i, Warlord Politics in China, 1916-1928 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), 152-53; Duara: 132-58; McCord, 82, 92, 126-27, 40; Remick, 32-35, 37-39; van de Ven: 829-68; Kuomintang Party Archives (KMTPA) Huanlong lu 2829.2, “Jun Zhengfu yu dujun wei yanshui wenti zhengchi, baozai bufu, bing gao Wang Zhaoming sui jiang xixing (Dispute between the Military Government and the dujun over the salt tax, inconsistency in records, informed Wang Zhaoming (Wang Jingwei) to travel west along the river),” 1917, 1918; KMTPA Huanlong lu 2830, Telegram from Chen Jiongming to Liao Zhongkai, “Xun yankuan shifou bantuo, bing shang Chaoqiao yankuan shi (Enquiry about the handling of salt revenues, and discussions on salt revenues from Chaoqiao),” March 21, 1918; KMTPA Huanlong lu 2833-6, Telegrams between Chen Jiongming and Liao Zhongkai, “Wei Chaoqiao yankuan shi: Can po (Regarding Chaoqiao salt revenues: (Talks) Breakdown),” 1918; KMTPA Huanlong lu 2837, Letter from Liao Zhongkai to Chen Jiongming, “Gao hui wan yuan shoufu. Wukuang keyi hezi kaicai. Bing gao yanwu fei tibuo banfa (Inform the committee on the recovery of ten thousand yuan. Possible to mine wolframite through joint venture. Report on methods to recover Salt Gabelle monies),” 1918 10 Ch’i, 166. 11 The Qing court used part of the monies sent from the richer provinces to subsidize poorer locales, which helped to shore up the central government’s position in these areas. Ch’i, 167; Hu and Dai, 400-05; Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, 114-35; Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China, 211-25; McCord, 17-45, 80-118; Robert A. Scalapino and George T. Yu, Modern China and Its Revolutionary Process: Recurrent Challenges to the Traditional Order, 1850-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 72-83, 271-77; James E. Sheridan, China in Disintegration: The Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912-1949 (New York: Free Press, 1975), 32-40; van de Ven: 829-68.

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Some of the more prosperous regions even developed heavy industry and modern arsenals to meet their economic and military needs. Despite official restrictions on regions and provinces taking loans, especially from foreign sources, many governors and governors-general were nonetheless able to secure outside funds for their modernization and reform programs.12 A reason that local regimes enjoyed such leeway to accumulate capital lay in the fact that administrative changes since the mid-nineteenth century left the Qing court with limited direct oversight in, much less active responsibility for, provincial and regional governance.13 The autonomy of regions and provinces was not restricted to finance and commerce. For instance, as the Boxer episode played out in north China in 1899 and 1900, governors-general in central and south China were able to make a separate peace, known as the Southeast Mutual Protection Movement ( 東 南 互 保 運 動 Dongnan hubao yundong) with the intervening great powers. 14 Under the pact, governors and governors-general in south and central China protected the life and property of foreign nationals by controlling and suppressing the Boxers in their areas of jurisdiction in exchange for non-intervention by the various external powers.15 12

Richard Horowitz, “International Law and State Transformation in China, Siam, and the Ottoman Empire During the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of World History 15, no. 4 (2005): 471; Richard Horowitz, “Politics, Power, and the Chinese Maritime Customs: The Qing Restoration and the Ascent of Robert Hart,” Modern Asian Studies 40, no. 3 (2006): 559-61; R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 155-56; Stanley Fowler Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast: Published for the Queen's University by W. Mullan, 1950), 465-66; Stanley Fowler Wright, The Collection and Disposal of the Maritime and Native Customs Revenue since the Revolution of 1911, with an Account of the Loan Services Administered by the Inspector General of Customs (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs, 1927); Yisheng Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhaishi Tongjiziliao: 1853-1927 (Historical Statistics on Foreign Debt in Modern China) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962) ; Academia Sinica (AS) 03/20, collected documents, telegrams, and letters, “Gesheng jiekuan (Provincial Loans),” 1913-1923. 13 Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 22; Duara: 132-58; McCord, 17-45, 80-118; Scalapino and Yu, 271-88, 93-302; Sheridan, 35-40; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 71-81; van de Ven: 829-68. 14 Michael A. Barnhart, Japan and the World since 1868 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 3132; Warren I. Cohen, America's Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations, 4th ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 47; Immanuel C. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 484-87; Michael H. Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 194; Shiming Lin, Yihetuan shibian qijian Dongnan hubao yundong zhi yanjiu (Research on the Southeast Mutual Protection Movement during the Boxer Incident) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1980), 1-6, 52-134; Denis Crispin Twitchett and John King Fairbank, The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 123-24; Liangsheng Zheng, Zhong Ri Guanxishi (History of Sino-Japanese Relations) (Taibei: Wunan tushu chuban gongsi, 2001), 387-89; Wang Jiatang, “1900 Nian 5 Yue 21 Ri Wang Jiatang zhi Liu Kunyi hangao shu hou (Letter from Wang Jiatang to Liu Kunyi),” Jindaishi ziliao (Documents on Modern History), No. 74 (1989): 168-176. 15 Cohen, 47; Hunt, 194; Lin, 67-120; Zheng, 387-89.

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By securing guarantees of non-intervention from the foreign powers, regional administrations in south and central China avoided the invasions and occupations that befell north China during the Boxer episode.16 By doing so, however, these provincial and regional officials clearly departed from the Qing court’s imperial decree to support the Boxers and declare war on the major foreign powers active in China.17 The success of the Dongnan hubao highlighted the capacity of regional and provincial authorities to act independently of the central government. Beijing’s inability to rein in regions and provinces in south and central China signaled a clear decline of imperial control over the Chinese polity. Without the acquiescence, if not outright support, of provincial and regional authorities, the Qing court found it increasingly difficult to enforce its writ over the population. Despite the decentralization of government capacities, however, the Qing court managed to maintain its authority over regional and provincial administrations until the 1911 Revolution. Keeping the disparate parts of China together despite the decline in central capabilities was the loyalty and submission of various governors and governors-general to the Qing court. Here, I am distinguishing authority— influence over and the acknowledged submission by subordinates—from the previously discussed issue of capability—the ability to pursue and implement a certain course of action.18 So long as Qing authority persisted, power holders in Beijing—such as the Empress Dowager, Cixi (慈禧 1835-1908), and later the Prince Regent, Zai Feng (愛新覺羅．載灃 1883-1951)—could change and even remove top officials in various localities. An official as important and influential as Yuan Shikai (袁世凱 1859-1916), then Governor-General of Zhili and Beiyang Minister, could be made to retire by Zai Feng and his associates in the years between Cixi’s death and the 1911 Revolution.19 By the final years of the Qing, then, central government rule depended on the institutional capacities of various regional and provincial administrations as well as 16

Lin, 52-120. The leaders of the Dongnan hubao essentially proclaimed the imperial decree declaring support for the Boxers and war against the foreign powers to be unauthentic. Heading the Dongnan Hubao were some of the most important Qing officials of the day, including Liangguang GovernorGeneral, Li Hongzhang, Huguang Governor-General, Zhang Zhidong, Liangjiang GovernorGeneral, Liu Kunyi, Minzhe Governor-General, Xu Yingji, Sichuan Governor-General, Kui Jun, Minister of Railroads, Sheng Xuanhuai, and Shandong Governor, Yuan Shikai. Their prominence continued after the Dongnan Hubao. Li even became the court-appointed lead negotiator in talks with the foreign powers after the Boxer Incident, while 1901 saw Yuan’s promotion to the posts of Zhili Governor-General and Beiyang Minister. See, for instance, Lin, 40, 52-134; Wang, “1900 Nian 5 Yue 21 Ri Wang Jiatang zhi Liu Kunyi han’gao shu hou (Letter from Wang Jiatang to Liu Kunyi, 21 May 1900),” Jindaishi ziliao (Documents on Modern History), No. 74 (1989): 168-176. 18 For more extensive treatments of subtle, but highly critical differences between authority, capability—which I take to be synonymous with capacity and ability—and their relation to power, see, for example, the discussions in Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, 1970), 3556; Steven Lukes, Power (New York: New York University Press, 1986). 19 Stephen R. MacKinnon, Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shi-kai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901-1908 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 205-12. 17

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their continued submission and loyalty to the court. The breakdown of the imperial court’s authority following the Wuchang Uprising in October 1911, therefore, triggered the final collapse of the Qing government.20 As regional and provincial governments declared independence from the court in late 1911, the Qing court found its survival increasingly untenable. The final push came when Beiyang military officials, allegedly instigated by Yuan Shikai, indicated their inability to defend the court in a memorial to the Prince Regent.21 This forced the Qing court to announce the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor (宣統 r.1909-1912) and the dissolution of the Qing Empire in early 1912. The erosion of central rule in the late Qing period led to the political fragmentation of the Chinese polity following the fall of the empire.22 Even as Yuan Shikai attempted to re-establish central authority and control after coming to power as President in 1912, regions and provinces provided much of the capacity for an antiYuan opposition. Provincial leaders such as Li Liejun (李烈均 1882-1946) of Jiangxi and Yunnan’s Cai E (蔡鄂 1882-1916), for instance, supplied much of the military forces and leadership in the anti-Yuan Second Revolution in 1913, as well as the Anti-Yuan Campaign of 1916.23 Following the failure of the Second Revolution, Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙 1866-1925) and the Nationalist Party were similarly able to continue their anti-Yuan efforts with the cooperation of regional leaders in south China.24 At the same time, Yuan Shikai’s ability to install himself into the Presidency also rested on the support he was able to muster from military leaders and officials in regions and provinces that submitted to his command. It was through the support of former Beiyang subordinates like Duan Qirui (段祺瑞 1865-1936) and others that Yuan managed to install himself as president as well as defeat opponents like the

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K. C. Chan, “British Policy in the Reorganization Loan to China 1912-13,” Modern Asian Studies 5, no. 4 (1971): 360; Hsü, 546-69; McCord, 66-77, 80-87; Scalapino and Yu, 260-320; Sheridan, 34-35, 44-25. 21 First Historical Archives of China (FHAC) 4/239/533, Duan Qirui et al to the Qing Cabinet, “Shou jiaofu shiyi Diyi Jun zongtong guan Duan Qirui deng dian neige,” December 1911, Bianco, 20; Hsü, 570-72; Sheridan, 32-47; Degang (Tong Te-kong) Tang, Yuan shi dangguo (Yuan as the State) (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2004), 19-28; Katsumi Usui and Pengren Chen, Zhong Ri guanxishi (History of Sino-Japanese Relations) (Taipei: Shuiniu chubanshe, 1990), 20-22; Zengcai Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji (Essays on the History of Sino-British Foreign Relations) (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiyegongsi, 1979), 246-47. 22 McCord, 44-45; Mary Backus Rankin, “State and Society in Early Republican Politics, 191218,” The China Quarterly, no. 150 (1997): 263-74; Julia C. Strauss, Strong Institutions in Weak Polities: State Building in Republican China, 1927-1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Julia C. Strauss, “The Evolution of Republican Government,” The China Quarterly, no. 150 (1997): 329-51; Hans van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic,” The China Quarterly, no. 150 (1997): 357-61. 23 Van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic”: 357. 24 Jerome Ch’en, “Defining Chinese Warlords and Their Factions,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 31, no. 3 (1968).

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Nationalists and others behind the Second Revolution.25 Yet, when regional as well as provincial leaders opposed Yuan’s attempt to enthrone himself as emperor of a new dynasty in 1916, and important Beiyang leaders shied away from giving unequivocal support, Yuan had to concede and annul his ascension.26 Even at the height of his power, Yuan’s central government did not possess unquestioned authority in, much less direct control over, vast areas of China. With the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916, the political fragmentation of the Chinese polity became more extensive even if central government rule persisted, albeit nominally. Without Yuan’s authority, the officials that made up Yuan’s subordinates and primary supporters began to assert their own regional, provincial, and local prerogatives even more. As a result, the regional and provincial militarist cliques began to take on even more prominence than before.27 This was despite the fact that they still formally acknowledged the pre-eminence of the central government in Beijing.28 In general, militarist cliques and their members attempted to guard and expand the areas under their control. Militarist cliques, especially those in north and central China, would also attempt to seize Beijing in order to access additional revenues from foreign loans, as well as funds left over from foreign-administered customs duties after the servicing of external debt.29 These were among the prizes that victory in the many wars between different cliques during the 1910s and 1920s seemed to promise.30 Conflicts among various cliques were not restricted to north and central China. Various militarist cliques in south China likewise fought over territory and resources. Examples include conflicts between the Yunnan, Sichuan, and Hunan militarists, as 25

Bianco, 20-21; Ch’i, 15-16, 151; Hsü, 571-79; Scalapino and Yu, 351-89; Tang, 65-85. Bianco, 21; Hsü, 579-84; Scalapino and Yu, 413-18; Tang, 190-207; Twitchett and Fairbank, Vol. 12, 249-54. 27 Ch’en: 563-600; Ch’i, 10-76; Andrew J. Nathan, Peking Politics, 1918-1923: Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 44-58, 226-61; Lucian W. Pye, Warlord Politics: Conflict and Coalition in the Modernization of Republican China (New York: Praeger, 1971), 13-59; Scalapino and Yu, 405-85; Sheridan, 57-106. The literature on regional administrations is very extensive. Representative works include Leslie H. Dingyan Chen, Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement: Regional Leadership and Nation Building in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor: Centre for Chinese Studies the University of Michigan, 1999); Donald G. Gillin, Warlord: Yen Hsi-Shan in Shansi Province, 1911-1949 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967); Diana Lary, Region and Nation: The Kwangsi Clique in Chinese Politics, 1925-1937 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); James E. Sheridan, Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yü-Hsiang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966); Donald S. Sutton, Provincial Militarism and the Chinese Republic: The Yunnan Army, 1905-25 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980) 28 Qifang Li, Zhong E guanxishi (History of Sino-Russian Relations) (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshiyegongsi, 2000), 389-98; Pye, 3-12, 77-153. 29 Ch’i, 153-54, 56-60; Nathan, 59-64; Pye, 77-112, 32-66. 30 Ch’i, 153-60; Nathan, 59-64; Pye, 21-23, 132-53; Scalapino and Yu, 426-51, 63-77; Sheridan, China in Disintegration; Sheridan, Chinese Warlord, 120-48. 26

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well as between the militarists controlling Jiangxi and Fujian.31 Relying as they did on support and cooperation from various militarists during this time, the Nationalists were often involved in such conflicts as well. Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalists relied on Chen Jiongming (陳炯明 1878-1933) to seize Guangzhou in 1917 in the attempt to set up the southern Guangzhou National Government there to rival the central government in Beijing.32 When Chen and Sun had a falling out in 1920, the Nationalists allied themselves with the Guangxi Clique to expel Chen from Guangzhou in 1922.33 Relations within the various militarist cliques were also problematic. Allies would often defect and subordinates turn against their ostensible superiors.34 Such defections could even at times determine the outcome of major conflicts. Liu Xun’s (劉勳 ?-?) unwillingness to pit his forces against his old Zhili Clique allies, for instance, contributed to the defeat of the Anfu Clique in the Zhili-Anfu War of 1920.35 Similarly, Feng Yuxiang’s (馮玉祥 1882-1948) defection in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War of 1924 was an important factor in the defeat of Zhili forces and the rise of the Fengtian clique to national prominence.36 For their part, even the Nationalists were prone to internal divisions. Among the key reasons for ongoing Nationalist re-organization efforts after 1912 was to address the many serious party splits that became increasingly apparent following Yuan Shikai’s bid for absolute power. 37 This instability in relations among and within regional and provincial political groupings indicates a fracturing of authority that extended into China’s regions and provinces. COMMON UNDERSTANDINGS AND T HEIR CONSTRAINTS Many studies of politics and rule in late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury China tend to emphasize either fragmentary or integrative pressures even though both sets of dynamics were simultaneously at work. Such perspectives leave open questions about why and how centripetal forces co-existed with countervailing 31

Ch’i, 207-08; Pye, 13-38. Chen, Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement, 47-163. 33 Ch’i, 215; Lary, 58-63; Nathan, 201, 05. 34 See Bianco, 21-22; Billingsley: 235-84; McCord, 33-45, 220-27, 51-52; Pye, 13-59, 77-112, 3253. 35 See Jianlin Guo, Tang Aimin, Su Quanyou, Qi Qingchang, Minchu Beiyang san da neizhan jishi (Records on the Three Major Beiyang Civil Wars during the Early Republic) (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2003), 87-88; Pye, 18-21. 36 Gillin, 23-24; Guo, 317-38, 48-52; Nathan, 220, 33, 61; Pye, 25-31; Sheridan, Chinese Warlord, 132-47; Hans J. Van de Ven, War and Nationalism in China, 1925-1945 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 77-78, 85; Arthur Waldron, From War to Nationalism: China's Turning Point, 19241925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 117-18, 81-207. 37 McCord, 164-72; Nathan, 59-90; Ernest P. Young, “Politics in the Aftermath of the Revolution: The Era of Yuan Shih-K’ai, 1912 - 1916,” in Cambridge History of China, Vol. 12, Republican China, 1912 - 1949, ed. Denis Crispin Twitchett and John King Fairbank (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai. 32

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centrifugal influences over a period spanning several decades and regimes, which is the core issue this piece addresses. I briefly go over and engage several common understandings prominent in the literature on governance in China from the end of the Qing through the beginning of the Republican eras in the following section. Accounts that examine political reform as a response to wars with foreign powers, internal rebellions, natural disasters, and population pressures rightly point to the rise of regional administrative, extractive, and coercive capacities relative to the central government. It does appear that attempts by the Qing court to devolve the burdens of governance to regional and provincial governments allowed for the development of coercive as well as extractive and other revenue-producing capacities that lay outside Beijing’s direct control.38 Such capabilities afforded regional and provincial governments substantial autonomy in their actions, even to the extent of contravening the wishes of the central government in Beijing. Focusing on the fragmentary aspects of governance in the late Qing and early Republican periods, however, leaves the persistence of even nominal central government rule unexplained. After all, the logical conclusion of various regions and provinces increasingly pulling away from the centre would be the disintegration of the Chinese polity. As Edward McCord suggests, broad recognition of Qing authority among regional, provincial, and even local officials existed through the last years of the dynasty even if Beijing’s ability to exert direct oversight in various locales was by then severely diminished.39 Similarly, despite incessant fighting among those in control of the central government and various regional regimes during the early Republic, attempts to eradicate the central government altogether were notably absent. Conflicts like the Second Revolution, Anti-Yuan Campaign, North-South War, Zhili-Anfu War, and Zhili-Fengtian Wars were in part over control of the central government rather than its dissolution.40 Conversely, analyses looking at the robustness of Qing authority through the eve of the 1911 Revolution do well in underscoring the persistence and pervasiveness of central government influence across China until the end of the dynasty.41 Regional and provincial leaders did submit themselves to Beijing’s authority until the Revolution and subsequently under Yuan Shikai’s presidency. In a diminished sense, the authority of the central government even persisted into the second decade of the twentieth century.

38

Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State, 1-24, 114-35; Luo, Huaijun Zhi; Luo, Lüying bingzhi; Luo, Xiangjun xinzhi; McCord, 80-118; Michael. 39 McCord, 17-79. 40 Note that this view may be more representative of the behavior of militarists in northern China, on whom there is more published research, than their counterparts in southern China. Ch’i, 153-60; Nathan, 59-64; Pye, 13-38, 132-53; Scalapino and Yu, 426-51, 63-77; Sheridan, China in Disintegration; Sheridan, Chinese Warlord, 120-48; van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic”: 357. 41 See for example, Ch’i, 10-15; MacKinnon, 62-212; McCord, 17-79.

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Concentrating on the prominence of the central government during the final years of the Qing and under Yuan Shikai, as well as the growing political divisions in China thereafter, nonetheless, does not fully address the nature of governance between 1893 and 1922. Such an approach tends to downplay the rise of regional and provincial abilities to defy Beijing during the late Qing, just as it has a propensity to under-appreciate continuities in central government authority in the subsequent Yuan Shikai and Beiyang periods. It seems surprising that the Dongnan hubao and the antiQing militarization of regional governments on the eve of the 1911 Revolution could take place if central government rule was truly robust. Just as under-explained is why the local, provincial, and regional militarists behind China’s growing fragmentation during the early Republic did not pursue a more complete dismantling of the central government in favor of separate states. Notably, official titles and positions bestowed on various militarist leaders by the central government after the 1911 Revolution even appeared to confer an air of seeming prestige and legitimacy regardless of the regime in Beijing.42 Nationalist perspectives seem to offer promise in laying out the concurrent existence of centralizing and fragmentary tendencies in late Qing and early Republican China. It is possible that some nascent sense of common identity provided a degree of motivation to political actors from regional leaders and militarist cliques to political parties to resist greater degeneration of central rule in the face of internal as well as external pressures. This desire is evident in the various efforts by Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui, Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalists, as well as the intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement to push for greater political centralization in their own disparate ways.43 At the same time, disagreements among these local political groups over who was to manage a unified Chinese state and determine the distribution of surpluses within the polity could possibly stymie greater political centralization. Such a dynamic is clear in the stand-offs between the Nationalist-led Southern government and the northern governments of Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui, and Li Yuanhong (黎元洪 1864-1928) as well as between Sun Yat-sen and his erstwhile ally, Chen Jiongming.44 Yet, in stopping short of addressing how various local groups acquired the ability to affect domestic politics, the picture presented by the nationalist view remains incomplete. In the end, ideology alone does not produce financing, weapons, training, or organizational capacity, suggesting that nationalist beliefs require other forces in order to be effective. Moreover, when looking at issues like the sources of funding, arms, as well as military training, groups proclaiming a nationalist agenda seem as willing to sacrifice national interests to foreign powers as their domestic 42

Ch’i, 15-35, 190-95; McCord, 172-98; Nathan, 59-90; Sheridan, China in Disintegration, 52-54, 84; Waldron, “The Warlord.” 43 Ch’i, 190-95; McCord; Nathan, 158-62; Pye, 113-31; Scalapino and Yu, 451-63, 86-626; Usui and Chen, 1-3, 39-51, 88-118, 216-27, 77-361. 44 Ch’i, 207-08, 15; Nathan, 201, 05; Pye, 16-23.

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opponents. 45 To acquire funds for their Guangzhou National Government, for example, Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalists were apparently ready to exchange railroad, mining, forestry, and minting rights for Japanese funding and arms.46 HOW E XTERNAL INTERVENTION KEPT CHINA WHOLE Given the above discussion, I think it important to re-visit the role of major power intervention to better appreciate the concurrent fragmentation and centralization of China in the late Qing and early Republic. Apart from its traditionally ascribed function of abetting fractionalization, external intervention contributed substantially to holding China together between 1893 and 1922. Undoubtedly, outside financing, advice, and supplies clearly gave actors in the provinces and regions the capacity to pull away from central government control. However, by channeling funds, arms, and political support to China’s central government and those leading it, external interference also helped prevent the total collapse of political centralization and the disintegration of the Chinese polity. MAJOR POWER INFLUENCE AND THE PERSISTENCE OF CENTRAL AUTHORITY For all the effects the major outside powers had on escalating political fragmentation, external involvement was central to maintaining what central authority remained within the Chinese polity. Driven by a desire to maintain access to Chinese markets and resources at minimal cost, for instance, the American government 45

Ch’i, 157-58; Nathan, 61-64, 75-81; Thomas G. Rawski, Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 1-64; Richardson, 88-92; Dixin Xu and Chengming Wu, Jiu minzhuzhuyi geming shiqi di Zhongguo zibenzhuyi (Chinese Capitalism during the Old Nationalist Revolution Period) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1990), 333-501, 27-76; Dixin Xu and Chengming Wu, Xin minzhuzhuyi geming shiqi di Zhongguo zibenzhuyi (Chinese Capitalism during the New Nationalist Revolution Period) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993), 22-58; Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhai shi tongji ziliao, 4-11, 22-58, 98-100; AS 03/02/090, “Youdian jiaoshe,” 1914, AS 03/20/045, “Wan sheng Yida yanghang jiekuan (Anhui loans from the Yida (Foreign) Company),” September 1916, AS 02/04/041, “Shanxi kuangwu (Mining affairs in Shanxi),” July 1914; AS 03/03/002, “Zhong Mei kuangwu (Sino-American mining affairs),” 1921; AS 03/03/018, “Zhong Ri kuangwu jiaoshe (Sino-Japanese negotiations over mining affairs),” 1914, AS 03/03/043, “Kuangwu zaxiang (Miscellaneous mining affairs),” 1922-1923; AS 03/02/071, “Wuxiandian zajian (Assorted documents on wireless systems),” October 1917; AS 03/30/24, “Makeni wuxiandiangongsi jiekuan’an (Loans from the Marconi Wireless Company),” 1918-1925. 46 Barnhart, 48, 55; Marius B. Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-Sen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954); Usui and Chen, 3-6; Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhaishi tongjiziliao, 224-29, AS 03/20/039, “Gesheng jiekuan,” 1923; AS 03/20/042, “Min Yue jiekuan’an (Loans by Fujian and Guangdong),” 1922-1924; AS 03/20/041/01/023, Letter from the Office of the Duban for War Participation to the Foreign Ministry, “Sun Wen yü Riben Taiping gongsi dijie junqi jiekuan ci shi nengfou shefa jinzu xicha heban liyou (Request to study possibilities for stopping the armament loans from the Taihei Corporation to Sun Wen),” July 1921; AS 03/20/053/01/017, “Riren zai Hu shoumai Guangdong Junzhengfu gongzaipiao fu chazhao you (On responding to Japanese nationals in Shanghai purchasing bonds from the Guangdong Military Government),” October 1918; Second Historical Archives of China (SHAC) 18/3043, Gu Weijun (Wellington V.K. Koo), “Memorandum on Japan’s Plots and Schemes against the Unification of China, Document 12,” June 1932.

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advanced an Open Door approach to China between late 1899 and 1900 at British instigation and initial Japanese support. 47 Effectively a continuation of Britain’s China policy, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay’s “Open Door Notes” advocated equal, non-exclusive access among the external powers through the preservation of Chinese sovereignty as vested in the Qing Court. Hay highlighted Washington’s opposition to any formal portioning of China, and argued that competition for exclusive access was likely to raise tensions among the foreign actors in China and ultimately be detrimental to the interests of all the major powers. By actively discouraging other powers from establishing colonies or exclusive foreign-run regions after the Qing defeat in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War, such combined opposition to partition helped prevent the formal division of the Chinese polity.48 That several major powers opposed the overt division of the China constrained the ambitions of those external actors more inclined toward the establishment of an exclusive hold over parts of the polity in the three decades following the Sino-Japanese War. Given a belief about the need to secure an ice-free port, a shorter land route to Siberia, and a strategic buffer zone, both Tsarist and later Bolshevik leaders saw a need to exclude other major powers from areas of China bordering Russia.49 These included Manchuria, Mongolia, as well as Xinjiang. In Berlin and Paris, the anticipated gains from blocking rivals from markets, raw materials, and, in the case of France, colonies in Indochina similarly led political elites to favor 47

London was unwilling to invest more toward competing in China as the 1899-1902 Boer War left it in a financial crisis while costly efforts to colonize the Philippines tied Washington’s hands. Until World War I, Japanese leaders did not wish to intervene more robustly in China given fears that the other powers would jointly oppose them, as was the case during the 1896 Triple Intervention. Each of these capitals even saw intervention during the Boxer Episode as a strain on their already strained capabilities. Barnhart, 19-28, 43-45, 57, 62-71; Cohen, 36-43, 53-57, 63-64, 67; Hunt, 182, 96, 202-07; Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific: An Inner History of American-East Asian Relations (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1967), 87-88, 99-133, 42-45; Thomas David Schoonover, Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 66-75, 89-96, 113-21; Yu Shen, Riben dalu zhengceshi, 1868-1945 (History of Japan's Mainland Policy, 1868-1945) (Beijing: Shehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 157, 23744; Usui and Chen, 28-46, 113-16, 52-62, 228-39; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 133-41, 5586; Zheng, 351-57, 407-08, 63-75. 48 Ch’i, 121; Kirby: 456-57; Twitchett and Fairbank, Vol. 11, 109-15, 27-30; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 220-26; Tim Wright, “Sino-Japanese Business in China: The Luda Company, 1921-1937,” The Journal of Asian Studies 39, no. 4 (1980): 711-27. 49 Fudan daxue. Sha E qin Hua shi (History of Tsarist Russia's Invasion of China) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1986), 414-53; William C. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 (New York: Free Press, 1992), 328-29, 50-451; Li, 265-312, 41-98; Ernest Mason Satow and George Alexander Lensen, Korea and Manchuria between Russia and Japan, 18951904: The Observations of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan (1895-1900) and China (1900-1906) (Tallahassee: Diplomatic Press, 1966), 43-100, 220-82; David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), 24-103; David Wolff, “Russia Finds Its Limits: Crossing Borders into Manchuria,” in Rediscovering Russia in Asia: Siberia and the Russian Far East, ed. Stephen Kotkin and David Wolff (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 40-52.

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exclusive rights accordingly in Shandong and Southwest China.50 However, because the leaders of the various powers wished to avoid a major conflict in the area, they settled for establishing small, albeit strategic, leasehold territories and less intrusive spheres of influence.51

50

Anthony B. Chan, Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 19201928 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), 54-55, 63, 83-84, 102-04; Ch’i, 121; China. Dept. of Railways and Ching-ch’un Wang, Railway Loan Agreements of China (Peking: Railway Association, 1916), 719-58; Philip Joseph, Foreign Diplomacy in China, 1894-1900: A Study in Political and Economic Relations with China (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1928), 124-87; Charles Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 210-11, 385-417; D. C. M. Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 276-307; Qingdao shi bowuguan et al., Deguo qinzhan Jiaozhouwan shiliaoxuanbian, 1897-1898 (Historical Materials on the German invasion of Jiaozhou Bay) (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1987), 402-08; Jack L. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 97-99; Tennan Tahara, “Occupation and Relations Amongst the Great Powers (1913),” in Foreign Diplomacy in China, 1894-1900: A Study in Political and Economic Relations with China, ed. Philip Joseph (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928), 189-217; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 81-89, 100-05, 206-20; Zhu, 131-46, 323-456; AS 01/21/056/03, Correspondence between French and Chinese officials, “Zhong Fa tongshang zhangcheng; xüyi jiewu zhuantiao; Zhong Fa Dian Yue; bianjie lianjie dianxian zhangcheng (Sino-French trade and commerce regulations; special arrangements on the continuation of border affairs; Sino-French relations over Yunnan and Vietnam; regulations on the connection of electrical cables along borders),” October 1913 – January 1914; AS 03/05/065, Correspondence between the Ministry of Communications and the Foreign Ministry, “Zhong Mei, Zhong Fa, Zhong Ao tielushiyi (Sino-American, Sino-French, and Sino-Austrian railroad matters),” 1923; AS 03/18/101/01/009 – 011, Telegrams between the Foreign Ministry and the Governor of Yunnan, “Dian Yue gongsi bao yun zhayao ying zhao ci bu dingban fazhi shiyong cunchu gejie ying zhaozhang qudi (Ministerial Regulations on the use and storage of explosives imported by the Yunnan-Vietnam Corporation must take precedence),” November 1912. 51 Even the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War was a limited conflict in that both belligerents tried to quickly secure a peace settlement, and even began to cooperate in regulating access over northern China soon after the fighting ended. The 1907, 1909, 1912, and 1916 secret Russo-Japanese agreements over the creation of special rights over Manchuria and Mongolia best exemplify RussoJapanese collaboration in this regard. Barnhart, 38-44, 54, 60-63; Iriye, 99-102, 31; Li, 254-83, 329-65; Shen, Riben dalu zhengceshi, 135-37; Usui and Chen, 107-13, 329-65; Zheng, 445-52, 530-34; AS 03/32/036/01/004, Telegram from Secretary Zheng in Russia to the Foreign Ministry, “Zhong E shangding miyue shi (Matters relating to Sino-Russian negotiations over a secret treaty),” May 1918; AS 03/32/078, Correspondence amongst the Foreign Ministry, various foreign embassies in China, and Chinese consulates abroad, “Zhong Ri gongtong fangdi (Sino-Japanese mutual defense),” April 1918; AS 03/32/517, Correspondence between the Executive Secretariat and Foreign Ministry, “E yu Riben dingyue” (Russian treaties with Japan), August 1921; AS 03/33/078, Exchanges amongst the Foreign Ministry, Japanese Embassy, Russian Embassy, and Chinese embassies abroad, “Ri E xieyue (Russo-Japanese Agreements),” July 1916 – June 1917; SHAC 18/3440, “Zhong E jiejue xuan'an dagang zhan xingying guanli Zhongdong tielu xieding qi fujian (Outline of Sino-Russian solution to county issues, field headquarters to temporarily manage the Chinese Central Railway),” 1924; SHAC 18/3440, “Zhong E xieshang wenjian (Documents from Sino-Russian negotiations),” 1924.

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Going into the Republican era, then, external pressure was key to bringing about negotiations and pauses in fighting that helped prevent the total collapse of central authority on several occasions. These included the 1912 North-South Armistice (南北議和 Nanbei yihe) between the “independent” revolutionary provincial regimes and non-revolutionary forces, which permitted the creation of Yuan Shikai’s presidency after the collapse of the Qing regime.52 Similarly, insistence by external powers, particularly Britain and the United States, through diplomatic pressure on the various belligerents, notably the Beijing government under the Duan Qirui cabinet, gave rise to the 1919 Shanghai Peace Conference (上海和會 Shanghai hehui).53 This stalled an exacerbation of the armed conflict resulting from Duan Qirui’s armed unification efforts between 1918 and 1919. In helping to compel Yuan Shikai and Zhang Xun (張勳 1853-1923) to retreat respectively from imperial ascendancy and restoring the Qing, joint foreign political pressure too was useful in defusing threats to central authority caused by strong domestic resistance to such moves.54 Foreign involvement was also important in making the continued survival of central political authority, even in reduced form, attractive to the many competing factions within China. Since only central governments in Beijing received official foreign diplomatic recognition, actors holding sway in the capital could claim political legitimacy.55 This enabled those who controlled the Beijing government to negotiate over foreign loans, railroads, as well as treaty ports, and even confer official recognition on regional regimes around the country.56 Such status, at the very least, allowed groups to manipulate domestic politics by playing to nationalist feelings or showing support to particular actors. More importantly, control of the central government enabled access to large external loans secured on national assets like the railroads under the Ministry of Communications, as well as surpluses from customs and salt revenues remitted 52

Chan, Arming the Chinese, 2; Chan, “British Policy in the Reorganization Loan to China 1912-13”: 355-72; Usui and Chen, 26-42; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 233-50. 53 Another term for the 1919 Shanghai Peace Conference is the “North-South Armistice of 1919” (Minguo 8 nian nanbei yihe). I do not use this term to avoid confusion with the similarly named 1912 event. Chan, Arming the Chinese, 33-39; Nathan, 129-30, 42-43, 51; Usui and Chen, 204-07. 54 Chan, Arming the Chinese, 8-9; Usui and Chen, 124-41. 55 Chan, Arming the Chinese, 33-38; Nathan, 59-64; Pye, 13-59, 77-166. 56 Ch’i, 156-57; Nathan, 59-64; SHAC 1039/553, “Zhong E xieyue, E yue yanjiuhui yiji luji Zhong E huiyi cankaoziliao (Minutes of meetings on Sino-Russian Negotiations, studies of the Russian Treaty, and reference materials for Sino-Russian meetings),” 1919; SHAC 1039/553, “Zhong wai tiaoyue, geguo guanyu Zhongguo suoding xieyue, geguo yuezhang chuanyao, Zhong wai yuezhang zhaiyao deng wenjian (China’s external treaties, agreements among all countries regarding China, key summary of agreements among all countries and China’s external treaties)”; SHAC 1039/559, “Zhong Ri gezhong tiaoyue, tongshang hangchuan xinyue ji ci Zhong Ri Meng Man tiaoyue shanhou huiyi jueyi’an deng zhajian (Assorted records on the Sino-Japanese Treaties, new commercial and navigation treaty and the follow-up to the second Sino-Japanese treaty on Mongolia and Manchuria)”; SHAC 1039/560, “Geguo guanyu Zhongguo suoding tiaoyue deng wenjian (Documents on treaties relating to China by all countries),” 1919.

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exclusively to the central government. 57 Such income could greatly enhance the fortunes of whoever controlling Beijing. Central government status also increased the availability of foreign loans and arms, given the presence of foreign embargoes on arms and foreign loans to non-official groups in China, whatever their limited effects.58 The approaches that external powers adopted toward China made seizure of the central government into a prize domestic political actors could come to acquire. As such, groups with major political pretensions were unwilling to see the disappearance of all central authority. INTERVENTION AND THE POLITICS OF FRAGMENTATION Nevertheless, external intervention was evidently a key driver behind the rising ability of a growing number of actors in China to accumulate capital and coercion between 1893 and 1922. This contributed significantly to the ability of regional regimes to resist the central government. Foreign funds and expertise supported efforts at economic, administrative, and military modernization throughout early twentieth-century China. From foreign investments to direct loans and the floating of bonds, external financing was central to the projects that defined official-led economic modernization in China since the mid-nineteenth century. These included telegraph networks, mines, shipyards, and arsenals.59 Critically, many of the assets resulting from these modernization efforts fell under the direct management of various regional governor-generalships and provincial governorships rather than the central government. This availed regional and provincial jurisdictions to important and substantial infusions of capital and financial resources independent of the central government. Much of the capital of the Hanyeping Company was provided by loans from British, French, Russian, German, and Japanese firms through the support of their respective governments, just as foreign funds accounted for a significant proportion of the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company’s capital.60 Borrowed funds provided for the creation and operation of 57

Nathan, 60-64; Pye, 132-53; Jonathan D. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (Boston: Little, 1969), 93-128; Wright, The Collection and Disposal of the Maritime and Native Customs Revenue since the Revolution of 1911, 161-92. 58 Chan, Arming the Chinese, 59-65; Cun’gong Chen, Lieqiang dui Zhongguo di junhuojinyun: Minguo 8 nian - 18 nian (The Great Powers and their Arms Embargo on China, 1919-1929) (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiu suo, 1983), 68-75; SHAC 1039/553, “Zhong wai tiaoyue, geguo guanyu Zhongguo suoding xieyue, geguo yuezhang chuanyao, Zhong wai yuezhang zhaiyao deng wenjian (China’s external treaties, agreements among all countries regarding China, key summary of agreements among all countries and China’s external treaties).” 59 Clarence B. Davis, “Financing Imperialism: British and American Bankers as Vectors of Imperial Expansion in China, 1908-1920,” The Business History Review 56, no. 2 (1982): 236-64; Scalapino and Yu, 63-64; Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhaishi Tongjiziliao, 6-11, 28-57. 60 Albert Feuerwerker, China’s Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-Huai (1844-1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 124-37; Xu, Zhongguo Jindai Waizhai Shi Tongji Ziliao, 36-54; AS 03/03/030, “Hanyeping Gongsi’an (Case of the Hanyeping Company),” 1912. For further examples of the heavy external influence in China’s economic

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the Jiangnan Arsenal and Shipyards under the Liangjiang Governor-Generalship, while German, French, and British financing helped pay for the development of the Beiyang Army and Navy.61 Apart from infusing financial support, therefore, outside backing also gave political actors in China means to generate additional revenues. Simultaneously, development and industrialization projects drew heavily on the expertise provided by foreign governments through official and unofficial advisors. Throughout the last years of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, modern economic concerns in China relied heavily on foreign training, advisors, and consultants.62 British and American engineers, for instance, operated the Beijing-Hankou-Guangdong Railroad, while French experts managed the Sichuan-Yunnan-Guangxi railroads.63 This was despite the fact the Chinese central government ostensibly owned these rail lines. Critically, the collection of taxes along railroads in the various provinces and regions, such as the lines above, were as well important sources of funds for actors in control of local regimes. External funding was also important to other modern industrial projects in various parts of China. These included British as well as later American and Japanese loans that went toward the construction of telegraph networks and the development of air transport in various locales across the policy, notably in East and South China.64 The development of modern mining concerns around China, which involved revenue sharing arrangements with the provincial administrations under whose jurisdictions the various mines fell, likewise witnessed substantial foreign financial modernization, see Chan, “British Policy in the Reorganization Loan to China 1912-13”: 356-57; Hu and Dai, 406-08; Kirby: 456-57; Wright, “Sino-Japanese Business in China”: 711-27. 61 Kam-keung Lee, Lau Yee-chung, and Mak King-sang [eds.], Jindai Zhongguo haifang-junshi yu jingji (Coastal Defense and the Maritime Economy of Modern China) (Hong Kong: Xianggang Zhongguo jindaishi xuehui, 1999), 219-31, 35-45; Gang Qian, Da Qing haijun yu Li Hongzhang (The Qing Navy and Li Hongzhang) (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 2004); van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic”: 355-57; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 108-15; Xu, Zhongguo Jindai Waizhai Shi Tongji Ziliao, 4-11, 28-29, 48-57. 62 Tingyi Guo, Jindai Zhongguo di bianju (The Transformation of Modern China) (Taipei: Lianjing chubanshiyegongsi, 1987), 33-47; Iriye, 95-96; Kirby: 456-57; Thomas G. Rawski, China’s Transition to Industrialism: Producer Goods and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980), 6-28; Usui and Chen, 198-200; Liangxing Wang, Jindai Zhongguo duiwaimaoyishi lunji (Essays on External Trade in Modern China) (Taipei: Zhishu shufang chubanshe, 1997), 249-93; Xu and Wu, Jiu minzhuzhuyi gemingshiqi di Zhongguo zibenzhuyi, 22-58, 333-501; Xu and Wu, Xin minzhuzhuyi geming shiqi di Zhongguo zibenzhuyi, 22-58. 63 Chan, “British Policy in the Reorganization Loan to China 1912--13”: 358-59; Iriye, 80, 95-96; Wang, Jindai Zhongguo duiwaimaoyishi lunji, 256-62; AS 03/05/065, Correspondence between the Ministry of Communications and the Foreign Ministry, “Zhong Mei, Zhong Fa, Zhong Ao tielu shiyi,” 1923. 64 Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 108-20; Guangqiu Xu, “American-British Aircraft Competition in South China, 1926-1936,” Modern Asian Studies 35, no. 1 (2001); KMTPA Benbu 13299.2, “British Imperialism in China,” November 18, 1924; AS 01/21/056/03, Correspondence between French and Chinese officials, “Zhong Fa tongshang zhangcheng; xüyi jiewu zhuantiao; Zhong Fa Dian Yue; bianjie lianjie dianxian zhangcheng,” October 1913 – January 1914,

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backing.65 Notably, even though much external financing came from corporations, many had official ties, and still more secured business in China through the political support exerted by their respective home governments. Foreign involvement went beyond helping to create the economic bases behind the rise of regional and provincial regimes. External actors also helped regional and provincial regimes to acquire and develop the means of force and coercion. German, British, and Japanese arms, equipment, as well military and technical expertise had, after all, provided foundations for the various regional New Armies established in the last decade of Qing rule.66 The Beiyang Army and Navy, for example, were built with expertise, technology equipment, and, to some degree, funds from Germany, France, and Britain.67 New Armies under the other governors-general and governors elsewhere in China were likewise established on foreign advice and funding. This pattern of using foreign loans and expertise to build up regional and military capabilities expanded into the 1910s and early 1920s. After all, as internal conflicts mounted following the fall of the Qing court in 1912, so did the demand for arms and war materiel.68 In examining the early twentieth-century arms trade in China, Anthony Chan notes that few domestic arsenals produced armaments of adequate quality and in sufficient quantity to equip the various armies across the polity by the 1910s.69 Even the largest and most advanced arsenals at Shenyang, Taiyuan, and Hanyang were only capable of arming little more than a regiment or at most a brigade. Moreover, 65

AS 02/04/041, “Shanxi kuangwu (Mining affairs in Shanxi),” July 1914, AS 03/03/002, “Zhong Mei kuangwu (Sino-American mining affairs),” 1921; AS 03/03/018, “Zhong Ri kuangwu jiaoshe (Sino-Japanese negotiations over mining affairs),” 1914; AS 03/03/043, “Kuangwu zaxiang (Miscellaneous mining issues),” 1922-1923; AS 03/02/071, “Wuxiandian zajian (Assorted documents on wireless systems),” October 1917; AS 03/30/24, “Makeni wuxiandiangongsi jiekuan’an (Loans from the Marconi Wireless Company),” 1918-1925; AS 01/21/056/03, Correspondence between French and Chinese officials, “Zhong Fa tongshang zhangcheng; xüyi jiewu zhuantiao; Zhong Fa Dian Yue; bianjie lianjie dianxian zhangcheng,” October 1913 – January 1914. 66 Ch’i, 107; McCord, 31-39; Stanley Spector, Li Hung-Chang and the Huai Army: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Regionalism, University of Washington Publications on Asia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964), 162-94; Twitchett and Fairbank, 204-11, 47-50, 57-58, 69; Tonghe Weng and Wango H. C. Weng, Jiawu zhanzheng (The First Sino-Japanese War) (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 2003), 53-56, 227-44, AS 02/10/005, “Ri E zhanzheng hou Dongbei, Neidi fangwu (Defense matters in the Northeast and Inland areas after the Russo-Japanese War),” 19061907; AS 02/02/002, “Goumai junhuo (Arms purchases),” 1906-1908, AS 02/01/002, “Yunru junhuo (Arms imports),” 1909; AS 02/10/010, “Dongbei Zhili fangwu (Defense matters in the Northeast and Zhili), ” April-June 1908; AS 03/011/016, “Geguan huiwu wenda (Questions and answers from meetings with various consulates),” 1913. 67 Lee, 219-31, 35-45; Qian; van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic,” 355-57; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 108-15; Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhaishi tongjiziliao, 6-11, 28-29, 48-57. 68 Chan, Arming the Chinese, 67-108; Chen, Lieqiang dui Zhongguo di junhuojinyun, 8-19; Ch’i, 116-42; AS 03/011/016, “Geguan huiwu wenda (Questions and answers from meetings with various consulates), ” 1913; AS 03/20/011, “Shanhou dajiekuan’an (Re-organization Loan),” 1913. 69 Chan, Arming the Chinese, 110-15; Ch’i, 78.

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the quality of their output was apparently inferior to used foreign equipment.70 This gave foreign suppliers a void to fill. Supplying various local Chinese regimes with arms, equipment, and military expertise was exactly what foreign vendors did. Through official agents working out of the legations as well as more shady middlemen, weapons, ammunition, and equipment from Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere began to flow to the various regional and provincial authorities.71 From north to south, militarists and nationalists were fighting and killing with foreign sourced arms, ammunition, and equipment. The Fengtian Clique and the Anfu Clique under Duan Qirui, for instance, received much of their funding, military training, and war material from Japan.72 These included active strategic as well as tactical advice, light arms, heavy machine guns, artillery, and even light aircraft. The French provided similar forms of assistance to Tang Jiyao (唐繼堯 1883-1927) in Yunnan and Lu Rongting (陸榮廷 1856-1927) in Guangxi, while Soviet Russia later did the same with Feng Yuxiang’s Guominjün in Northwest China and the Chinese Nationalists in Guangdong.73 In short, the ability 70

Chan, Arming the Chinese, 114. Chan, Arming the Chinese, 49-65, 75-91; Chen, Lieqiang dui Zhongguo di junhuojinyun, 19-31; AS 03/18, “Junhuojinyun (Arms Embargo),”1912, AS 02/01/002, “Yunru junhuo,” 1909; AS 03/20/008, “Zhongyang jiekuan (Central [government] loans),” 1919; AS 03/20/039/04, “Min Yue Xiang Dian Su Lu deng sheng shanxing jie waizhai’an (Unauthorized loans by Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan, Yunnan, Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces),” 1913. 72 Li, 249-84, 306-11; Usui and Chen, 3-6, 22-26, 78-98, 145-90; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 76-115, 28-32, 92-97; Wright, “Sino-Japanese Business in China”: 711-27; Xu, Zhongguo jindai waizhaishi tongjiziliao, 30-33, 42-45, 116-23, 48-89.; SHAC 18/3043, Wellington V.K. Koo, “Memorandum on Japan’s Plots and Schemes against the Unification of China, Document No. 12, Peiping,” June 1932. 73 Austen Chamberlain, “Foreign Office Memorandum of January 8, 1930, on British Policy in China [F 6720/3/10],” in Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, ed. Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office., E. L. Woodward, et al. (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1946), 7-10; Chan, Arming the Chinese, 54-55, 63, 83-84, 102-04; Ch’i, 121; Liu and Tian, 116-31; Zhu, 131-40; AS 03/20/039/04/011 - 012, Telegram from Governor Wu (Peifu) at Luoyang to the Foreign Ministry, “Tang Jiyao yi ge jiuchang digou qiangdan you (Tang Jiyao using old factories as security for purchases of armaments and ammunition),” April 1923; AS 03/20/039/04/014, 018, Telegram from Governor Wu [Peifu] at Luoyang to the Foreign Ministry, “Yunnan siyungou junhuo shi (On Yunnan’s private purchases of firearms),” May 1923; AS 03/18/101/01, Correspondence between the Foreign Ministry and Yunnan Governor Cai E, “Fa shi qing zhun Yunnan tielu gongsi yunru gongcheng yong zhayao'an (Case of the French ambassador’s request for permission to import explosives for engineering use by the Yunnan Railroad Corporation),” November 1912; AS 01/21/056/03, Correspondence between French and Chinese officials, “Zhong Fa tongshang zhangcheng; xüyi jiewu zhuantiao; Zhong Fa Dian Yue; bianjie lianjie dianxian zhangcheng,” October 1913 – January 1914; AS 03/30/039/04/014 – 018, Telegrams between the Foreign Ministry and the Governor Wu (Peifu) at Luoyang, “Yunnan gou junhuo shi (Matters relating to Yunnan armament acquisitions),” May 1923; AS 03/18/101/01/009 – 011, Telegrams between the Foreign Ministry and the Governor of Yunnan, “Dian Yue gongsi bao yun zhayao ying zhao ci bu dingban fazhi shiyong cunchu gejie ying zhaozhang qudi,” November 1912. 71

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of political actors in early twentieth century China to accrue coercive capabilities rested on their capacity to access external support. Foreign intervention permitted political actors in control of regional and provincial administrations to quickly accrue both capital and coercion. New sources of revenue brought about by external involvement in the economy meant ready funds with which local regimes could easily purchase the tools of coercion. This accelerated the potentially generations-long process of accumulating economic and military capabilities Charles Tilly and others deem as a key to political power. 74 Once centralized Qing authority started to waver increasingly with the Boxer episode, the availability of external economic and military resources enabled those holding sway in various localities to assert their autonomy. External intervention reduced barriers to attaining independent tools of coercion and wealth creation, thus enabling domestic actors to assert their own political prerogatives. After all, leadership and ideological fervor alone could neither produce arms, ammunition, and logistic support, nor pay for functionaries, soldiers, and the circulation of propaganda. This meant that groups in China had a growing ability to face off against threats to their positions within the domestic political milieu, including those that claimed central authority. The numerous civil wars that characterized Chinese politics from Yuan Shikai’s presidency to the Second Zhili-Fengtian War represented this movement toward political decentralization. MAJOR POWER RIVALRIES AND THE FUNDAMENTS OF FRACTURE AND UNITY Sustaining the balance between the crosscutting integrative and fragmentary pressures was the peculiar configuration of external involvement in Chinese domestic politics going into the early 1920s. On one hand, British, American, and, until 1914, Japanese efforts at sustaining non-privileged access among external powers within the polity were more inclined toward shoring up central government authority, regardless of the specific group that held sway. On the other, Russian, German, French, and post-1914 Japanese attempts to directly regulate access over certain regions tended to erode political centralization and the external autonomy of central governments. Critically, however, the needs of imperial defense in addition to growing security concerns in a Europe hurtling towards World War I kept the Russian, German, French, and British governments from being willing to pursue their objectives in China with force.75 Just as crucially, cognizance of relative weakness— and the strength of isolationist sentiments in Washington—led the American and

74

Tilly, 192-201, 18-24. For a contemporaneous perspective, see SHAC 18/3043, Gu, “Memorandum on Japan’s Plots and Schemes against the Unification of China, Document No. 12, Peiping,” June 1932. 75 Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 18951905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), 212-74; Kupchan, 185-213, 385-417; Li; Snyder, 66-111.

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Japanese governments to avoid major power war in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.76 Given their provision of financing, weapons, and equipment to regional regimes, the Russian, French, German, and post-1914 Japanese intercession into Chinese domestic politics were particularly important in eroding political centralization during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such actions gave local political actors running regional regimes the wherewithal to act independently—and even in defiance—of central governments. These outside powers were especially important in providing the political assistance that proved highly important for local resistance to central authority. After all, outside assistance was conditional on the ability of local political actors to help in limiting access by other external actors, even if it undermined Beijing’s rule.77 By concurrently encouraging all the outside powers to acquiesce to the Open Door principle, American and British official involvement in China’s domestic politics helped prevent a partition of the Chinese polity among external actors between 1893 and 1922. Essentially, the Open Door promised further, albeit less expansive, gains for outside powers in China while hinting at possible confrontations with the United States, Britain, and, for a time, even Japan, should there be violations of the principle.78 These were possibilities that external actors in China appeared unwilling to risk, particularly during early twentieth century.79 Coupled with the funnelling of funds and military equipment to the central government that shored up its capabilities vis-à-vis regional regimes, then, the Open Door helped keep a semblance of central rule in China. The relative caution that informed all the relevant external powers’ approaches toward involvement in China also abetted persistent fractionalization as well as integration during the three decades considered here. In a trend that began with the Scramble for Concessions between 1898 and 1900, this wariness made efforts to seek the understanding of other foreign powers integral to attempts at establishing both exclusive spheres of influence and equal access in China. To this end, the Russians and Japanese in Manchuria, the Germans in Shandong, as well as the French in south 76

Barnhart, 16-76; Hunt; Iriye, 114-33; Schoonover. Chan, Arming the Chinese, 67-108; Chen, Lieqiang dui Zhongguo di junhuo jinyun, 78-125; Ch'i, 120-23, 56-61; Sheridan, China in Disintegration, 83-87; Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 277-89; Tang, 117-46. 78 Barnhart, 38-40; Cohen, 41-43, 46-48; Hunt, 189-226; Iriye, 80-82; Joseph, 399-414; Kennedy, 247, 51; Schoonover, 110; Pauline Tompkins, American-Russian Relations in the Far East (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 19-24; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 106-08, 36-41, 75-86, 92-97, 220-26. 79 Barnhart, 38-40; Cohen, 47-49, 53, 65, 68, 74-80, 89; Hunt, 196-97, 200, 07, 70, 369n23; Iriye, 80-83, 87-88, 101-02; Joseph, 399-414; Kennedy, 247, 51; Schoonover, 110; Tompkins, 23-28; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 106-08, 36-41, 75-86, 92-97, 220-26; FHAC 12/4/473 “Yuan Shikai wei Ri E Mei Yi weiding guafen Zhongguo lingtu xinxieyue shi gei Zhao Erfeng de dianbao (Telegram from Yuan Shikai to Zhao Erfeng, Japan, Russia, the United States, and Italy yet to reach a new agreement on the division of Chinese territory),” 1911. 77

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and southwest China all sought the recognition of their positions by the other outside powers active in China, just as Anglo-American efforts to sustain the Open Door rested on support from all the other major external powers.80 Even Japan’s seizure of South Manchuria and Shandong as well as Russian efforts to support the breakaway of Outer Mongolia and absorb certain border regions after 1911 aimed to limit, if not avoid, extended, outright conflict with other external powers.81 Some of the foreign powers even actively colluded in an effort to maximize the degree to which they could attain their goals on securing exclusive access over parts of China while avoiding outright conflict with other external actors. This was most evident in the four Russo-Japanese secret agreements between 1907 and 1916, which lay out the informal partition of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Tuva, and Xinjiang between St. Petersburg and Tokyo.82 Further examples include Japanese agreements with the British over Fujian in 1898 and the other major powers over Shandong and Manchuria in 1919 and 1922, as well as the 1896 Anglo-French understanding over south and southwest China.83 By cooperating over the limited partition of China, these major powers bolstered fragmentation while still sustaining a degree of centralization. 80

Barnhart, 38-40; Cohen, 47-49, 53, 55; Hunt, 196-97, 200, 07, 70, 369n23; Iriye, 83, 87-88, 10102; Joseph, 399-422; Kennedy, 247, 51; Schoonover, 110; Tompkins, 16-29; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 106-08, 36-41, 95-96. 81 Li, 367-98; Tompkins, 16-29; SHAC 1039/380 “Guan yu Shandong wenti ruhe jiao Guoji Lianhehui ji youguan Shandong wenti zhi shuotie,” 1921. 82 Barnhart, 41-42, 44, 54; Hunt, 202; Li, 341-65; Tompkins, 30-43; AS 03/32/517, “E yu Riben dingyue,” August 1921; AS 03/33/078, “Ri E xieyue” (Russo-Japanese Agreements), July 1916 – June 1917. 83 Barnhart, 26, 32-34, 37, 76-78; Cohen, 89-90; E. W. Edwards, “The Origins of British Financial Co-Operation with France in China, 1903-6,” The English Historical Review 86, no. 339 (1971); Iriye, 143-45; Joseph, 150-51, 81-83, 222-414; Platt, 276-307; Adam Schneider, “The Taiwan Government-General and Pre-War Japanese Economic Expansion in South China and Southeast Asia, 1900 -1936,” in The Japanese Empire in East Asia and Its Postwar Legacy, ed. Harald Fuess (München: Iudicium, 1998), 161-82; Wang, Zhong Ying waijiaoshi lunji, 81-82, 100-08, 36-41; AS 03/33/165, “Huashengdun huiyi Lu’an yilu (Meeting minutes on the Shandong issue at the Washington Conference),” December 1921, AS 03/39/032/05, “Huashengdun huiyi qianding zhi gexiang tiaoyue xieding ji jueyi’an (Treaties, agreements, and resolutions signed at the Washington Conference),” December 1921; AS 03/39/036/04/001 - 020, Telegrams between the Foreign Ministry and Shi Zhaoji (Alfred Sze), “Huashengdun huiyi suoding zhi guanyu Zhongguo shijian tiaoyue shi (Treaties pertaining to Chinese issues signed at the Washington Conference),” January 1926; SHAC 1039/375 “Taipingyang huiyi shanhou weiyuanhui taolun caibing jiaohui Guangzhouwan, jiejue Shandong xuan'an deng wenti laiwang wenshu ji canyu Huashengdun huiyi wenjian (Discussions on disarmament, the return of Guangzhou Bay, solving the Shandong issue, and other matters by the committee following-up on the Washington Conference, and documents from the Washington Conference),” 1918 – 1922; SHAC 1039/648 “Waijiaobu wendu: Zhong Ri jiejue Shandong xuan’an linshihuiyilu (xia) (Foreign Ministry Reference Documents and Material: Minutes from the Sino-Japanese provisional conference on the resolution of the Shandong issue [Part II]),” 1923; SHAC 1039/653 “Taipingyang huiyi shanhou weiyuanhui caibing banfa dagang, Shandong wenti shanhou huiyi (Outline of the plan for disarmament from the follow-up committee of the Pacific [Washington] Conference, following-conference on the Shandong issue),” 1923.

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So long as the various outside powers did not want to confront each other militarily over China, foreign involvement in China maintained both centralizing and fragmentary pressures. For all their interest in maintaining political centralization to secure non-privileged access across China, neither the British nor the U.S. governments provided central authorities with the wherewithal to bring foreign-aided regional regimes under control. Except when it appeared that there would be little opposition from other major powers, as in the case with Outer Mongolia, governments in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg also tended not to support the outright breakaway of particular regions in China. Similarly, Japan’s takeover of Shandong in 1914 occurred only when fighting World War I in Europe occupied Berlin and action against Germany was unlikely to face opposition from the other major powers most active in China. This was despite the fact that foreign powers wielded significant influence over various regions through their support for local regimes in these areas and the buying off of central governments. Further, since no one local group was able to defeat its domestic rivals outright and focus its energies on challenging the outside powers, indigenous attempts to resist foreign pressure generally had limited effect. This was the case whether a political actor ran a regional regime or controlled the central government in Beijing. In fact, political actors in China often derived much of their economic and coercive capability from external support, which was often conditional on their ability to meet the objectives set by their sponsors. Moreover, local actors that cooperated insufficiently faced the prospect of having outside support dry up, if not channelled to an indigenous adversary. Indeed, when the Duan Qirui government’s armed unification efforts and rivalry with the Zhili clique ran afoul of Tokyo’s desire to avoid unsettling other foreign powers, Duan and his Anfu allies saw their critical Japanese military, financial, and political backing cut.84 As actors ranging from the Anfu and Fengtian Cliques to the Nationalist Party discovered, there was little they could do if their external patrons opposed their efforts to either raise regional autonomy or assert central authority.85 CONCLUSION Even though outside powers sought different ends in their efforts to compete over China, they tended to be unwilling to challenge each other militarily in order to do so. This meant that there was similar pressure for both greater and lesser political centralization. As a result, crosscutting centripetal and centrifugal forces buffeted the Chinese polity, both spurring and limiting fragmentation, as well as centralization, 84

Barnhart, 79-86; Chan, Arming the Chinese, 129-31; Ch’i, 123; Pye, 18-37; Nathan, 80-81, 110, 142-144; Usui and Chen, 170-90. 85 Barnhart, 79-86; Chan, Arming the Chinese, 129-31; Ch’i, 123; Jansen, 202-22; Nathan, 142-43; Pye, 18-37; Nathan, 80-81, 110, 142-144; Usui and Chen, 170-90; SHAC 1039/380 “Guanyu Shandong wenti ruhe jiao Guoji Lianhehui ji youguan Shandong wenti zhi shuotie (On the handing over of the Shandong issue to the League of Nations and talking points regarding the Shandong issue),” 1921.

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from the 1890s through the early 1920s. Simply put, even as external intervention eroded central government rule, it also helped prevent the “break-up” of China in the chaotic years between the end of Qing rule and the beginning of the Republic. This was despite the fact that there was no outright, purposeful attempt to create a particular form or type of state on the part of the intervening major powers. Insofar as the major powers’ involvement in China’s domestic politics concurrently fostered fragmentation as well as unity, the Chinese polity continued to demonstrate both characteristics. Foreign governments and their rivalries were important for developments in China during the late Qing and early Republican periods. Appreciating the extent that actions by outside powers affected Chinese domestic politics of the day and helped shaped the direction in which it later moved, however, may demand analyses that go beyond a single external actor or particular region. In this respect, this piece attempted to take into account the aggregated effects of interactions among foreign powers across China. By doing so, I tried to highlight the multi-faceted relationships that existed between various foreign powers and indigenous political groups active in different parts of the Chinese polity between the end of the nineteenth century and second decade of the twentieth. Through this process, it may be possible to see how disparate actions undertaken by particular agents may have broader collective functions in laying the foundations of the modern Chinese state in ways that go beyond the mere provocation of nationalist responses. JA IAN CHONG is currently research assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His work focuses on external intervention, state formation, as well as state-building in China, Asia, and elsewhere.

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