Reappraising Republican China

Leading scholars review many aspects of contemporary research on Chinese politics, ranging from the influence of fascism on Chiang Kai-Shek to the transition from the Qing dynasty to the Republic. Relevant for all interested in the key period in China between Monarchy and Communism.

This first major comprehensive study of Yuan Shikai in more than half a century explores the controversial life of one of the most important figures in China's transition from empire to republic.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Government in Republican China" by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Republican China attracted an uncommon diversity of foreign interests, groups, and individuals, which included missionaries, adventurers, diplomats, academics, humanitarians and refugees, as well as hedonists and tourists. By exploring the diverse nature of foreign activities in Republican China, this book complicates the dominant narratives of the imperialistic foreigner and Chinese victim, and moves beyond the depiction of foreigners as privileged and the Chinese as simply weak. The spaces and relationships examined in the essays in this volume reveal a complex series of interactions between foreigners and the people of China which go far beyond one-way transmission or exploitation. Indeed, this book examines how diverse and sometimes seemingly peripheral foreign individuals and communities influenced literature, education, trade, sexual morality, warfare, and architecture in China and in the process were themselves profoundly changed, in ways that are as remarkable as those experienced by the Chinese they had come to observe, meet, exploit, conquer, assist, or change. Bringing together the work of a diverse group of scholars on Republican China, this edited volume adopts a uniquely multi-disciplinary approach to the study of foreigners in China, and utilises the perspectives of historiography, literary studies, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and political science. As such, this interesting and innovative book will be of great interest to students and scholars from diverse fields including Chinese and global history, politics and international relations, Chinese studies, literary studies and gender studies.

What does it mean to be Chinese? How did the major political events of the early 20th century affect the everyday lives of ordinary people in China? This book uses a wealth of new sources, including newspapers, memoirs, interviews, and photographs, to look at the political history of the period and to understand the ways in which politics intersected with the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people. To be a modern citizen of the Chinese republic meant repudiating much of the very ritual that had previously defined one as Chinese. As we follow the changes in everyday life, ranging from the unbinding of women's feet to the commemoration of the events of the a new republican history, we see the complex interactions between an ever more activist state and its new citizens.

To the cynic, two nations clasped in murderous embrace yet nominally living in peace with each other might well be one of the miracles of our century. No less miraculous has been for many the tenacity of Chinese resistance to Japan's invasion ever since the first bullets whizzed through the night near the Marco Polo Bridge southwest of Peking early in July, 1937. The undeclared war has spread disaster through an area larger than that immediately affected in Europe's battles from 1914 to 1918; hundreds of thousands have died in action; for months China's capital has been in the hands of the enemy. But China is not on her knees. The explanation is simple. For the first time in her history, China fights as a nation.

In 1894–1895, after suffering defeat against Japan in a war primarily fought over the control of Korea, the Qing government initiated fundamental military reforms and established “New Armies“ modeled after the German and Japanese military. Besides reorganizing the structure of the army and improving military training, the goal was to overcome the alleged physical weakness and lack of martial spirit attributed to Chinese soldiers in particular and to Chinese men in general. Intellectuals, government officials, and military circles criticized the pacifist and civil orientation of Chinese culture, which had resulted in a negative attitude towards its armed forces and martial values throughout society and a lack of interest in martial deeds, glory on the battlefield, and military achievements among men. The book examines the cultivation of new soldiers, officers, and civilians through new techniques intended to discipline their bodies and reconfigure their identities as military men and citizens. The book shows how the establishment of German-style “New Armies” in China between 1895 and 1916 led to the re‐creation of a militarized version of masculinity that stressed physical strength, discipline, professionalism, martial spirit, and “Western” military appearance and conduct. Although the military reforms did not prevent the downfall of the Qing Dynasty or provide stable military clout to subsequent regimes, they left a lasting legacy by reconfiguring Chinese military culture and re‐creating military masculinity and the image of men in China.