May Fourth Movement

The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen to protest the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles decision to allow the Empire of Japan to retain territories in Shandong that had been surrendered by the German Empire after the Siege of Tsingtao in 1914. The demonstrations sparked nationwide protests and spurred an upsurge in Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization, away from cultural activities, and a move towards a populist base, away from traditional intellectual and political elites.

The May Fourth demonstrations marked a turning point in a broader anti-traditional New Culture Movement (1915–1921) that sought to replace traditional Confucian values and was itself a continuation of late Qing reforms. Even after 1919, these educated "new youths" still defined their role with a traditional model in which the educated elite took responsibility for both cultural and political affairs. They opposed traditional culture but looked abroad for cosmopolitan inspiration in the name of nationalism and were an overwhelmingly urban movement that espoused populism in an overwhelmingly rural country. Many political and social leaders of the next five decades emerged at this time, including those of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Oxford University historian Rana Mitter observed that the "atmosphere and political mood that emerged around 1919 are at the center of a set of ideas that has shaped China's momentous twentieth century." The Qing dynasty had disintegrated in 1911, marking the end of thousands of years of imperial rule, and ushered a new era in which political power nominally rested with the people, but Confucianism still had a profound influence on social and political relations. After the death of President Yuan Shikai in 1916, China became dominated by warlords who were concerned with building political power and rival regional armies. The government in Beijing could do little to counter foreign influence and control. Chinese Premier Duan Qirui's signing of the secret Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement in 1918 enraged the Chinese public when it was leaked to the press, and sparked a student protest movement that laid the groundwork for the May Fourth Movement. The March 1st Movement in Korea in 1919, the Russian Revolution of 1917, continued defeats by foreign powers and the presence of spheres of influence further inflamed Chinese nationalism among the emerging middle class and cultural leaders.

Leaders of the New Culture Movement blamed traditional Confucian values for the political weakness of the nation. Chinese nationalists called for a rejection of traditional values and the adoption of Western ideals of "Mr. Science" (賽先生; 赛先生; Sài xiānsheng) and "Mr. Democracy" (德先生; Dé xiānsheng) in place of "Mr. Confucius" in order to strengthen the new nation. These iconoclastic and anti-traditional views and programs have influenced China's politics and culture to the present day.

The twenty-one demands were a set of proposals presented by the Ōkuma Shigenobu government to the Yuan Shikai administration in hopes of expanding Japanese power in China. The demands consisted of a variety of economic and territorial provisions. These included the expansion of Japanese interests in southern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia, in addition to the confirmation of Japan's seizure of German ports in China's Shandong province.

In early 1915, Japan's submission of the twenty-one demands were revealed to the Chinese public, causing an outbreak of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, particularly in the Chinese press. The twenty-one demands ultimately added fuel to the rising tensions between the two countries, playing an important role in triggering the impending May Fourth Movement.

China had entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente in 1917. Although that year, 140,000 Chinese laborers were sent to the Western Front as a part of the Chinese Labor Corps, the Treaty of Versailles ratified in April 1919 awarded rights to the German territories in Shandong to Japan. The representatives of the Chinese government put forth the following requests:

The Western allies dominated the meeting at Versailles, and paid little heed to Chinese demands. The European delegations, led by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, were primarily interested in punishing Germany. Although the American delegation promoted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the ideals of self-determination, they were unable to advance these ideals in the face of stubborn resistance by David Lloyd George and Clemenceau. American advocacy of self-determination at the League of Nations was attractive to Chinese intellectuals, but their failure to follow through was seen as a betrayal. This failure of diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference created what became known as the "Shandong Problem".