20 CultureShock! China
draft a constitution and democratise the political system—
which did include the formation of the Kuomintang (or
KMT)—Yuan did not govern with Sun Yat-sen’s three basic
principles in mind. Instead, he focused on expanding his own
power base, purportedly with the goal of re-establishing the
imperial system with himself as the newest emperor.
Yuan’s efforts to return China to the bad old days of
imperial-style rule were thwarted by internal opposition,
and just in time, as the war waging in Europe was finally
being felt as far away as China. China threw her support to
the Allies in 1917, having been promised the return of all
foreign concession land at the close of the war. That promise
became yet another of the many unfulfilled. The response
to this bad taste of betrayal came in the form of a massive
popular protest in Beijing on 4 May 1919, involving thousands
of students from the numerous universities in the capital.
This event was the beginning of the May Fourth Movement,
widely seen as China’s first truly populist national movement.
Students, workers, merchants and scholars pushed for
reforms that would restore China’s independence and pride.
A split among its leaders eventually led to the end of the
movement, with its various causes taken up alternatively
by the KMT led by Sun Yat-sen, and a fledgling Communist
Party of China, which had held its first party congress in
Shanghai in 1921. At that meeting, a new recruit—the young
and ambitious Mao Zedong—surfaced.
By 1920, the Comintern (Communist International) was
already actively engaged in recruitment and education in
China, and when the Soviet Union cast about for political
support, the more promising partner was Sun Yat-sen. Having
been rebuffed by both the United States and Great Britain in
his search for support, the approach by the Comintern was
a timely one for Sun.
Sun’s buddying up to the Soviet Union led to a strange
arrangement: official recognition of the KMT as the party in
charge, but with China’s communists admitted as members.
Soviet aid then poured in, helping to create a KMT army to
defeat the warlords in control of much of northern China.
Among those trained in Moscow was a young military officer